Guitar Interactive – Issue 66 2019

(^54) Guitar Interactive Issue 66
without sacrificing evenness. In terms
of note choice, we’re drawing from a
hexatonic minor scale, made up of the
minor pentatonic scale with the addition
of a natural 2nd (in this case an F#). This
scale has a lot of the drama of a full sev-
en-note minor scale, but with a slightly
more open and spacious sound. It’s also
somewhat reminiscent of one of Iommi’s
formative influences, Hank Marvin of
The Shadows.
Bars 35-36:
Solo time! Our first lick makes use of
that now familiar rudiment from bar 10,
followed by some bends from the root
note of E up to F# - effectively superim-
posing the B minor pentatonic scale over
our home key of E minor.
Take care with the “contour” of these
bends. Iommi makes use of a variety of
bending approaches to add interest to
his solos, and the best way to get it right
is by listening closely. The bends in this
first lick are “pre-bends”, which involves
bending the note to pitch before it’s
picked, before releasing it.
Bars 37-38:
We’re drawing from Iommi’s blues vo-
cabulary for this E minor pentatonic
lick. The timing can be a little tricky on
the faster flourishes in bar 38 - focus on
landing the 14th fret bend on time, and
you should be ok.
Bars 39-40:
This lick is a tip of the hat to the solo
from “Paranoid” - one of Iommi’s best.
It starts out with a series of bends be-
fore transitioning into a sequencing idea
that cascades across the top four strings.
Many of Iommi’s faster lines are com-
posed of sequences like this, and they
serve to help the player and the listener
“make sense” of these quick flourishes.
Bars 41-42:
The last lick of our solo, making use
of bends to the natural 2nd one more
time. There’s also one more instance of
the “hammer-on/grace note” rudiment -
which just goes to show how many times
you can afford to repeat the same phrase
without sounding “predictable”.
The very last phrase makes use of some
bluesy double stops, with a first finger
barre on the 12th fret of the G and B
strings.
Bars 43-54:
A few bars of silence, before we hit
one of Iommi’s most iconic “tricks”: a
behind-the-nut bend on the open low E
string, as heard in the droning intro to
Iron Man. It’s pretty simple to execute -
hit the low E string nice and hard, and
then push the string behind the nut to-
wards the surface of the headstock firmly
enough to make the bend happen.
TECH SESSIONS_TONY IOMMI