Why I Suck.. Series 4, Episode 1.. Eddie Van Halen!

 “You'd think after all these years I'd know what I was doing. But I still don't f*cking know!”

Thus spake Eddie Van Halen in the first ever copy of Total Guitar magazine I ever acquired – April 1995, if memory serves – and it was followed by several pages of terrifying looking tablature with the promise that these examples would be demonstrated on the accompanying CD.. although at that point I was still two years off owning a CD player... anyway, I read through the interview, bright eyed and innocent and having absolutely no idea who this Eddie Van Halen guy was. Nirvana, Mel Bay Guitar Book 1, Oasis and the occasional bit of whatever showed up on Beavis and Butthead were my reference points back then.

When I eventually commandeered the family CD player to hear how these examples should be played, I almost fell over from shock. That COULDN'T be a guitar, could it? The blazing tapped arpeggios, squealing harmonics that tested the upper edge of the human ear, the ferocious attitude that permeated every lick.. it's fair to say I was impressed.

Of course, there is a fairly high technique barrier to playing most EVH stuff, and after a botched attempt at “Panama” from some slightly dubious tablature, I put it n the back burner – there were more pressing things to practice, coursework for college plus I was now in my first ever regularly gigging semi-pro band.. plus it was the 90s, it wasn't cool to widdle.

Over the years, “Jump” and “Eruption” have made it into the sets of both Guilty Pleasures and Dave The Rock Band, but I think Van Halen were much more of an American phenomenon than a UK one, and outside of us guitar nerds, most normal people wouldn't recognise EVH in the way they might do with Slash. But what we are dealing with here is a guitarist who completely rewrote the rulebook and kicked up the ceiling of guitar technique, of what we thought could be done with a guitar. This is someone who is WELL overdue an investigation!

As is tradition, first a quick potted history: although EVH appeared, at first glance, the quintissential California guitar hero, he was in fact Dutch. Born Edward Lodewijk Van Halen in Amsterdam on January 26 1955, the family moved to Pasadena, California in 1962 (an interesting side note here is that their father Jan paid their passage by playing saxophone in the ship band, and the young Eddie and his brother Alex would perform too). Around age 6, both brothers began learning the piano – interestingly, despite his mother's preference for classical methods, Eddie would simply jam along with recordings of Bach and Mozart recitals, playing purely by ear! A measure of his innate musicality can be gained by analysing the keyboard playing on hits like “Jump” and “Why Can't This Be Love”, (for which I would refer the reader to my good friend and bandmate Leigh's channel here).

Both Alex and Eddie tried out a variety of instruments in their early formative years, with Eddie initially appearing to settle on drums while Alex went for guitar. However, after hearing Alex's rendintion of the Surfari's “Wipeout”, Eddie agreed they should swap- laying the foundation for the rhythm section that would power Van Halen. The two would form their first band, “The Broken Combs” in primary school, and it was their that bothe brothers really got a taste for live performance.

In 1972, coming toward the end of their school careers, the brothers formed the band Mammoth, bringing in notorious singer Dave Lee Roth two years later and changing the name to Van Halen. They were spotted by Gene Simmons of KISS at a show in LA in 1976, who helped them produce many of the songs that would make it onto the first album, Van Halen I, 1n 1978, bringing tracks like “Running With The Devil”, their turbocharged cover of “You Really Got Me” and of course, the jaw-dropping solo “Eruption” - which is where most of this month's examples come from. Having been brought to the wider world to riotous commercial and critical success, Eddie would go on to record the famous “Beat It” solo for Michael Jackson (featuring Steve Lukather on rhythm, so quite the line up!) - and I should include a note to the classic “Jump” from 1984 which remains the band's only number 1 single.

Right, history complete – for now, at any rate, as EVH definitely deserves another visit – let's get to the licks! Arriving during the post-Hendrix period and initially a contemporary of players like Jimmy Page in the later years of Zeppelin and the early part of Queen, EVH dropped like a bombshell. Even now, it still stands up as hugely impressive despite the legions of copycats his style inspired! So, we'll take a look at a few patterns that seem to underpin his playing on the first album.

You can't talk EVH without talking tapping – and yes, I know he didn't invent it, Brian May, Steve Hackett and Billy Gibbons are all variously credited with that, and Van Halen himself claims he saw it somewhere else and nicked the idea, but he is definitively the guy who the technique is associated with. The lick below shows the basic sextuplet tapped arpeggio idea that is used in Eruption, in this instance using an E minor chord (E, G , B). Eddie taps the B on the 12^th fret, pulls off to the E on the 5^th fret and hammers the G on the 8^th fret.

Now, if you're smart – and Eddie certainly was – it doesn't take much of a leap of logic to expand this to follow a chord pattern. I'm using the example chord pattern Em-C-G-D, mapping out the arpeggios to maximise the use of common tones between the chords – EGB for Em, CEG for C (so change the B to a C, keep the E & G static), GBD for G (so keep the G static, switch C to B and E to D) and finally D F# A for the D so keep the D static change B to A and G to F#) .. if this sounds confusing just wait for the demo video!

This approach mirrors that of a keyboard player or pianist seeking as smooth a path through a chord sequence as possible and this is almost certainly no coincidence given EVH's background in classical piano.

In the next example we're taking a look at a very different and guitar-centric approach – this is Eddie in full on 3 note per string shred mode, but he's not really adhering to any musical scale or arpeggio sequence, this is just the same shape slapped across all six strings and trusting that the end note will be the right one! This is used in “Jump” amongst others, and interestingly Pantera's Dimebag Darrell used the same idea in “Cowboys From Hell”.

This third example is a legato pattern that Eddie seemed to frequently gravitate towards. I first encountered it while learning “Eruption” where you could view it as being in A Dorian ( R 2 b3 4 5 6 b7 – A B C D E F# G), but it also crops up in Spanish Fly on the nylon string and even expanded to it's most insane stretches in “Ice Cream Man” where Eddie uses it with an arpeggio shape across the E and B strings.

In the final example, I want to talk about an often-overlooked part of the EVH style – natural harmonics. You're probably familiar with them as a technique but many players use them as a sound effect without really understanding how a harmonic relates to the underlying note.

The main “musical” harmonic node points are on the 12^th, 7^th and 5^th frets - the 12^th fret harmonic rings out an octave above the open string, so (assuming your intonation is correct) should be the same as the 12^th fret note. The 5^th fret rings out an octave higher, so the same as the 24^th fret (should you have one), and the 7^th fret rings out an octave above the 7^th fret, so for example 7^th fret on the G string is a D, so the harmonic will ring out as D an octave higher. 4^th fret will give you the same effect, so for example both note and harmonic will be a B but the harmonic an octave higher. 2^nd and 3^rd frets are the real squealers, that people like Vai and Satriani have made a career out of!

It's been a blast checking out these solos and I really do feel like I've filled in a missing bit of musical education, and even though I'm not a huge fan of Van Halen the band, EVH the guitarist was just breathtaking and it's been a real privelige to see inside his style – I look forward to coming back to revisit in due course!