Charlie Griffiths breaks the chains to unleash Mr Scary with a look at Dokken and Lynch Mob’s rocker with a touch of blues in his playing.
George Lynch’s name is synonymous with rock guitar, initially from his time in Dokken, starting with Breaking The Chains in 1981 and following up with the classic Tooth And Nail in 1984 and Under Lock And Key in 1985. It was the 1987 album Back For The Attack that would feature George’s calling card Mr Scary, an instrumental featuring many of his trademark techniques. In 1990 George unleashed Lynch Mob with the debut album Wicked Sensation. George’s style is inspired by the early technical rock players like Randy Rhoads and Eddie Van Halen, but with some Jimi Hendrix blues feel for good measure.
George tends to use the Minor Pentatonic scale at the core of his ideas, often with a creative twist. There is always an improvised, off-the-cuff feel to his playing and in this lesson we will look at some key Lynch approaches.
Our first example is a atypical two-string hammer-on lick, but moves through the scale positions in an interesting fashion. In the key of E Minor, all of the open strings belong to the scale, so you could explore this idea across all six strings, all over the fretboard. Example 2 is a ascary sounding riff using palm muting and alternate picking. It’s based in F# Aeolian and uses the 2nd fret F# as a pedal, against which the other scale notes are played. The only limitations with this type of riff are your imagination and finger dexterity. Hone these two skills for the recipe for creative hard rock riffing.
Our 3rd example is a tapping lick based on a Lynch style legato pattern which is essentially a fretting-hand trill, with a
tapped note on each down beat. You can apply this technique to any triad, Major, Minor, Diminished or Augmented, and also Pentatonic scales. This lick also features a tap slide, which entails tapping a n
