Of Wolf and Man
You could be as harmless as Dilbert in his little cubicle...
Once you bring tritones into play everything changes.
Check out the tritone's sinister sound by playing this intro riff from Metallica's black "Metallica" album.
Guess what key it's in?
Correct.
E minor, the Metallica key... what else could it be?
6 half steps to hell...
6 half steps up from E we have Bb. Let's do a count. Starting from E we have 1-F , 2-F# , 3-G , 4-G# , 5-A and 6-Bb.
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6 half steps - click to enlarge |
So Bb gives us the tritone to E. Take a look at how Metallica emphasize this Bb5 chord by anticipating it on beat 4+ and letting it ring for the whole second measure.
Listen to the sound quality of the chord built on the b5 and how it changes the mood of the whole rif.
It's in your face.
You simply can't miss it.
2 more things worth mentioning are
 | the chromatic approach
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| economy of minimal movement |
First, the chromatic approach.
See the F5 on beat 2?
What's a F5 chord doing in the key of E minor?
It's not supposed to be here since F is not diatonic to the key.
The role of the F5 chord is to provide some extra tension and then resolve to the E5 chord.
Fortunately, those half-step, chromatic approaches are really easy on guitar in general. You simply move the same shape by 1 fret and that's it.
Here in this case it makes more sense to change the fingering - thereby breaking our little rule a bit.
However this sets us up perfectly for our second concept worthwhile mentioning - minimal movement.
Check out how using the first finger for the E5 chord facilitates the change to the B5 chord. You hardly have to move your left hand at all. Simply add your 3rd finger and you are done.
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E5 to B5 - click to enlarge |
One final thing...
Dig in with your picking hand. Gently picking the strings won't cut it.
Bring out the WOLF in YOU!
