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Yngwie Malmsteen Lesson


Going to post a lesson on Far Beyond the Sun including tabs and techniques to play it. Stay tuned! Going to need to have a lot of control over alternate picking and sweep picking for this one. This is going to be for ADVANCED players.

Until I get the tabs and discussion started, here is the audio for the song this thread will be breaking down:

First the song is tuned down one half step (Eb, Ab, Db, Gb, Bb, Eb) and uses the Harmonic-Minor scale. This song uses techniques such as tremolo picking, sweep picking, alternate picking, finger slides, string bends, hammer-ons and pull-offs and even tapping in some spots. Bear with me and this will get done.

So we will take a look at the introduction. I am going to be posting this in bits so we can break down each run, analyze it and also give you a chance to practice them in chunks and not become too overwhelmed. I am also going to start posting tabs in Guitar Pro format so that they appear cleaner and also have the notation for you guys. So without further ado:

So the first thing to notice is that the guitar is tuned a half-step or a semi-tone flat. The song is based mostly on the F Harmonic Minor scale. To get the F Harmonic Minor scale we first take the F Major scale and flat the third, sixth, and seventh scale degrees to get F Minor. Which would be done like this:

F Major: F,G,A,Bb,C,D,E,F

Now if we flat the third, sixth and seventh scale degrees we get this:

F Minor: F,G,Ab,Bb,C,Db,Eb and F

Now to find F Harmonic Minor we take the F MINOR scale and just simply augment (or raise) the seventh scale degree by a half-step or semi-tone. So after all that we come to the F Harmonic Minor scale:

F Harmonic Minor: F,G,Ab,Bb,C,Db,E,F

Quite a bit of stuff Yngwie has done is based on the harmonic minor scale. The augmented seventh creates a stronger pull back the tonic or one.

Now looking at the notation this should be done with STRICT alternate picking. Practice this and get it under your fingers and  we will look at the next part which, is quite a bit trickier and begins the hammer-ons, pull-offs and sweep picking right off the bat. Any questions, comments or criticisms? Always feel free to post. If you practice this song and get it under your fingers you will be on your way to becoming a Neo-Classical shred monster!


Here is the next part. Remember the guitar is tuned a half step flat, but the notation is written as if it were in E standard. So all the notes actually sound one half-step flatter than written. Another thing to consider is that Yngwie likes to change strings after an upstroke, so in order to achieve this you will need to employ economy picking. Economy picking (for those who have not seen the lesson on it) is where you use alternate picking but basically employ mini-sweeps in order to change strings.

Let me know if you guys want more of this song and if you would like it broken down even farther. We can of course get way more into the techniques and theory behind it all. One thing to keep in mind is that Yngiwe makes EXTENSIVE use the hamonic-minor scale. For those of you who do not know what a harmonic-minor scale is,  it just a natural minor scale with an augmented (or raised) 7th. For example, the A minor scale is spelled A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and A (octave). Notice that the notes are the exact same as in C Major. This is called the relative minor as it is a minor scale but contains the same notes as the major scale. If you are into modes you notice that in the key of C that C Major would be known as the Ionian mode and A Minor would be the Aoelian mode of C Major.

So in order to take the A minor scale and make it A harmonic-minor simply take the 7th scale degree and raise it one half step. So for review the notes of A minor being A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and A we would take the G and substitute a G#. Therefore the A harmonic-minor scale would be spelled A, B, C, D, E, F, G#, A.


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