Various Licks

7/28/2019 Various Licks

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PERIPHERY: MISHA MANSOOR MASTERCLASS (PART 1) DJENT

One big thing we get asked a lot is what ‘djent’ is – and it is djent. The ‘d’ is indeed silent. We

didn’t invent it, Meshuggah did. I just use it because it’s a way to describe a sound. It’s when you

do a four-note power chord – which I like because it sounds very metallic and aggressive. Since weplay in drop it would be 0-0-0-2.

As opposed to regular chug chords, which would be like a [two or three-note] power chord. So you

get a super metallic sound, and I like gear that it enhances that or is conducive to that sound.That’s while you’ll always hear me saying that I like something that’s djenty. As I said, I did not

invent it – I’m just using a word that I heard someone else say, because it is the best way to

describe it [laughs]. It just sounds like it – it’s an onomatopoeia. Just to clear that little thing up

there.

CHORDS

I do like very rich chords. I try to come up with chords that would be played [on instruments

besides guitar], like piano, so I end up stretching my fingers – I end up finding these extended

chords. I do not know a thing about music theory, unfortunately, so I have no idea what these

chords are called – maybe you can tell me. I just like it when… in my mind, it defines how it

sounds. It makes it very specific as opposed to [plays power chord] That could be major or minor.

There’s one chord which I really love, which I came up with for a song which will be a Periphery

song eventually, called ‘Not Enough Mana.’ One of the riffs in the song [goes like this]:

I really like the relationship [of the sliding notes], and I wanted to transpose that. So I had to come

up with a chord that could do that, and I came up with this bitch here [laughs]. Because then you

can do the same notes.

http://www.guitarmessenger.com/artist-masterclasses/periphery-misha-mansoor-masterclass-part-1/





It’s a very rich and defined chord. You need an amp that’s very midrangey, so you can hear all the

notes. Then there’s the variation on it, which I guess would be the major version. I love that chord.

A variation on that is in a song I did called called ‘Heliovice.’

BUTTERSNIPS

When I write riffs, I usually wait until I’m recording to figure out how it’s going to sound, but I

usually have a bunch of moves that I want to work in – I’m sure a lot of people write like this. It

makes it kind of fun, it makes it kind of spontaneous if you figure it out on the spot. It means that a

lot of times your riffs will end up sounding different than maybe you thought they were going to



sound like. I usually record all of my stuff to a pulse, because I like my stuff to groove. A lot of

times it ends up in 4/4 – something you can bob your head to, and this is no exception:

I had this ambiguous-sounding scale thing, which is based around a pattern of five, where you go

up a string and up a fret. There [on the B string], because of the relationship of the strings, you

have to shift it over. Because you’re playing it against a pulse, it kind of dances around it. I wanted



to work that move in as a theme with this other, more groovy [riff] – so it’s them fighting against

each other in my head, fighting for the spotlight.

Then it goes into this weird bit – I don’t know why, just because. I do a lot of these hammer-on

things, because they’re easier to do than alt. picking, and I’m not very good at alt. picking. So all of

my stuff is stuff that sounds hard, but is easy to play [laughs]. It helps if you palm mute – you getthat attack. Then tapping, and then the riff repeats like that.

This is something Tosin [Abasi of Animals As Leaders] showed me way back in the day, which is a

cool idea – to have a chord and then tap around it. So it’s as if you had some weird capo on your

guitar. [For the chorus] you do that chord that I showed you, and then tap on the 15th

fret, then

back to a variation on the first riff.

Another little lick in that song which is kind of cool is a tapping sort of breakdown. I use

breakdown in the wrong sense – it’s not like a [plays chugging riff], it’s like a calm bit in the middle.

I’m really bad with counting, so I actually don’t know what time signature that’s in – I know it’s not

4/4 because it’s kind of odd. The first half of it is odd, but the second half is in 4/4.



PERIPHERY: MISHA MANSOOR MASTERCLASS (PART 2)

INSOMNIAThis is sort of a triplet riff – it dances you around the pulse. It’s funny, it sounds kind of likeTerminator. It’s one of the two riffs that we get called for being Terminator rip-offs, and you know

what? I’m fine with that, because Terminator fuckin’ rules. But you have to sort of imagine ‘1-2-3, 1-2-3…’










So it’s kind of playful – it plays around the beat a little bit.

RACECAR [Note: Racecar is performed on a 7-string using "Tosin Tuning" tuned 1/2 step down: Bb Db Ab Db Gb Bb Eb. In the masterclass video Misha performs excerpts from Racecar on his 6-string in Drop-C tuning.] We tried [Tosin Tuning] for that song, and it’s really cool. When you change the relationships of thestrings, you can do some insane moves and you end up with some really cool riffs. So you can play



drop D songs in that tuning. And the midsection of that song goes into this sort of rock feel for alittle bit:

One goal that I have with my music – it’s up to you to decide whether I’ve failed or succeeded at this– but w e’re definitely trying to write interesting, proggy chord changes that we have sing-alongchoruses to, that have catchy vocal lines. It’s very, very hard to find that line that works for thatreason. You usually end up with stuff that works, but doesn’t necessary fit very well. But I really like



the part that we wrote for that, and it took a little bit of working out, because it is not a very obviouschord progression.

AGCFAD TUNING & ZYGLROXThis tuning is actually an interesting tuning. For those of you who don’t know what tuning it is – wenormally tune [our 6-strings] to CGCFAD, and this is AGCFAD. I was in Mauritius on vacation,

visiting my parents, and I had a 6-string there, and this was my way of getting extended range on a6-string. It’s the same relationship of strings as if you had a 7-string missing that sixth string. So youhave an octave [between the open sixth string, and the second fret of the fifth string].



ANIMALS AS LEADERS: TOSIN ABASI MASTERCLASS(PART 1) TAPPING STYLEI want to show you a newer tapping riff that I’ve been working on. It takes advantage of the way thatI have the guitar tuned [E B E A D G B E] , where my first three strings are set up like a power chord– I have 1, 5 and 1. This is in Bb, and I’m going to be tapping an octave away from where my lefthand is. In the second part, I change from using a minor third above the Bb to a major third, puttingit in Bb major. After that I use a C# Phrygian idea, skipping the B string.

[Tosin plays all of the lower octave notes with his left hand, and hammers on unless otherwisenoted. For playing the tapped right hand notes, I indicates the index finger, M the middle and A

the ring.]

http://www.guitarmessenger.com/artist-masterclasses/animals-as-leaders-tosin-abasi-masterclass-part-1/







I use this approach all the time. It’s really conducive to tapping when you have the guitar tuned the

way I do. I find that when I have to do normal power chord shapes, it’s virtually impossible to pulloff the same thing with my right hand.

CAFO

http://www.guitarmessenger.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Tosin-Tapping-2.jpg

http://www.guitarmessenger.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Tosin-Tapping-1.jpg



Another point in my music where I use the same approach to tapping is in the song ‘CAFO’, whichuses this octave idea where I’m tapping on the same string tw elve frets away.

[Tosin tunes his 6th string down a whole step to D for this riff.]

If I were just to play the left hand portion, I’d have these groups of five. In between every one of these five notes I’m playing an octave away, and then I jump to the high D string and mirror thepattern from the lower D string.

So it’s a cool way to achieve this intervallic sound. It’s all very consonant – there aren’t many intervals outside of the 1 or the 5 here, but the fact that they’re an octave away and that it’s sopercussive gives it a pretty unique sound to the guitar. You can do a multitude of things.

TEMPTING TIME RIFF

We’re going to talk about rhythm, specifically in the song ‘Tempting Time,’ which has a polymetric

feel to it. I didn’t really conceive of this riff technically before I went about creating the phrase – I

literally just started tapping and this is what came out. If I were to break it down the way I think of

it, I would treat it as an ostinato.

[Though set against a 4/4 pulse, the 'Tempting Time' riff is in 19/16, played 4 times, with a dotted

8th

and 16th phrase as a turnaround .]

http://www.guitarmessenger.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Tosin-CAFO.jpg



It’s cool to retain that same quarter note pulse, because it creates a sense of uniformity in groove.

That’s how we approach the majority of our rhythms – we try to imply an even meter, or at least a

perceivable quarter note pulse as the center of the riff, and then everything else is syncopated

around that. You can hear this stuff all over the album, but that’s kind of a dive into how I’m

thinking about it.

TEMPTING TIME ARPEGGIO

I’m going to show you a portion of the lick in ‘Tempting Time’ at the beginning of the song. It’s a 3-

octave sweep in C, and it’s pretty much a major triad, but you play a #4 and then you slide up to

the 5th

.

The fingering’s actually symmetrical in the first two octaves, which is nice. The picking works out

pretty nicely, as well. When you get to the A string, you have three notes, so you have this Down-

Down-Down-Up-Down picking pattern. So once you get to this third downstroke, you’re set up to

continue sweeping – and then it repeats. It’s kind of an economy picking approach to doing this

lick.

[Tosin adds a major 7th to the arpeggio in between the second third octaves, and changes his

picking pattern while descending on the A string.]



In ‘Tempting Time’ I do this triplet-based descending pattern where I’m playing a portion of the

arpeggio at a time, which is another cool way of using it. There are countless ways you could go

about ascending or descending it.

It’s definitely a cool use of all seven strings. I use that symmetry for a lot of my licks, because it’s

the most obvious way of lengthening a phrase.

TONY MACALPINE MASTERCLASS TAPPED ARPEGGIO SEQUENCES

Tony likes to incorporate arpeggios into his playing in sequential patterns, whereby a given

arpeggio shape can be repeated in different octaves across the fretboard. In this example, he uses

hammer-ons, pull-offs, and tapping to outline a Dmaj7 arpeggio shape.

The lick starts with the 7th degree of the arpeggio hammered-on to the root on the high B-string.

This move is then followed by a hammer-on from nowhere to the 3rd degree on the high E-string,

which in turn is hammered-on to the 5th degree. The line finishes off with a tap on the 7th degree

and the entire pattern can then be applied in reverse across lower octaves. Note that this lick does

not involve any picking.

http://www.guitarmessenger.com/artist-masterclasses/tony-macalpine-masterclass/





ALTERNATE PICKED SCALE SEQUENCES

‘I like to incorporate some really fast, high-speed picking ideas in a lot of my music. I like the

intensity that it adds to the particular runs…’ In this example, Tony presents an approach to

playing scales that allows us to break out of the traditional scale fingerings that can confine us to

one area of the fretboard. Similar to his approach to tapped arpeggios, he demonstrates a 2-string

scale shape that can be repeated in octaves across the fretboard. The repetition of this same

shape lends itself to consistent alternate picking, which in turn makes playing at higher speeds

more comfortable.

The specific fingering pattern is of particular importance in this example. Tony plays an A Minor

scale starting first finger on the root of the scale on the 5th fret of the A-string. He then shifts his

entire hand up two frets to the seventh position where he uses his first finger again, this time

playing the second degree of the scale. The rest of the scale is then completed in the same

position and the whole pattern starts over in the next octave.

FIRE MOUNTAIN MELODY

In this example, Tony breaks down a melody from ‘Fire Mountain,’ the third track from his self -

titled album. The melody can be heard several times throughout the song, making its first

appearance at 36 seconds. Being a classically-trained pianist, Tony often shifts between composing

on the piano and the guitar. This melody serves as a great example of piece that started out on

piano, but was then translated onto the guitar. Note how the arpeggiated line weaves through the

chord changes and is embellished by 7th and tension notes.



SERPENS CAUDA IMPROVISATION

The final example is an improvisation over Serpens Cauda, the powerhouse opener of Tony’s self -

titled release. In this whirlwind solo, Tony displays a vast array of his signature techniques and

inflections. Take note of how his smooth phrasing ideas connect the time signature changes

throughout the piece.









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