THE BEAST

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By Shawn Leonhardt for Guitar Tricks and 30 Day Singer

Slash is best known for his work as the lead guitarist in bands like Guns N’ Roses, Velvet Revolver, and other side projects. He came to fame in the 80’s when the electric guitar and shredding solos were at their peak. His playing style mix of blues, heavy metal, and glam helped propel the band to super stardom and placed him among the greatest guitarists ever. In this article we’ll go over some tips on how to play guitar just like Slash.

The Music Of Slash

While he may be an amazing guitarist none of what he does is that complicated musically; his riffs are often easy. The hard part comes in when we want to get that smooth but heavy sound that he is known for.

The Techniques And Styles Of Slash

He plays in a very loose style and mixes power chords and pieces of the minor pentatonic scale , Dorian, and Aeolian scales. He was influenced by British and American rockers of the 60’s and 70’s so his music is going to be similar except for the added heaviness of his 80’s era.

Palm muting is another technique that you will need to master to get that clean sound between your picked notes. Start out slow and exaggerate your hand movements until you can stop the sound of the strings with your palm. Slash also uses rhythmic and staccato picking to help drive the music along. He also uses plenty of pull offs, hammer ons, and various bends but they are all played loose and relaxed. There are a variety of bends to use but they all have the same purpose of making the guitar emote.

If you want to learn these techniques in detail, head to Guitar Tricks for the best online guitar lessons .

Slash also uses a lot of ornamental and chromatic flourishes to help his playing sound like the blues more. When we are playing a riff or solo in rock we do not just stick to the scale of the key. Sometimes we add other chromatic notes in to help the vibe and Slash was a master of this. Music theory will help you learn the right guitar scales to play and practice will help you figure it out where to add other ornamental notes.

The Equipment And Effects Used By Slash

Slash is best known for that massive 80’s metal sound that he got by using Marshall amps cranked up with plenty of reverb. That era of guitar wanted a very expansive sound as they were playing arenas where the crowds were huge. Do you understand the difference between tube amp vs solid state ? You also want a Les Paul guitar with two humbuckers for lots of low end power. He also added to that low end metal sound by tuning his guitar a half step down. 

Make sure to have high gain but we still want a clean sound, his style of glam 80’s metal didn’t use too much crunch or crazy distortion. He helped his Marshall sound with pedals like the Cry Baby wah pedal, tuner, boost, phaser, octave fuzz, tremolo, delay, and a chorus. He doesn’t use effects units often, just as extra for some parts of songs. 

“Welcome to the Jungle” is one of the more prominent songs that uses effects with the opening Boss delay pedal. Otherwise his wah pedal is probably the most used to wail more when a normal bend isn’t enough, a great example is “Mr. Brownstone.” Just remember that tone comes from the player; the gear is just there to facilitate the sound through the amps and to your ears!

How To Play Guitar Like Slash?

Besides playing his music and copying his techniques it will also be helpful to study older blues and glam metal rockers. Slash is not known for extreme technical brilliance instead he just has a mastery of most basic blues techniques like the 12 bar Blues progression . He simply copied these older blues artists and put his own creative spin on it, that is what you should strive for.

Copy The Music Of Slash

The number one way to learn to play guitar like Slash is to put his most famous songs on and mimic what he is doing. Find the right tabs or even better do it by ear and play along the best you can. This process is very hard and will lead to a lot of frustration and failure but it is how the guitar greats all learned to play. The key to making this process work is to take it as slow as possible until you start to succeed.

You can listen to interviews, read books, and even read guitar tabs but the best practice is listening and copying. His fast hands soloing didn’t just arrive out of nowhere it will require long hours of repetition. And keep in mind that playing “loose” does not equal sloppy, to properly play loose you will need to start rigid and exact. As you get better at scales and guitar techniques the relaxed feeling will follow.

Learn Your Scales and Theory

There are a few videos floating around of Slash explaining his approach to scales and improvisation, they are interesting to watch but not explained the best. This is a common issue with famous guitarists, they can do incredible things but struggle to teach them. In reality though once you know some music theory, what he says makes sense!

Start with learning the basic major scale along with basic patterns along the fretboard. Don’t just copy them in your practice, seek to understand why the major scale sounds that way. Next look into the minor scale, this is the one you will be using the most but it is important to understand how it relates to the major. Modern rock uses a mix of major and minor (or blue notes) so the better you grasp that the easier time you will have with improvisation like Slash.

One of the important things Slash does is basic variation on themes along the fretboard. It is common for him to take the same scale or riff and then play it elsewhere in a similar manner. It may seem simple for guitar shredding but it really just pulls the listener in more with familiarity. Guns N’ Roses were a mix of pop and hard rock so they are popular among more than just metal fans. This is because Slash wasn’t playing anything complicated, he focused on simple pentatonic and minor scales played well.

Like all other guitar greats Slash is amazing at the instrument because he has put so much time and effort into playing. He understands the basic relationships with notes and the techniques needed to play a proper rock solo. You may not be able to play exactly like he does but if you practice enough you will find your own hard rocking style that will impress others. The key is to keep playing the tabs and chords in this genre of music and learning the techniques of the greats like Slash!