Chords for Doom Metal Fundamentals - Diabolus Bends

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ Hi everybody, Corey at Gemini Guitar.
This is a short lesson today.
It's focusing on a sort of technique common in
sludgier, doomier sorts of metal and we're going to be bending up to the tritone interval.
Okay, so this is what the riff is going to sound like.
It's reasonably simple and
it'll give you an idea of what is going to happen.
Here we go.
[D] _ _ [G] _ [Ab] _ _ [A] _ [G] _ _
[D] _ _ [Ab] _ _ _ [G] _ [Gb] _ [D] _
_ [G] _ [Ab] _ _ _ [G] _ _ [D] _
_ [Ab] _ _ _ [D] _ _ _ _
Okay, so first things first, we'll look at the ingredients involved.
There's about four notes here.
We've got the open E _ _ _ _
[Ab] which in this case is the pitch of D because we're tuned a whole step down. _
The other note is the A note, in this case the pitch [G] of G.
_ [F] That's fifth fret, string six. _
We've got a G note, in this case pitch of F.
_ _ _ _ _ [E] _ And the other note is actually the bent note which occurs at the fifth fret.
So I'm just going to slow this down once more so you can see it [D] close up. _
_ _ _ [Ab] _ _ _ _ _
[G] _ [F] _ [D] _ _ _ [G] _ [Ab] _ _
_ _ _ [F] _ _ [D] _ _ _
[G] _ [Ab] _ _ _ _ [G] _ [F] _ _
[D] _ _ [G] _ [Ab] _ _ _ _ [G] _
[Gb] _ [N] _ Something to that effect.
So as far as the bending goes, we're bending up a half step at the fifth fret and
we'll be bending up to the tritone interval.
Also known as Diabolus and Musica since it creates a bit of an evil sort of atmosphere.
A lot of metal bands will use this one.
_ If you just played the open E5, in this case pitch of [D] D5, _ _ _ _ _
_ _ to the Bb5, in this case Ab5 in [Ab] pitch. _ _ _ _ _
And you get a nasty sort of [D] atmosphere. _ _ _ _
[Ab] _ _ _ _ _ [D] _ _ _
_ [Ab] _ _ _ _ [D] _ _ _
And so on.
Bands like Slayer like this one a lot.
Black Sabbath actually created the track Black Sabbath itself from that type of thing.
Just going from the open E5 to a Bb or something.
Or whatever key they were in at the time, but it was something to that effect.
So,
_ this is a simple idea.
We're just going to basically play the open 6.
_ _ _ Go to the fifth fret and bend [G] up the half step.
I add a bit of vibrato.
_ [Ab] _ _
_ _ One of the things with [G] vibrato that you don't want to do is just use one finger if you can avoid it.
Obviously if it's first finger, well, there's not really much you can do.
But in this case we're using third finger.
So what we want to do is actually make sure that the middle and the first finger are behind it.
This adds a bit of weight to the finger enabling us to get better vibrato.
So the middle and the first finger don't have to be on separate frets.
In fact, I sort of bunch mine in a bit.
So my first and middle are around about fret 4.
Like one that side and the other one that side.
Although they can even just go right in behind the third finger.
And this really gives you a good _
_ grab of the note if you like.
So we _ [Ab]
get_
So _ _ [E] _ _ [D]
now we get this.
_ _ [Ab] _ _ _ _
_ _ Basically at the end of that I [G] just basically play the fifth fret
_ _ and third fret.
[F] _ _
_ [D] So up we get this.
_ _ [G] _ [Ab] _
_ _ _ [G] _ [F] _ _ [D] _ _
_ [Ab] _ _ _ _ [G] _ [F] _ _
[D] _ _ _ [G] _ [Ab] _ _ _ _
[F] _ _ [D] _ _ _ [Ab] _ _ _
[G] _ [D] _ _ _ _ [N] Note there that I'm using vibrato with first finger at third fret.
That takes a bit of skill
if you're new to it.
But with time it'll, like all techniques in guitar, get better.
One of the things you'd want to do is have your thumb somewhere at the back there
_ behind the first finger.
That really does help a lot.
So you've got a really good grab
with that part of the hand around the neck.
[F] _ [Gb] _ [N] Yeah, you really do need that.
As far as the ending goes, I was just really improvising in the intro there.
So you could probably just end up_
I think I just did a couple of bends up and down which are kind of interesting.
So you get this [Ab] like_
[G] _ [Ab] _ [F] _
[D] _ [Bb] So [Ab] the actual pitch of those
would [Ab] _ [G] _ [F] _ [D] _ _ [G] be fret 6 and [Ab] 5.
_ _ [Ab] _ [G] _ [Ab] And fifth_
sorry, [F] third fret.
[A] _ [D] _ _ _ But what you can do is bend that and that adds a sort of a spooky type effect as well.
So you get this. _
_ [Ab] _ _ _ [G] Hear that [D] again.
[Ab] [G] That's open 6 I'm playing here to begin with by the [D] way. _
[G] _ [Ab] _ _ [Ab] _ [G] _ _ [D] _ _
[Ab] _ _ _ _ Just [N] end with the third fret and the open.
[D] _ _ So let's have a look at it one more time slowly.
1
_ 2
_ 3 4 _ _ _
[G] _ [Ab] _ _ _ _ [G] _ [F] _ [D] _
_ _ [G] _ [Ab] _ _ _ _ [F] _
[Gb] _ [D] _ _ _ [Ab] _ _ _ _
[G] _ [F] _ _ [D] _ _ [Ab] _ _ [G] _
_ [D] _ _ _ _ _ _ _