OK, confession time – this guy is very popular amongst my students but I knew next to nothing about him, so February of this year has been a learning curve – one that I've very much enjoyed, however. Unlike EVH where I was backfilling an area of my education that I really should have dealt with a long time ago, this was something altogether new, so I stuck on YouTube, searched “Alter Bridge” and let rip! And it has to be said, Mr Tremonti is not the nu-metal drop tuned chugger I had in mind, he is a straight up classic rock player with a massive Jimmy Page influence and with an ear for a big chorus – so this has been a lot more fun than I thought it was going to be!
Right, as is by now traditional, a little potted history to give some context: Born in Detroit, Michigan on April 18 1974, Tremonti first begn to get excited about music around aged nine and received his first guitar aged 11.Info on his early life is a little sketchy but it would seem that guitar was more a hobby than a vocation – for instance, his university degree was in finance! However, it was at university – Florida State – that he met Scott Stapp, who would beome the vocalist in his first big band Creed.
Now, I remember Creed being around mid-90s as I was getting into playing but I lumped them in with the metal crowd who for some reason never really resonated with me – I've always been a bit metal-phobic throughout my playing, and I guess at some point I'll have to do something about that – but by 2004 internal tensions had broken the band up, and Tremonti went on to form Alter Bridge with (amongst others) Myles Kennedy on vocals, who would also pair up with Slash for his solo albums. The first album produced the hit singles “Find The Real”, and this was followed in 2007 by “Blackbird” with the title track becoming one of Alter Bridge's signatures.
That's where we'll leave the history, as this is the point where I came in to start stealing licks, so let's get into that!
First up is a signature Tremonti legato pattern – I actually picked this up from a Tremonti interview on YouTube while researching this, and to his credit Mark is very up front about sharing knowledge with his fans. This pattern is based around an odd note grouping using the E minor scale, although I recommmend practicing this in every key. You're using a group of 5 to kick the pattern off, followed by groups of seven notes descending the strings – counting these odd note groupings can be tricky so I use a word. “Opportunity” for the five note group, “What-an-opportunity” for the sevens – saying these words to a beat will help you feel the rhythm and fit the notes into the pattern. This is also a great workout for the little finger as you're using this to lead across the strings:
And because I'm ALL about value, I've flipped this pattern around to give you an ascending version:
One thing that I picked up from studying Tremonti's soloing is he is absolutely steeped in the concepts of bues based classic rock, with lashings of Jimmy Pge, Jeff Beck & Angus Young in his style. This next lick has the Led Zeppelin riffmaster all over it – taken from “Find The Real” and using the D blues scale (albeit tuned down by a semitone), this kicks off with a massive minor 3rd (3 semitones) bend before milking the quirky chromaticism of 5 – b5 – 4.. check out the subtleties on the string bending too, Tremonti bends the 15th fret G first up by a tone to the A (the 5th) and then by a semitone to the Ab (b5th) before navigating thrugh a position shift and finishing on the A.
Staying with “Find The Real”,
Tremonti also brings in a neat litte stretchy legato motif which he
repeats several times in the main solo. Based in shape 3 of the D
minor pentatonic, he takes a “3 magic notes” shape on the 15th
& 18th fret B, and 17th fret G, but
alternates the 18th fret with the 20th,
alternating playing the F (b3) and G (4) against the D root note,
before concluding the line with a slippery little Dorian rundown.
For our final example, this is taken from the solo in “Blackbird” and Tremonti plays a ferocious run down the F# minor pentatonic, which believe it or not you can see an influence from the Magic 3 Notes underpinning it, before a position shift and a slippery descending legato run finishing rather unusually on the 2nd (G#) - however this does make sense as the chord underneath has moved to C# and G# is the 5th. Such an awareness of chord tones at such an intuitive, instinctive level can really help level up your soloing skills and is very definitely worth studying and practicing until it becomes second nature.. doesn't a lick like that show it?
Well, at the end of 28 Days Of Mark Tremonti, I'm very pleased to say that I do at least now get what all the fuss is about! Lots of great feel here and lots of juicy classic rock licks to get stuck into.
Tune in next month for the man Jimi
Hendrix called the best rock guitarist in the world – Rory
Gallagher!
