Alright guys, Jack here J B F music and guitar lessons. And what I’ve got
for you here is one of these reaction and analysis videos on the amazing Alip Ba Ta.
Here we have got a finger style version of Linkin Park’s ‘Numb’. The idea is that I
will try to break some of the stuff that he’s doing down on my guitar. If you want to see
the other reaction videos I have done on him, you can get them with the ‘I’ up there. But more than
enough from me, let’s just listen to this guy! Pfffft!
This… this, ok…
There is so much happening here!
No way! Did he do that?!?
There is harmonics everywhere.
Ohhh! No way a but bend?
He’s doing the harmonics beyond the fret board as well. These little, oh man…
And the arrangement is beautiful to, not just for the sake of it, it really serves the song.
Little pinky rhythm ting we’ve seen before.
Lovely, getting the vocal melody in really nicely. I
can’t even work out what that is, like little harmonics?
This is mind boggling! There’s too much going on, I can barely process it
This is like, eh, Christmas for guitar players- it’s like a birthday present or something!
Nice. The
little slides he puts in, they add so much to it.
Really nice dominant chord.
Diminished run, out of nowhere!
Insane! This is off the hook!
Sneaking in these little blues tricks. Ohhh, that’s wonderful.
Oh man.
Ok, so I’m usually able to kind of pause and break stuff down as it goes on, but that was just too
much for me to take in- I couldn’t process it and explain what was going on at the same time, so I’m
gonna do that now. I will breakdown some of the things he was doing. But there was so many cool
techniques and like I said they’re not there for the sake of having technique,
they really serve the song. And just work with this beautiful arrangement.
The use of the harmonics there, these kind of ghostly, you know… kind of song. They,
they just really sound like the song and they just work so well in this context.
Ok, so there is just so much stuff he is doing that I can’t figure out,
let alone play! Again at the very beginning here, he’s using natural harmonics, which are cool, so,
em, I will link to a lesson on how to do them with the “i” up there, but basically,
you rest your finger very lightly above the fretwire. So rather than holding it down,
you rest above it, directly above the wire and you get this really nice, kind of shimmery note.
So he’s playing ones here. You’ve got the 12 fret on the B, then to the 7th on the G,
back up the that 12th fret, then he’s playing both the E strings on the 12th fret, so you have.
Then the next I cannot work out what he’s doing. He’s somehow, playing this note.
But getting a nice, 3 kind of strums. I, I can’t see what part of his hands he’s moving
to make this happen… this magician, this guitar sorcerer! But that slowly, the very first part.
And you can hear that the timbre, the tonal texture of these notes. Is very
different from if you just play them normally. These natural harmonics have got this really…
kind of beautiful, but quite eerie, quite haunting sound.
But, one of the trick I did notice that he used is what you call a “nut
bend” so he’s bending the strings behind here. I’ve got the clip queued up here.
Ok, that really high “du-uh-uh”,“du-uh-uh”; ok? I’ll break that down. He’s using an artificially
harmonic, if you want find out more about how he uses them in Bohemian Rhapsody, or how to use this
technique, you can get that with the “I” up there. But we’re playing on the 19th fret here.
The B string. And you rest you finger very lightly above the fret-wire. So we’re not
holding the fret down, we’re resting above the fret wire; directly above it and the plucking it
with your thumb. Then what you do! Is you take your other hand,
you go behind the nut and you push down on the string. And what this will do is raise the pitch.
So we do the artificial harmonic here, then pull down on the string behind the nut.
Now, he’s not just doing this technique isolated like I am here, he’s doing it
as part of the song. He’s nailing it every time and he’s actually using it in a musical way,
it’s not just like a gimmick prop, it sounds really cool.
This is a technique I’ve never seen before! I’m just looking at what he did
and trying to figure it out, and I think I accidentally stumbled on to it!
Em… so here right? I’ve slowed it right down so I can try and figure out what he’s doing.
It just looks like he’s kind of brushing through the strings,
but he’s somehow getting a harmonic. And, I’ve never seen this before!
And it sounded to me, how I got, it I don’t know what I did! Ok… I’ve been trying to
figure this out and I can’t for the life of me I can’t work out what he’s doing here.
It sounds like he’s dragging his nail along the string, because I’m hearing that, I think I can
see it. I don’t know if his finger is catching the harmonic, or if it’s just a red herring?
I thought he might be doing. Like a kind of slapped harmonic, but it just isn’t that.
He has me completely bamboozled with this one, this trick and the other
little rhythmic one that the start. If you’d like to see me try and figure
out some of these tricks, then hit me up in the comments. But, yeah this is… Pfffft! Over my head!
Hit subscribe if you want to keep up to date with the channel, you can check out more Alip
Ba Ta analysis there, or more stuff on harmonics there, but take it easy guys and have a good one