Performance Notes: Y is for Yngwie

If "Six-Note Magic" was "My First '80's Hair Band Hit", then "Y is for
Yngwie" is "How to Train Your Dragon". Its technical elements build
on those of Six-Note Magic by combining the six-note chunked motif
with the descending Trilogy-shape scale run from "Black Star".
Thematically it is the counterpart to the Trilogy-inspired "P is for
Practice" song from Episode 4 of Season 1 -- except this time, instead
of teenage bedroom posing, we've brought real technical firepower to
the fight that actually works.

The Black Star Pattern

The Black Star lick makes four appearances here -- the first two of
which feature it unchanged from its stock form. The third, in measure
8, features a small but notable modification: the elimination of the
legato notes on the top string. As the voiceover in this part of the song
explains, this is done by simply starting the lick on an upstroke. This
causes the picking on the top string to finish on an upstroke, which
permits rapid and efficient string switching to the B string by way of
dwps.

This simple alteration imparts a more aggressive and mechanized feel

to the lick by eliminating the slippery finesse of the legato sequence
and instead replacing it with a sequence of *nine* fully-picked notes
across three strings. This alteration fits perfectly within Yngwie's
picking strategy, since the string changes all occur after upstrokes and
utilize the efficiency provided by dwps.

It is interesting to note that Yngwie himself almost never makes this

change when playing the phrase in standalone fashion. He *does* do
it, however when connecting to the Black Star lick from other phrases
-- such as the Trilogy Shape scale played ascending, via sweeping.
This quirk highlights Yngwie's idiosyncratic and most likely intuitive
use of these picking strategies. It also corroborates Yngwie's oft-
repeated interview response that he does not think much about his
picking technique.

Meet the Monster

In its final appearance, the Black Star lick joins forces with the six-note
pattern from "Six-Note Magic" to create a "monster lick" of
Malmsteenian proportions. In order to make this connection, we need
to make another small but emblematic alteration to the Black Star lick:
we need to introduce a legato note.

Since the six-note magic pattern terminates on an upstroke, that

means the Black Star lick, which immediately follows, *must* begin on
a downstroke. If we continued this way with strict alternate picking,
we'd finish the first string on a downstroke, and then we'd be stuck:
against the rules of dwps, and unable to move to the four-note
sequence on the B string.

So in this instance, our earlier strategy of starting on an upstroke is

simply not possible. Instead, we now utilize the same partial picking
strategy that we do on the G and D strings. We begin the Black Star
pattern on a downstroke, play the second note with an upstroke, and
force that upstroke as the final pickstroke by using a pulloff for the
third and final note. This leaves us in striking position above the plane
of the strings for the ensuing four-note sequence on the B string.

Race to the Finish

This choice is mechanically in keeping with Yngwie's picking strategy,

but take a look at what it does to the rhythm. The Black Star pattern is
actually one note too many to fit within the 32nd note triplet time.
Thus a portion of it notated as a septuplet.

We could have avoided this by sticking to straight sextuplets, and

simply eliminating that fourth note on the B string -- the D#. That
would have given us natural minor, which would be harmonically fine.
But we'd end up with three notes on the B string, and have to use the
pulloff technique to make the string changes work out.

Alternatively, we could have kept those four notes, and instead

eliminated the first note, D, on the G string. This would have given us
harmonic minor. And this would also have turned the G string into a
two-note sequence, which, as we know, would also be fine within the
dwps framework.

Instead, what we're doing is keeping the entire pattern intact, and
simply rushing its timing to fit it all in before the downbeat. This is a
distinctly Yngwie thing to do, and again flows from his preference for
idiosyncratic shapes. Unlike the shred players of the latter half of the
decade, who built entire vocabularies of metronomically regular
patterns, Yngwie's free-form scalar improvisation rarely snaps to the
grid. He tends to stick to his favorite fingerings, and massages them
clay-like to the time, rather than the other way around. This is a
historically guitaristic approach, similar to the way Eddie subverted
traditional pentatonic fingerings in often undetectable ways (a la
Season 1 Episode 4's "Space Blues" scene). And it's one of the
choices that gives Yngwie's playing an organic, soulful quality more
spiritually akin to blues than shred.

Oppa, YJM Style!

For the rest of the solo, the structure has been pared down to the
simplest possible technical elements. In fact, almost every note that's
not part of a high-speed showpiece is, in fact, just a downstroke. And
that's fine! All the classic YJM style cues are here: the dragon stomp
rhythm, the blockbuster melodic theme, the legato ornaments and
rubato timing. As in Yngwie's own playing, there's plenty of
expression available in terms of muting, vibrato, and harmonics, to
evoke the scandinavian mood in a fun way.
Finishing the Model

There's of course one notable element of the Yngwie lexicon that's

missing: sweeping. And by this we don't just mean arpeggios.
Sweeping is a fundamental component of the Yngwie picking model,
as it enables the use of odd-numbered note groupings when
ascending. So it plays a far wider role in Yngwie's mechanical
vocabulary than is typically recognized. We'll cover all this in the next
episode, when we complete Yngwie's picking strategy, and send you
on your way to plunder and pillage the countryside with your newfound
Viking powers!

Thanks for watching!