This lesson gives an introduction to using 3 fingers for playing fast rock and metal lines. The Billy Sheehan style technique is discussed and riffs from the following songs are used as examples: Elephant Gun – David Lee Roth, The Trooper – Iron Maiden and Disposable Heroes – Metallica.
Right-Hand Positioning
There are two ways to position your right-hand fingers for this technique – you can either keep your fingers straight or curl them towards the body.
Curling the fingers gives more articulation to the note and creates a great funky sound when played towards the bridge. Keeping the fingers straight works well nearer the neck and provides a heavy, clicking sound – perfect for metal.
Elephant Gun – David Lee Roth
Billy Sheehan’s bass line on the song Elephant Gun is well worth checking out if you want to learn three-finger picking, although at 250 bpm – it’s a challenge!
Instead of jumping headfirst into this riff, slow it down and alternate playing for four bars and resting for four bars. This will help you build up speed without tiring your hands out. Go through the next couple of exercises and slowly increase your speed and the number of bars you play in a row – take it slow and you will gradually get faster and faster.
Practice Tracks:
230bpm:
240bpm:
250bpm:
The Trooper – Iron Maiden
Once you’ve got your picking speed up to scratch you can move on to riffs that use slightly different patterns. The first one we will look at is The Trooper by Iron Maiden.
Note: Steve Harris from Iron Maiden actually only uses two fingers in this song, but it is still a great exercise to do with three.
Practice Tracks:
130bpm:
140bpm:
150bpm:
160bpm:
Disposable Heroes – Metallica
This song is a little bit more challenging than the others as we are going to divide the notes of the riff between the different fingers. A mixture of two and three-finger picking is used in this exercise to teach you how to incorporate it occasionally to make things easier.
Try to isolate each section and make sure your fingering is correct before trying to build any speed.
Main Riff (raised an octave)
Practice Tracks:
130bpm:
140bpm:
150bpm:
160bpm:
178bpm:
Main Riff (Lower Octave)
Thrash Section 1
Practice Tracks:
130bpm:
140bpm:
150bpm:
160bpm:
178bpm:
Thrash Section 2 (Chord Progression)
Heya! I’m at work surfing around your blog from my new apple
iphone! Just wanted to say I love reading your blog and look forward to all
your posts! Keep up the great work!
I wasn’t quite getting the hang of it, but then I dream I was doing it, and the next day I’d turned the corner. This your ‘funnest’ video yet!
Man, this is cool but I’m a freak who does it in reverse, I begin with the index, than middle than ring… for me it’s so much easier, expecially gallops
Using three fingers helps to produce a more natural triplet than two fingers. Yes, one can easily create triplets with two fingers. However, three fingers just makes it more juicy.