Kareem’s first lead guitar lesson is finally here! Burning Angel – Arch Enemy3

We’d like to thank Kareem Chehayeb for putting together this brilliant lesson on lead guitar. This week he will provide you with a guitar solo lesson on “Burning Angel”. Check this out, its pretty darn cool.

Lesson starts here :

Welcome to the first of hopefully many lead guitar lessons with me, Kareem.  Alright, I just wanna give a quick overview on how this is gonna work and what this is all about.

Lead guitar, especially with metal, isn’t as redundant, uncreative, and all the same, as many people would put it.  Yes, shredding is done WAY too much. Yes, shredding is overrated…but it doesn’t mean we won’t cover any of that on here.  We’re going to look into other great elements of lead guitar which are overlooked.  They can be as simple as bending, vibrato, and sliding to more complex techniques, such as sweep-picking. I hope you guys learn something out of this and my future lessons.

We had a poll here on Kuwait music for a couple of weeks where you all voted for which solo I should cover.  This was because giving a solo lesson would be the ideal way to start my lead-guitar lessons before you guys start sending me questions.  After this lesson, my lessons will be almost purely based on your questions sent to me.  Questions can be about anything from a certain lead technique (pinch harmonics, sweep picking, tapping…etc) to musical scales and modes, as well as a lesson on a guitar solo in a song (although I’ll try to minimize the amount of those).  I’m not sure how Kuwait-Music wants to work this out, but I think it would be best if you posted your questions on the Kuwait-Music Facebook page as well to get maximum exposure to your queries.
The winner of the poll was Nemesis by Arch Enemy, but I changed my mind and decided to use Burning Angel by Arch Enemy.  Burning Angel is more beneficial to you as lead guitarists.  While Nemesis is another great song by this legendary band, the solo itself is just all shred for the most part.  This solo has a nice combination of scales, tapping, banding, alternate picking…it’s a really good song to use.

…OKAY. I’m glad we got that cleared out.

So here’s the deal: You will learn the first solo of Arch Enemy’s awesome song “Burning Angel”.  It’s off their 2002 album, Wages of Sin: the first album with Angela Gossow featuring on vocals. Below are the guitar tabs, a video of myself playing the solo, and a zip file that have two files in it: a backing track and a backing track with the lead being played with it. I hope this helps. My lessons in the future will be more video-based.

Download the FREE backing track here: http://www.mediafire.com/?ns810f90v2nt5pv

Tab key:
b - bend
h - hammer-on
p - pull-off
t - tap
sl- slide
REMEMBER THAT THIS IS TUNED TO C-STANDARD
Part 1


 
 
This part begins with the massive bend.  One huge mistake guitarists do is bend the note way too
much or way too little.  It's key to notice the difference between a full or a half-bend, because
it can pretty much ruin the solo if you play it too flat or too sharp.  The solo goes on with a run
in C-minor scale, and it is pretty self-explanatory.  Be aware of the hammer-ons and pull-offs.
For the tapping part, we're looking at a C-minor pentatonic scale used.  The way you tap the notes
is up to you.  I personally tap the higher note with the middle finger of my right hand, and use the
index and ring fingers of my left hand for the two lower notes.
 

Part 2

 
Part 2 gets back into the similar theme as the beginning of the solo.  To maintain efficiency, try to 

use your pinky whenever possible.  The less you have to slide your hand across the fretboard and simply 

move your fingers, the easier it will be!
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Key points:
-The backing track and practice playing the solo with it.
- I also think it's key to use a metronome to stay in time since the bending and tapping parts maybe
get you slightly off time, thus screwing everything up.  Try to also play the solo a bit slower to get
the hang of transitioning at tempo (i.e. from a scale run to tapping).
- Alternate picking and using your pinky are ESSENTIAL in becoming a great guitarist - the more your
playing habits are efficient, the better.
Hope you guys enjoyed this lesson.  It's relatively brief because it's just a short cover.  Be sure to send in
your questions, and I'll have a better and more interactive video for you guys next time around.
Shred on,
Kareem
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 If you are interested in asking Kareem Questions, please feel free to use the comments form below.

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