One of my all-time favorite guitarists is Pat Martino, the Philadelphia-born virtuoso who’s been cranking out absolutely incredible blues and jazz guitar albums since the late 60’s. He was a big influence on a lot of rock players, and even some modern metal players like David Davidson and Tosin Abasi.
Pat’s had a really interesting story and I highly recommend checking out some of his albums (particularly El Hombre, Live at Yoshi’s, and Consciousness). But you can start today by learning a really helpful technique and outlook on chromatics. You might think that this kind of jazz playing isn’t relevant to metal, but you’re dead wrong: chromatic playing is an essential ingredient in heavy riffing, and when it’s deployed right, can be one of the most effective tools for the guitar, which is the easiest instrument to naturally play with them.
This particular lesson focuses on using chromatics as “stairways” for lead playing. Check it out below:
alexkuch / May 2, 2016 3:28 pm
I feel like this a terrible lesson about some really cool ideas…I couldn’t really hear his guitar well, and he never really slowed down what he was actually doing chromatically. I sorta flt like I was just watching some dude play jazz really well and then telling me “yeah, so, do that.”
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