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RYAN MAZA - Fun With Pentatonic Tapping

This month's lesson : Fun with Pentatonic Tapping! * Can be seen on a AVI video clip(1.9M) on the web at:    www.warp3music.com As the forefront to the creative force behind the instrumental progressive rock/fusion group, Warp 3, Ryan Maza is a well known and admired musician in his home city. He also has the reputation as being the top hired-gun for studio projects and as a fill-in member for various bands. In the recent past, Warp 3 has opened for such acts as, Joe Satriani and Gary Hoey. Due to the popularity of the band in Italy, Maza was inducted into writing this instructional column for all to get an inside look into his unique soloing approaches. Enjoy!

Performance Notes : "For all you guitar dudes and dudets out there, I've taken the liberty in transcribing this lick from Swamp Juice (which happens to be the lesson topic) for you to check out. I've included guitar tablature, for those of you that don't read music, as well as standard notation. You can "click" on the sheet music to the right to see the notation (loads in a new window), or use the link at the bottom of this page. Ok, if you saw the video clip you know that this one's pretty difficult. However, upon closer examination this lick is just the same simple A blues/pentatonic scale repeated up 3 octaves...that's the good news. The 'not so good' news is that there is a lot of fast left and right hand motion, and that can get a little confusing. I would say that this lick would be a accurate representation of my soloing style, so I feel very comfortable discussing this technique with you. At the beginning of the video, I demonstrate this phrase at a slow speed so you can see the intricacies involved. In a soloing style that uses a lot of tapping, you almost always start off by hammering down the first note with your left hand....no pick here...followed up by another 'hammer-on' with a different finger, and then by the right hand 'tap.' This assumes that we're playing 3 notes per string. Anyway, this same type of rhythmic pattern is repeated through the scale. In descending motion, you would tap the note first (right hand), then pull-off to the 2nd note (left hand) and then pull-off again to the 3rd note (left hand). This sounds more difficult than it really is, so watching the video to understand what the hell I'm talking about would be a good 'thang!' Another important technique used is right hand control/anchor. By lightly grasping the edge of the neck with your right hand thumb, 3rd finger and 4th finger, you can control your hand motion with ease. Without this, the right hand would have no base thus making it very difficult for you to 'lock-in' and synchronize with your left. It will also sound real sloppy as you will pick up 'undertones' and feedback from the other strings. Which leads me to say that this technique also acts as an all-important string dampener. Once you've got this lick down (slow), you're now ready to take part in extreme self-indulgence at a quicker tempo! Kinda like I did....well, I gotta show off a little." Watch the .avi video (1.9M) Go to next instructional columnist