These videos are bonus content related to the February 2014 issue of Guitar World. For the full range of interviews, features, tabs and more, pick up the new issue on newsstands now, or in our online store:http://store.guitarworld.com/products/guitar-world-february-14-van-halen
Hello, everyone, and welcome to my new GW column. Over the next few months, I'll be demonstrating many of the techniques and musical devices I employ in my playing and writing with my band, Revocation. I hope the concepts I present will help you become a better musician and inspire you to discover new sounds on the guitar.
I'd like to start off by demonstrating some of the licks I play in the song "Invidious," from our latest, self-titled release. Some of the melodic phrases in the tune are performed using hybrid picking, a technique sometimes referred to as "chicken pickin'," wherein I combine standard flatpicking with fingerpicking.
Hybrid picking is not usually associated with thrash metal-style guitar playing, but I find the technique to be extremely useful in executing fast, unusual phrases like these.