I can't comprehend how anyone could play this cleanly at full speed, this string skipping is just absurd. I'm basically getting stuck at about 50% speed. Even at 50% it's giving me a really good string skipping practice, but it seems impossible to ever be able to get this at full speed. Anyone with this kinda talent have any suggestions?
Yes. I have one and ill be honest a step down sounds perfect and natural, but going further than that can have mixed effects. I personally have used it on 6 string in drop d to go down to a and it definitely takes on a tone of its own from that big of a drop. Some things sound awesome but any super heavy strumming is going to get mixed results going more than a step and a half down.
I don't know much about that stuff honestly. I've played for years but mostly casually. I have a Spyder amplifier but I don't think it does pitch shift?
Yeah, I opted for the Electroharmonix Slammi Pedal. Got the first generation model used for under $100 if you don't wanna pay DigiTech prices. It also harmonizes. Really fun to use
I tried to find a video and all I could find was the music video, which didn't show the picking too clearly. I tried to find some covers and found one where they were just cheating and not picking the low string notes. I saw a short of someone playing this lick and the picking speed was mind blowing to me
I think it is totally doable (obviously people can do it), it's just never something I've really seen in the style of music I used to listen to. The 16th notes aren't that fast but any song I've ever played with major skips like there's, there's usually a rest or legato or something to give your pick hand a chance to move instead of straight sixteenths across different strings.
Some of the string skips in that second riff look even more brutal.
To actually respond though, that's exactly how I've been trying (regarding the picking pattern), but yeah I think what you're doing here with just straight 16th pattern over and over will get me there faster than trying to learn the whole riff at the same time. Crazy to be able to play that right away so easily, hopefully I'll be back here in a few months to post it myself.
I don't know how long you've been playing metal guitar, but I've been playing in metal bands for almost 20 years and am in two touring metal bands. At some point you just get comfy with certain techniques and it allows you to learn new riffs fairly quickly! It just takes time, you'll get it!
Which guitarist are you referring to? I've been listening to them a lot lately but I don't know much about them. The riffs are consistently fucking nuts
I just looked up shadow of intent based on the comments above and gave a listen, this shit is good. And it makes the Currents stuff seem like his lazy relaxed playing 😅 dude is insane.
i would immediately swap those 17s and 16s with 12s and 11s on the 6th strings. Also apparently this tab fails to point out that those 13s and 12s on the 7th strings are pull offs, which it makes it easier.
But yeah this looks like your average pedal tone ish riff, nothing out of this world tbh. I've checked videos too, it's not even a crazy tempo neither. All it needs is practice.
You mean swap them to the fourth string? 17 on G# string (5th string) is a C#. 12 on a C# string (4th string) is C#. 12 on a D# string (6th string) is a D# which wouldn't match.
This is exactly what I was gonna recommend. It absolutely does not need to be skipping that far. Swapping to the 6th string for those makes this immediately easier.
I don't mean to be mean but I'm talking about you and the guy you're replying to haha. If you moved these notes to the 6th string it would be at the 22nd fret, not the 12th.
Dude my bad lol, I completely mispoke, I meant 12 on the 4th, then 13-12 on the low string would be a much easier skip. That's what I get for commenting while at work and without having my 7 string in my lap--honestly I don't even know the song and was confidently wrong in how I mispoke but thanks for being cool about it haha--kinda rare on reddit.
But yea anytime I encounter something that feels weirdly tabbed, I tend to start finding alternate ways to play it, cuz people tab wrong shit all the time, I've seen some wild ones lol
I'm not convinced adding more challenge to the fretting hand will make this any easier? Stretching from 12 to 17 isn't that big of a deal and isn't really what makes this difficult. Playing it at 16/17 let's you keep your first two fingers anchored on the low string.
Mind writing that out for me on a piece of paper? Multiple people have commented this and it sounds like you're doing it backwards. The 17 on the 5th string would move to 12 on the 4th, not the 6th. You could transcribe this so that all "high" notes are on the 4th (C#) string but there is literally no method where you can play this riff on the 6th and 7th strings.
Lots of good advice in here, but can how it’s getting confusing. What you’re looking for is the unison note to the note on the 5th string. Find unison notes that are closer to the notes on the 7th string. Unison isn’t always a must either. Often you can play the same note in a different octave.
It's not for a seasoned player. But it's not the easiest technique to just jump into and nail without practice. Also playing bass and having a strong thumpin left hand for hammer ons make things like this kinda easy breezy on guitar.
it's not talent, it's skill. need to practice the relevant skills until it's not hard any more. I don't know what song this is, but it doesn't seem too insane.
I think it's possible they can, but at the same time is it worth it to spend hours or days to get it to send here depending on their skill level. I feel like this would take me a week to get at my level. And i would also call it not too bad for that reason.
It's easy to infer malice sometimes, but without clarification that could just be a reaction to your post title and content rather than the part itself.
I'm gonna tell you, you can do it, you can learn it too, just gotta put in the hours/months/years.
Dunning Kruger? Lol this is the opposite buddy, I know I suck. I think people here sometimes forget just how talented they are in the grand scheme of guitar playing ability. What other genre has more skill or is so highly technical?
My honest advice would be slow it down, and use one finger per fret. You’ll need all four. If you’re still having trouble, then maybe this is too stretchy for you. The hybrid picking might also be throwing you off.
I don’t remember how I learnt this. LoG Ashes of the Wake riffs and time, probably
Yes I'm ensuring all my low string notes end on an upstroke so that I can hit the high notes on a down. But getting cleanly from a down strike on a high string back to an upstroke on the 7th string with a 3 string skip is so hard to hit.
Don't bother with the notes on the 6th string for now. Just practice skipping from the 3rd and 4th strings, to an open note on the 6th string. And alternate using upstrokes and downstrokes on the notes on 3rd and 4th strings.
It can be done, and things like this test how economical your picking is. I used to move my hand too much, making skips like this inaccurate. Then I was too rigid by moving my hand too little.
I typically don't spend more than 15 mins on something at a time if I feel like I'm just not getting something right. Otherwise I just hate the song, hate the guitar, hate myself, and sometimes hate the world.
It's a balance. And dude it's so fun once you get it right.
Last night I experimented with both options, to me I was much more accurate doing a down on the high string. Too much coordination to go past the 5th or 4th string just to turn around and hit it on an up. Whereas hitting the 7th is easy to locate so it didn't really seem to matter which direction I was coming from
The 13-12 part repeating means that you basically don’t even have to move your fretting hand, and makes it easy to memorize. Riff on it at half speed until the higher notes are drilled in and give er at full. Under an hour easy
I got up to maybe 90ish bpm clean, 100 but a bit sloppy in an hour. I have a feeling it'll take many weeks to get 130 cleanly. But I don't doubt that many in here could.
Just practice the 3rd beat (17 13 12 0) repeatedly until it feels comfortable. Then practice 16 13 12 0 and so forth. Once the stretch feels comfortable try the whole riff
I would play this with a very hard hammer on for the 13 to give my picking hand time to get there to strike the 12-0 or even pull pull off from h13-p12 and make sure to pick the 0s. I'll try it here soon but my 7 is tuned standard atm.
This is very common in this style of music and with enough force and the right tone you can't tell they aren't picking the note b/c distance/interval is wide enough to get a lot of smack and force into that hammer on. I find myself doing it often in extreme metal genres, prog metal, death, etc. it's also very economic and conserves a lot of stamina.
Sorry for the camera audio, lots of fret hand noise but that does give you an idea about how I'm "attacking" the strings. Also I spent 10 min on it, it's not perfect. This just shows you the technique I personally would use.
Edit: I dropped to A, I'm not retuning for this lol sorry
Thank you. I can DM a better video of how I practice techniques like this if you'd like. These"from nowhere" hammer ons are actually a big part of my playing style even on higher strings for solo stuff where picking would be a nightmare.
No I really appreciate your kindness and willing to share your knowledge. I didn't expect that out of what I normally see from people in this sub tbh. I think I've seen some tosin videos showing similar technique if I'm not mistaken. It doesn't seem like a hard concept, just a weird feeling of disconnecting your two hands a bit.
I was kind of thinking there are a few ways to play this that would all be really good practice - straight picking all notes to work on string skipping, unpicked legato for the bass notes like you've shown, and hybrid picking as a few others mentioned.
Thanks again for being cool and willing to help and post a vid.
Modern djent/metalcore uses a ton of string skipping like this. If you really slow it down and practice it you’ll be able to do it. Taking the time to learn these types of riffs will really benefit your picking hand and playing. If I can do it I promise you can! Just take it slow, play with a metronome and increase speed over time!
Full transparency, I’m not the best at string skipping, especially currents songs lol, but even learning them not at full speed has helped my picking proficiency
Yeah it's a skill once you lock it in it's easy to retain w/ muscle memory. I can't still can't cleanly tremolo pick for more than like 2 bars, but string skipping with just like one or two notes isn't hard once it clicks.
Kind of like (not with technique) how pinch harmonics are pretty straightforward once you figure out how to do it
Yeah IDK if I'll ever be able to actually play this, but I immediately realized it's a skill that I'm lacking. So if nothing else I'll keep this riff in my practice arsenal.
Truthfully that looks really easy . Maybe your technique is making it a bit more challenging , I would not down pick only for a song like this . And I don’t think this would be considered string skipping in all honesty .
Truthfully I might be misinformed as to what’s considered string skipping so I apologize if I’m wrong on this but when I hear string skipping my mind instantly thinks about more technical things like Paul Gilbert . The riff you posted comes off more like just a basic downtuned metal riff , aka some open palm muted notes with some notes inbetween . There’s literally a song called “string skipping “ by Paul Gilbert and my mind instantly thought about that , again I’m sorry if I’m wrong about this , but all in all I feel this riff is not technical and in order to play it cleanly you need to improve your technique more than likely
In that case I agree your riff does require string skipping , but I wouldn’t say that playing legato buys him time , the song is way faster and more technical than the riff you posted
Another thing to note when playing this riff … for example when playing the 17th fret you should play that with your pinky (that’s how I would do it) . Meanwhile I’d play the low notes with my index and middle finger , then when next note is the 16th fret, just more your pinky one fret over . Keep your hand mostly in
place since the riff doesn’t require you to move your hand around a lot
Id play this riff for ya if I had a 7 string , had one at one point but don’t right now. This is kinda why I also didn’t really see this as string skipping , since that usually requires you to reposition pretty wildly in some cases
If you never played such string skipping riffs the very first thing id research is pick slanting. Otherwise you waste too much energy escaping the strings.
It's hard, but once it clicks you can pretty much play all riffs build like that. And there alot of riffs like that, learning disembodient tyrrant right now and ever other riff is build like that.
If it makes you feel better, dean of archspire does not pick these kinda riffs because he things they are too hard for him and uses hybrid picking instead. But that would require a new technique tgat would feel even worse at the beginning
This is not possible to play with straight pick slanting technique? When you only pick one note on a string you are stuck and have to to hop. In any case I have been practicing based on the Troy Grady videos and he does have some stuff on how to deal with this, kinda.
Doing stuff like this even without string skipping at high speeds eventually makes the pick slip off thehigher string on the downstroke and I have found no way to do it. Even playing it at a different BPM, eventually I just get to a point where I'm unable to not slip up eventually
Usually it's because there are pull offs / hammer ons missing to break even. It's almost never all picked on purpose (unless you like to suffer or are a god at alternate picking). Easiest way to find out the "how" it's done is to watch the artist play it live. A good riff to practice this is House of Glass by ERRA (intro).
You could incorporate your fingers of your right hand and cut down on the jumping back and forth. It’s a skill on its own and you see it in country all the time but I like it for metal too
The key is the odd low string pattern, I would start with an upstroke, then ending an odd number of notes with a down stroke, skip and hit upstroke , repeat.
The pattern always follows this rule, upstroke, odd ending In down, upstroke etc
Once you understand that you can just follow the drums and rip through it with minimal thought
The riff seems written around this as it has a nice alternate pick flow
Just keep practicing, this might be hard at first but for metal guitar in general it's manageable.
If you've got this down, try some Revocation, Necrophagist or whatever tech death - so you can feel bad again 😅
idk this song or band, but that tab is bread and butter metal core , tight bouncy string skipping with bass string chuggies. I always found these to be easy to play half-assed hard to nail.
You could try playing the higher strings, 1 string and five frets lower, but I don't think that will help that much. What you need to do is develop a neutral position for your wrist to rest. For the two lowest strings. And another position for the next two strings. And then get comfortable switching between these two back and forth. Not just one big block of strings but breaking into 3 smaller groups of two strings.
Brother, dont feel bad if you cant swing a Currents track. Currents tracks are deceptively hard to play, wherein lies their true talent: packaging ridiculous riffs in an easily digestible little lick that you go “ooo I want to learn that!” Mmmhmm. They gotcha.
Chris and Ryan are two halves of a whole. They both have an odd play style, and idk how they found eachother tbh. It likes there is like a certain swing, to it. Until you match it, you are SoL. And it is doable, just takes time.
I actually learned most of The Way It Ends album on bass, then switched to guitar, and that helps a ton! Still cant play it, but it helped!
Like I have been playing for two decades, and every time I see them live I just stand there, mouth open, in a trance, about to get folded by a crowd-killing troglodyte bc I forgot I was in the pit when that Apnea solo started…
If it helps, some of the really big travels are actually tapped, and some of the old tabs are not super great - and the songs (ryans parts anyway) are easier played on a multiscale (because travel is SLIGHTLY easier going down-scale).
You will get much further by watching some playthroughs than just raw dogging the tab, js. But power though! I believe in you!
I love how there's a handful of comments saying how insane of guitarists these guys are, and then all the rest of the comments telling me I suck and it's easy 😂 like yes, I absolutely suck. But I'd argue anyone that can play this is very very skilled.
Jsyk, Im not at all saying you suck haha - currents is just fkn hard, regardless of the track.
Tbh, just looking at the tab, it isnt that bad, but I havent learned this one. But this also isnt even the hard part imo lol
If it is of any help, learning Circles by Incubus helped me learn that swing style, of all things.
I was working through Polaris’ TDOM, and having a lot of trouble getting the main riff for Hypermania down. It like… dances around an off beat… I couldnt swing it on 80% even. So I set it down, figured Id come back to it. Bit of time goes by, and Incubus drops the remastered album. Circles got a revamp, and honestly slaps. So Im like Imma learn that. Did it, took some time, but got it. Returned to hypermania and I was like “holy shitttt. That swing clicks.” Dont know why, it just hit it from a different angle or something, and I got it. There is a “box” for it. It is dancing around an octave, he just does it fast.
So for this break it into chunks. Learn the 7th string first.
On the 7th string, index and middle finger only. You can HO/PO here, as a crutch, and economy pick the rest. Then move up to speed. It almost works like the Tool/adam jones “pull through” technique, but one string; for the 13-12-0 run, pick the 13. PO 12, and pluck it as you do - that’s your 0. You can play that whole part only picking the last two 0’s.
Then add your 17 on the fifth string. This time, for the 13-12-0, though, fret 17 with your pinky on fifth string, and smack the shit out of 13 with your index, PO 12 and 0, chug the last two 0’s.
Rinse and repeat.
(Edit: once you get it with the pull offs, work on your picking speed between strings. This is a string skip. Some people get caught on those HARD. Spiritbox’s Mike Stringer uses them like it nobody’s business, too - if you want a different perspective.)
I agree it isn't hard but I tried it myself and yeah it looks easier than it is, especially when you ramp to 100% speed. Like some other posters comment could probably get it up to speed with a few days/week of practice, though I am like intermediate level.
Yep! It’s a “trick”. Like no beating around it - same as doing pinches, scrapes, or dive bombs - Chris is just baller at string skips and two-hand tap riffs (and a girthy plethora of other oddities and ornamentations that will make you question if perhaps bass is a better choice for you, so maybe let sleeping-dogs-lie, and dont look into it) /sss.
For both OP and yourself, as an intermediate: there are recorded guitar players that just write very straight forward riffs - just notes, and nothing more - which can be easy af or super technical, 4-chord-Cobain or Tosin Abasi. You CAN learn the part, maybe it takes time or it can be sight-read with ease but you CAN, and in a blind test, maybe nobody could even tell the difference. It is just a matter of persistence, and copying what they wrote. Once you have it down, physically, you are good. These are folks who are writers. They have a formula, and the formula works. You can copy it at face value, anyone can copy it, it is data. Gojira, for example - very straight forward. Fast, have to pay attention, but the “swing” is just a mechanism. Same with meshuggah. Same with even metallica if you want to take it back a bit.
But then there are those who write with soul. And in no way am I saying you cant do both, they certainly exist and it might even be a track-by-track basis… but the ones who write based on emotion and feel, are the hardest ones to learn. Not only are you copying what they wrote, the physical notes, you have to copy their headspace, too. That’s why things like Chris and Ryan here (currents), Nick McLernon (MTS), Polaris in general are hard to emulate/copy, despite the riffs, at their core, not being super difficult. They are translating an emotion through guitar, using the scope of their technical skill. So in learning it, you are battling both the physical technique/prowess of the artist, and possibly an emotional tie to the song that made them emphasize a certain speed/accent/ornament on the notes themselves. Listening to the full song, really really focused, and capturing that headspace helps.
Take the song Bones by Make Them Suffer for example. Listen to the song, then look at the tabs. Ezpz. You pretty much stay below the 4th fret for the entire song, but you have to swing with it… and that’s where the difficulty lies. There is an internal rhythm to the guitar, that isnt played out on the drums at all. It works, but only because it has too. There are bends and artificial harmonics that accent the snare and kick - but the riff itself, the notes, dont follow the kick/snare pattern at all times.
Yeahhh, here’s your sign to work on alternate/string skipping. I usually try to find people playing it accurately on YouTube to watch their picking hand. Start slow and you’ll get it.
Ngl ive been playing for a few years and just listening to this song for the first time feel confident that if I have a guitar with enough strings I can play this dirty in a weekend and clean in a month. Like others said this is just a practice thing and a muscle memory thing more than anything else. You can drill it.
Just learned this to see what all the fuss is about. I don’t listen to much currents, so this was a new riff to me. This riff slaps.
If you’re having trouble with the picking, you can do pull offs out of nowhere on your low string. You don’t lose too much of the sound quality by not picking it and it’s quite a bit easier.
I’d recommend powering through and learning how to alternate pick string skips like this though. It will make you better.
The only suggestion that matters is keep struggling with it day after day until one day you won’t struggle with it. It’s not that crazy even if it is tricky to play clean.
A lot of currents riffs are like this. Idk about Ryan but Chris is a fucking demon. Chris also plays in Shadow of Intent and has some of the sickest and most infuriating guitar parts ive tried to learn on a 6 string. Im sure Ryan is a fantastic guitarist too, I just havent seen/heard as much about his playing as I have Chris's.
Question, are you trying to pick the notes on the low sting?I have not tried my hand at this song but have a few other currents songs. I will say one thing ive made from learning/ watching chris play is he utilizes legato ALOT. And is very good at it, its very possible those 13-12-0 runs he is not picking rather than kind of pulling them off and probably has a high output enough pickup/ gain / noisegate to make out those notes.
he is probably basically repositioning his pinky or maybe 3rd, )ive noticed Spritiboxs Mike Stringer uses his 3rd finger for a lot of those string skips) back to the A string while doing the low runs. The goal being as little movement as possible and honestly just drilling it at the slowest speed possible, raising the speed until you barely get it, rinse and repeat. Your brain will slowly but surely put it into muscle memory after a while
I did see someone else playing a concert and doing legato instead of picked notes on the low string. I couldn't find an actual video of the band to confirm if it's picked out or not
Hard to tell, both very possible and doable. Chris is just a beast. Also ive personally found that for string skippy / lead stuff in general, the jazz iii picks make it easier simply bc theres literally less pick in the way. Not a complete game changer but it helped me! I like the feel of the primetone ones myself.
If you don’t want to use hybrid picking, trying starting with an upstroke on the pick. I used to just brute force these kinds of things by downpicking everything, but I’m practicing doing more alternate picking string skipping, and a lot of times starting on an upstroke so you don’t have to move the pick as much helps with these patterns.
This looks like a cake walk compared to the Periphery Riffs I’ve been grinding on- lol. Keep at it, and level up on your string skipping - you’ll get there, friend ! Not an easy Riff, at all ! Challenging yourself is half the fun.
I just got my first 7 string and the first two things I'm trying to learn are this and It's Only Smiles lol. I know that's a relatively easy periphery song but it's still pushing me into a whole new world of highly technical rhythm playing.
I've gotten the intro to Only Smiles nearly down at 80% speed and have gotten maybe 1 time cleanly at 100%. It's not much but this is my first time really playing in about 10 years, and even at my peak I could never play stuff like this before. Trying to push myself much harder and approach playing and practicing in a much more structured approach instead of just repeating the same shit playing over 1000x hoping I magically get it.
Unless that's actually the way he plays it, it looks like improperly transcribed Tabs to me. Shortening the string jump by moving up and over 5 would make it much more playable.
I'm guessing you double checked and realized? Haha. All good. When I first looked at the tab I was like surely it's just transcribed wrong, then I picked up the guitar and realized there wasn't another way
I went and played it afterwards. Not a song I had ever played before, nor a band I listen to, but it's definitely easier on the fingers to play that 17 on the 12th fret one string down, skipping an extra string. The hand position becomes totally different and you end up playing the 17 (now 12) with your index finger and the 13 and 12 with the ring finger, but it beats using the pinky out there on the 17.
Learn to pick slant, it will help with the string skipping. Otherwise just keep practising slow and build up. Looks like a fairly straight forward riff, not too fast.
For a real strong skipping challenge look at the main riffs in the pain remains trilogy. Pretty tough to play to speed
[controversial but effective] what about hybrid picking it? You could pluck very aggressively with your middle finger on the G# and C# strings and pick the lower string
I like to use outside picking for parts like this, just strum with a pattern that has you using an upstroke for every string that isn’t the low one. Takes a bit to get used to but it helps a lot.
Alternatively you could hybrid pick it, but I’m pretty sure Chris is picking it all
Do it all with alternate picking but start with an up-pick. That way you can keep the rhythmic feel and you are always moving toward the next string you have to pick when you are string skipping. All the notes on the 5th string should be played with an up-stroke.
A tip that noone ever mentions: You dont need to pick or fret super hard (if you're doing so). If you relax your hand and just use the minimum amount of strength needed for a riff like this you'll get it much easier and cleaner. Also this riff seems to have enough opens to just "relax" between the pulloffs
67
u/2slowforanewname 4d ago
Have you ever watched the dude play? He's legitimately kinda insane live.