Note: This recording is from a Live Facebook class, of which we run multiple free sessions every single week. For more info on our live guitar lessons visit here: https://www.yourguitaracademy.com/live-guitar-lessons.
To master this solo we need to break it down into 4 separate, rather difficult, licks. The first is based on the Bb minor blues scale, then we move into a tapping lick, then a Bb minor arpeggio run and finally a very quick run up! Below we have included the various scale shapes/arpeggio shapes you need to consider whilst you are playing the licks. We cannot legally provide the tab, so use the video to work through the actual notes you are playing as Ollie runs through it in great detail!
The first lick essentially uses the Bb minor pentatonic with the b5th note, making the Bb blues scale. We use position 1 of the scale, as shown below.
The actual notes we are using here are quite 'outside' notes. This means that it is fndametally based on that Bb minor pentatonic scale, or Bb minor scale, as that is the key. However, Eddie Van Halen uses a series of notes out of the scale, which, when played fast, sound super cool! The tapped note remains on the 13th fret, which are all notes in the key of Bb. You could even consider them notes from the Bb minor scale shape 4 (see the diagram below).
For the third lick we are using a little bit of the Bb minor pentatonic scale, as shown below. We are then playing through a Bb minor arpeggio, which is also pictured on the digram below. Notice that Eddie Van Halen ads in the Eb note (the 4th) at the end of the arpeggio.
The final lick is a very quick run loosely based around the Bb minor scale shape 5, but using a lot of out notes (just as with the finger tapping lick). Use the diagram below to see how Van Halen tends to favour repeating string patterns over actual scale shapes when playing very very fast licks!
If you really love your Eddie Van halen and want to truly master his style, we have a full 24 lesson player study availble totally free! Click the image below to start you Eddie Van Halen player study!
