When writing this track, there were a few initial attempts that never got used in the end. (See ‘Unused Tracks’ section) I wanted to play around with using chromatic notes in a main riff, so I started using the lower octave range of an E minor blues scale as this is comfortable to play at speed, and is also used commonly in most styles of music – including Rock and bits of metal.
This is the position I was playing, with the route line being the open strings on my guitar.
The added ‘blue’ note on the A string allows you to write using the chromatic notes in that string, making this scale sound far more menacing or ‘heavy’ than I believe was intended.
The rhythm I was going for with this was loosely based off of a Red Hot Chili Peppers track. While this group is more of a funk rock band than anything I was going for, I really like their music, and they occasionally have moments of writing something that really appeals to me as a metal guitarist. The track I was listening to is called ‘Turn it Again’ and the riff that I took inspiration comes in during the final two bars of the chorus. (Around 1:40)
This is the guitar TAB for this riff, and it is essentially just a repeated descending line that is played rapidly.
I like the way this sounds, especially when combined with the distorted guitar sound so I wanted this kind of riff in my own work, but much less funk feeling.
I started by just running down the scale from its first octave to its lowest a few times until eventually I had a riff that stuck. I kept the whole idea of having an A section and then the ‘tail’ of the riff, and this is what I came up with:
this would become the lead guitar part, which i later backed up by adding in a second guitar playing the same riff, but up a whole octave. For the backing guitars and bass, I had section of three stabs of a low E that were in time with when the riff landed on the low E.
For the actual rhythm sections, I struck with the idea of using chromatic notes and wrote a riff based loosely on E Aeolian, but using chromatic double stops descending from the 5th fret on the A string back down to the 2nd. The line is then finished by playing the original chromatic notes from the blues scale in a descending pattern. Here is how this section goes:
When I was writing the melody for this, I was going for something that had more of a flow to it than my first song. I eventually came up with a riff in the C Lydian scale, as this works over E Aeolian. The structure to this melody is the same for each repeat on the full track, however I elaborated on it in parts with improvised bits added in as well. This is how it sounds on it’s own:
For the next section of this song, I slowed the pace down to half time, similar to what I did with my first song. Rhythmically the notes are the same as before, however I now play double-stops with a power-chord over the top. This unintentionally draws a strong resemblance to the song ‘Seek and Destroy’ by Metallica; That means I am achieving to sound I want to produce, and that this is one of my favourite sections to play. I make use of a double pedal technique on the drums in the section (although this was done on Logic Pro) and it really adds to the heavy sound of this piece. The guitar part also backs up the double bass drum by playing semiquavers on a low E to match it.
Unfortunately it is difficult to see due to the screenshot loosing quality during it’s upload, but in the final green section of the drum beat there is the double pedal rhythm ending with a cymbal to bring on the next four bars.
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Here is the guitar part on it’s own:
The melody line here is following the same descending pattern as the rhythm, ending on the octave of each chord. This is played in an E minor pentatonic style over the centre of the fret board, and makes use of the Floyd Rose bridge on my guitars as this not only sounds good, but helps to sustain the long held notes with more clarity.
This is the basis of all of this track’s essential parts and I began to make a solid structure for the piece, and then moved onto getting a solo in there.
Intro Riff (Red Hot Chili Peppers style)
Verse (Double Stops)
Bridge (Half Time Chord Section)
Solo Section (Made up of Intro, then Verse, then ending with once round the Intro Riff.)
This made the song around three minuets long, and I feel as though that this was perfect as it was close to matching the length of my first song, and remained entertaining throughout.
Now for the guitar solo. This comes in as soon as the bridge section ends, and starts with a build up using harmonics on the 5th fret and the tremolo arm of my guitar. This solo, while in parts improvised on the recording, more or less has a full structure that can be followed. This does mean that the following video may differ ever so slightly from the track recording.
During the build up I play the intro riff up an octave and follow this up with rising notes of an E natural minor scale before playing an in-line run down to the 1st fret and rising back up to the 12th.
I then descend slightly through E natural minor before playing a few ‘Chuck Berry’ style bends. I then lead onto bending the 15th fret B string and rapidly descending twice, and then repeating this on the high E string.
Next comes a rising and falling pattern on the high E string to bring the solo into some right hand finger tapping. This is all pentatonic and easy to follow. This then descends down to A on the G string to play a couple of bends before finishing on the not G, E’s minor third.
Here is the full live version of the solo:
(I did slightly mess up on the finger tapping in this video due to it being much harder to play fluently at this slower pace)
And this is a video of the solo at full pace along with the backing track:
That’s all of the sections to this song. As with the first song, the bass follows the rhythm guitars almost exactly throughout as I want my guitar to be the focal point of this project.
It’s also worth noting that I hadn’t actually named this track until I had already completed each one, and the idea for the title came when one of my music friends mentioned that the solo was “on fire.” – Thus the title ‘In Flames’ was decided upon. I also felt that this suited the genre and the idea of conflict that I wanted to portray with my EP as fire is often associated with destruction.
Here is the final draft of my track before it was professionally mixed:
And here is the fully mixed track on my official Soundcloud:
Summary / Evaluation:
I was really happy with how this track fell together in the end. This song was achieved after two separate failed ideas, so when the final thing all came together it felt so much more rewarding.
I was pleased with how the use of chromatic notes turned out in the piece as I didn’t want the track to sound patchy or out of key. In this track I also did this by using double stops – something that I haven’t yet used to write with – and this gave the track a heavy feeling while not being overbearing with the amount of power chords used.
The slow middle section as I have previously mentioned is my personal favourite part of the track as it has a really strong Metallica vibe about it, and it works really well with the melody line over the top.
My main criticism is that I simply didn’t spend enough time getting the guitar solo spot on. I feel as though in parts that it is mildly clumsy sounding, and that the timing needs improving; especially on the finger-tapping section. When I perform this live I will be much more fluent in playing this, and the live recording of the performance should sound really good.
The small amount of feedback I did receive from my peers was all really positive, and it reassured me that this was definitely going on my finished EP. The main improvement that needed doing that was mentioned by my peers was that the instrument levels needed balancing. I did take this on board and balanced the track to a rough draft before giving it a final mix with an industry professional.
This was the only track that didn’t feature my Ibanez RGT 6 EX on it, and was purely played on my ESP LTD MH-401FR. I chose to use this guitar for each part as this track has a heavy nod towards Metallica, and their sound is produced using guitars of the same brand with the same EMG pickups that I use.
In total this track took another two weeks to produce, however due to earlier failed attempts in the first week I was pushed for time. This is one of the reasons why I feel the solo in this song isn’t as confident as it could have been had I have had an extra few days to perfect it.
Ultimately this song was a real success in a short amount of time. The song comes straight in with a heavy riff that contains those chromatic elements I was wanting out of it, and really keeps up the pace of the whole EP.