Psycho Licks 101 (Yngwie Malmsteen Lesson)

What are some of the things you remember practicing that really focused on developing your right hand?

Yngwie Malmsteen: Well, you know, here's the funny thing: I never did that. I never did that “practicing” thing, I just sorta played. And if I could play something legato [plays Fig. 1A]—that's without the right hand—I'd want to be able to play exactly the same thing with the right hand [plays Fig. 1B] and make it so it's completely coordinated and clean.


Fig. 1A MP3	Fig. 1B MP3

And I remember at some point I got kinda bored with guitar players that play like [plays Fig. 2A], so I thought up different variations, like this [plays Fig. 2B]. That's all on the E string. It's kind of a long stretch with your hand, but it's all on one string. You can do a lot of things like that [plays Fig. 2C]; the possibilities are endless.


Fig. 2A MP3	Fig. 2B MP3	Fig. 2C MP3

But I don't think that I had any particular “practice” approach or anything like that. Sometimes I'd play through scales, and then I'd do the arpeggios after, different string skipping and all that stuff. But I never really had a particular thing—one or two, or different warm-ups, or anything like that. It was just “playing,” really. I know it's stupid, but it's true [laughs].

Wow. You must've just played a lot.

Yngwie: Yeah, exactly. I improvised all the time.

You're singlehandedly responsible for introducing a lot of classical motifs into the modern rock guitar vocabulary. Can we go over some of your trademark licks?

Yngwie: You mean, for instance, the arpeggios [plays Fig. 3A]? That's a trademark, two-octave A minor arpeggio. And you can actually add the [minor] 3rd, C (20th fret, 1st string), by tapping with your right hand [plays Fig. 3B].


Fig. 3A MP3	Fig. 3B MP3

I do something crazy like that on Alchemy, on a song called “Playing with Fire.”

On the subject of arpeggios, if you're playing in A minor and you're gonna do one of your diminished arpeggios over an E chord...

Yngwie: Yeah. You can do that a lot of different ways. It all depends on what effect you want. You can start off on G# or B, and it can go up like this, for instance [plays Fig. 4].

Fig. 4 MP3

The diminished arpeggio is very dramatic.

Now how about...

Yngwie: Pedal tones, like Bach. You can either do a pedal on the E string like [plays Fig. 5A], then [plays Fig. 5B].


Fig. 5A MP3	Fig. 5B MP3

There are a lot of different things you can do using that approach [plays Fig. 5C].

Fig. 5C MP3

And then, to finish it off, you can do a harmonic minor run [plays Fig. 6].

Fig. 6 MP3

That stuff, it's all over Alchemy actually, the whole thing.

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