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Lesson 1 of 3

Étude 1: Streetlight Static

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Your first full rock piece: a mid-tempo tune in E minor with straight eighth notes and a gritty, driving feel. Use a crunchy overdrive, not full distortion.

Form

Intro (2 bars), verse (2 bars, played twice), solo (4 bars), outro (2 bars): 12 bars in total. Play the sections in that order and you have the whole piece.

Techniques

  • Power chords: E5 (open), G5 (fret 3) and A5 (fret 5), root on the low E string. Index on the root, ring finger two frets higher.
  • Palm muting: in the verse and outro, rest the edge of your picking hand on the strings by the bridge for the open E chugs. Lift it slightly for the chord stabs so they ring out.
  • Open-position E minor pentatonic for the solo, with one hammer-on on the G string. Use your middle finger for fret 2 and your ring finger for fret 3.

Pick everything in the riffs with downstrokes. In the solo, use alternate picking.

Most common mistake: leaving the palm on the strings during the chords, so they sound choked. The chug should be tight; the chords should be open and loud.

How to practice

  1. Learn each section on its own at 70 bpm, looping it until it's clean.
  2. Join pairs: intro into verse, then solo into outro. The jump from the verse's last chord to the solo's first note is the tricky one, so loop that seam.
  3. Play the whole piece with the metronome, slowly, without stopping for mistakes. Raise the tempo 5 bpm at a time.

Count "1 and 2 and" aloud during the rests in the intro; it's easy to cut them short.

Exercises

Intro: power chord hits

70 → 110 bpm
  1. Bar 1
    1. low E string, open + A string, fret 2, hold
    2. rest
    3. rest
    4. low E string, fret 3 + A string, fret 5
    5. rest
    6. low E string, fret 5 + A string, fret 7
    7. rest
  2. Bar 2
    1. low E string, open + A string, fret 2, hold, hold, hold
    2. rest
    3. rest
    4. rest
    5. rest

Clean 3 times in a row? Raise the tempo by 5 bpm.

Verse: palm-muted chug

70 → 110 bpm
  1. Bar 1
    1. low E string, open
    2. low E string, open
    3. low E string, open
    4. low E string, open
    5. low E string, fret 3 + A string, fret 5
    6. rest
    7. low E string, open
    8. low E string, open
  2. Bar 2
    1. low E string, open
    2. low E string, open
    3. low E string, open
    4. low E string, open
    5. low E string, fret 5 + A string, fret 7
    6. rest
    7. low E string, fret 3 + A string, fret 5
    8. rest

Clean 3 times in a row? Raise the tempo by 5 bpm.

Solo: open-position pentatonic

70 → 110 bpm
  1. Bar 1
    1. D string, open
    2. D string, fret 2
    3. G string, open, hammer-on to fret 2
    4. B string, open
    5. B string, fret 3
    6. B string, open
    7. G string, fret 2
  2. Bar 2
    1. G string, open
    2. D string, fret 2
    3. D string, open, vibrato
    4. A string, fret 2
    5. low E string, fret 3
    6. low E string, open, vibrato
  3. Bar 3
    1. B string, fret 3
    2. B string, open
    3. B string, fret 3
    4. high E string, open
    5. high E string, fret 3, vibrato
    6. high E string, open
    7. B string, fret 3
  4. Bar 4
    1. B string, open
    2. G string, fret 2
    3. G string, open
    4. D string, fret 2
    5. low E string, open, vibrato, vibrato, vibrato

Clean 3 times in a row? Raise the tempo by 5 bpm.

Outro: final chord

70 → 110 bpm
  1. Bar 1
    1. low E string, open
    2. low E string, open
    3. low E string, fret 5 + A string, fret 7
    4. rest
    5. low E string, open
    6. low E string, open
    7. low E string, fret 3 + A string, fret 5
    8. rest
  2. Bar 2
    1. low E string, open + A string, fret 2, hold, hold, hold, hold, hold, hold, hold, accented

Clean 3 times in a row? Raise the tempo by 5 bpm.

Checkpoint

Move on when you can do all of these.

  • Each section clean at 110 bpm
  • The whole piece, intro to outro, at 110 bpm without stopping
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