Alternate Etude at 160bpm

Hello GMC! Today we have a special lesson. Most of you probably expected a jazz lesson but I decided to change things up and show you other sides of me :)

This lesson is in style of John Petrucci! I composed this short piece recently after hearing "Universal Mind" by Liquid Tension Experiment.

I named this piece Alternate etude or Alternate in style of Petrucci. You will see lots of cool string skipping in the first section, while the second section uses regular alternate picking with arpeggios.

The key of this piece is C major but it goes to A natural and harmonic minor as well (with G#dim7 or E7 chord introduced). Tempo for this piece is 160 bpm, and 99% of the piece uses 8th note triplets - just the ending has different rhythm.

I suggest you practice this very slow first. Use the backing tracks provided and also watch extra videos with extended angles provided. I advise you to practice with those videos as well - that should help you learn it faster.

If you feel like jamming over this and you like minor sound, use A minor pentatonic and E minor pentatonic. D minor pentatonic can also be used but with good care and wise note choice. If you are into scales/modes dig into A natural minor (aeolian) and A harmonic minor (natural minor with raised 7th). C major scale can be used as the main major sounding source as well as C major pentatonic. Notice they are both related to A natural minor and A minor pentatonic (identical)

General things about lesson:

In this lesson I tried to create a solo in style of John Petrucci.

When you finish this lesson hopefully you would have captured and mastered some of the following techniques:



- Alternate picking

- String skipping

- Playing constant rhythm

- Playing in time

- Learn your guitar neck and notes better

- Playing across your neck

- Importance of repetition in music etc



Equipment I used for recording my sound was: Custom built guitar (G.Papazoglou) with Pod X3 live going directly to computer.


I hope you guys will enjoy this piece very much and I hope to hear from everybody about it.
Have fun playing and jamming.

Look forward hearing from you all!

Pedja