Professor Shred with Guthrie

Govan: Using Four Fingers to

Tap Arpeggios, and How to Play
the Lick to "Sevens"
This month Id like to demonstrate the technique I use to perform
the two-handed-tapping riff that occurs during the bridge/chorus
section of the song Sevens, from my Erotic Cakes album.
Before getting to the Sevens lick, Im going to break down the
technique involved so that you will be able to apply this idea to
creating riffs of your own. The genesis of the lick was in trying to
find a new way to play a major-seven arpeggio. I started out by
breaking it down into two notes per string, as shown in FIGURE
1a.
Using the index finger and pinkie only, I descend from the major
seventh of Eb, D, at the 22nd fret of the high E string, to a low Eb
on the sixth strings 11th fret. I then took this idea and performed it
with fretboard tapping, as shown inFIGURE 1b. Now, the higher
note in each pair is sounded with a pick-hand fretboard tap, and
the lower note is sounded with a fret-hand hammer-on from
nowhere. Be sure to tap hard onto each note so that it will sound
clearly, and try to not allow any of the notes to ring into each other.
The next step was to break up the descending pattern and play it
non-sequentially. What I arrived at was FIGURE 2. Here, I sound
consecutive single notes on the high E and B strings, both
sounded with fretboard taps, followed by the lower associated
notes on the top two strings, sounded with fret-hand hammer-ons.
The fret hand mirrors this approach by also using the pinkie and
middle fingers. Start by playing this pattern slowly and then
increase the speed.
Now lets take this same approach and apply it to the four-note
groups on the lower pairs of strings, starting with the B and G
strings, as shown in FIGURE 3. I use the same technique here but
switch to the ring and middle fingers for both the pick-hand taps
and the fret-hand hammer-ons.
In FIGURE 4, Ive moved the idea down one more pair of strings to
the G and D. Here, I tap with the middle and ring fingers of the pick
hand but use my frethand pinkie and middle finger to fret the other
notes.
FIGURE 5 then runs the three patterns together. You can take this
idea further by continuing onto the two bottom pairs of strings, as
demonstrated in FIGURES 6a and 6b. Now that youve got the
idea, try some different arpeggios: FIGURE 7 outlines Ebm7,
and FIGURE 8 begins with Ebsus4 and then moves through
Ebmaj7 and Ebm7.
Finally, the Sevens lick, appropriately played in a meter of 7/4, is
shown in FIGURE 9. Using the same technique, I move through
the different pairs of strings in a specific alternating pattern.