This month Charlie Griffiths examines the exciting style of the man who made hs name in Pantera, but died a tragic death in Damageplan.
Darrell Lance Abbott was born in Texas in 1966 and was tragically murdered onstage in 2004, age 38. ‘Dimebag’ Darrell made a huge mark on metal between 1990 and 2000, when Pantera popularised groove metal. His guitar style features tight, syncopated metal riffing with inventive lead playing. In this lesson we will look at some of the key approaches Dimebag used for his lead work and will focus on fast Blues scale based alternate picking, sweep picking and legato licks, wide stretch shapes and singing natural harmonics.
Example 1 shows two approaches Dime used with the E Blues scale (E-G-A-Bb-B-D].
The first half of the lick is an alternatepicked pattern using six repeated notes and some string skipping to add a wider interval jump. The second half employs pull-offs and upward sweep picking for a southern, country influenced descending pattern.
Our second example demonstrates a wide stretch descending legato sequence. This lick uses a three-notes-per-string fingering by combining two traditional Pentatonic shapes, with some additional chromatic passing notes to add some extra colour.
Example 3 shows how a repeating lick can be used to create rhythmic interest. In this case an eight-note melodic pattern is played in a 16th-note triplet feel, which means each repeat of the phrase falls on a different beat.
Our fourth example has an F# Phrygian Dominant (1-b2-3-4-5-b6-b7) flavour and focuses on the use of single-string stretches.
For the final example we look at Dimebag’s trademark harmonics. To perform these, make sure you use a lot of gain and perhaps try Dime’s trick of engaging a wah pedal in the ‘toe forward’ position to help isolate the harmonics. Here we’re on the third string, but the concept works with any string. Start by placing your fretting finger directly over the fretwire at the 5th fret, then pick the string and release the finger simultaneously. The natural harmonic should sound clean and sustain healthily; although you can use a delay effect to increase the sustain too. The key to clean harmonics is accuracy, with a tolerance of less than a millimetre and the nearer the nut you move, the more accurate you will need to be. Once you can locate the ‘node’ points you can introduce the whammy bar to add scoops, pitch bends and vibrato to manipulate the harmonic. You could also try depressing the bar to slacken the strings, then quickly returning your whammy bar to its original position. The quick ‘snap back’ of the string, coupled with a finger touching the harmonic is the typical Dimebag technique, but will require practice to perfect.
For all the examples, start slow and relaxed, and focus on accurately plac
