ACDC - Back In Black...hands up!

Dopesick

I've played guitar for fifteen years (on and off) and honestly I've never even attempted playing this track. Guess I'll try when I get home.

RocknRollDave

57Deluxe said:

RocknRollDave said:

The harder part is not fudging up the chromatic thing at the end of the second part of the riff, for me

I have derived a cheat mode for this. In the heat of the fight no-one notices!

http://i65.tinypic.com/2z9irrd.jpg

Strange as it is - I have got an 8 year old playing the main chord riffs on a nylon 3/4 acoustic with just 2 finger chords!
Em Dsus2 Asus2

Dude, that looks harder than the proper notes!

randella

RocknRollDave said:

57Deluxe said:

RocknRollDave said:

The harder part is not fudging up the chromatic thing at the end of the second part of the riff, for me

I have derived a cheat mode for this. In the heat of the fight no-one notices!

http://i65.tinypic.com/2z9irrd.jpg

Strange as it is - I have got an 8 year old playing the main chord riffs on a nylon 3/4 acoustic with just 2 finger chords!
Em Dsus2 Asus2

Dude, that looks harder than the proper notes!

All on the low E for me, just the way I figured it out at the time.

Voxman

There are loads of licks I do struggle with of course - but have to say BIB isn't one of them.  Perhaps I'm just lucky because its a very natural bluesy-feeling lick for me and isn't dis-similar to the riff from 'Shaking all over';

Babones

HarrySeven

Never tried it 'cos I can't stand it.

andyp

This thread makes me feel a bit better...

I've been trying BiB for nearly the entire 2 years I've been learning. I pretty much gave up with it for about 9 months though until about January this year and asked my guitar teacher what I was doing wrong... playing / trying it too fast was his suggestion and he was right. I sat down the day after that and nailed it totally, out of nowhere. But now I struggle again. It's the open notes on the high E and B that cause my issue. I don't give them enough time to sound out and I rush it. It's actually slower than it sounds I think. The G bend and pull off was a literal pain for ages though but I forced myself to crack that bit.

Even with all this practice (god know how many times I've played the riff) it's still hit and miss as to whether I get the timing right or not.

breakstuff

Me too.Can't seem to get it right.

But,then again,you could say that about most of my playing.

randella

octatonic said:

I don't have trouble with it- the main issue I see is both guitarists in a 2 guitar band trying to play it t the same time, which can make it sound weird if their timing is slightly off.
Better to decide who is going to be Angus and who is going to be Malcolm.

The other thing I see people doing is ripping out some ridiculously fast modal solo over it.
That doesn't work for me.

Wis @octatonic ;

The received wisdom is that the focal point of AC/DC has long been Angus and, failing that, either Bon or Brian. For me it's Malcolm. The early stuff in particular, 'Long Way to the Top', 'Jailbreak', all about Malc - back against his Plexis, hammering that old Gretsch. Angus I think has always known this and gives him room which is why the two guitar dynamic works so well in that band. Two egos bashing the same riff just wouldn't have been anywhere near.

I love this - goes a long way to explain what I'm on about (plus props to Brian making a decent fist of one of Bon's signature tunes):

https://youtu.be/85Nsyib4bv8

mike_l

RocknRollDave said:

The harder part is not fudging up the chromatic thing at the end of the second part of the riff, for me

That's easier played all on the low E string, rather than across the E and A strings (how it's usually tabbed).
 Leave you little finger on the 7th fret and work from there.


As for the little bluesy bend thing, get your timing right by fretting the notes without bending, and then once you can play them fretted in time the bend thing will be easier to time. At least that's how I was taught it.

TTBZ

I've never managed to get it quite right either and it does my head in!

Jalapeno

The chromatic bit seems harder to me as the whole band has to lock-in and nail it.

My stumbling point has always been the opening lick of Layla - just can't get the hammer on/pull offs sounding right.

UnclePsychosis

AC/DC always struck me as being the kind of band that sound like it should be easy to cover but turns out you actually need a skill that a lot of guitarists are missing - impeccable timing. 

See also Green Day - BJA's parts just seem like palm muted power chords which should be easy, right? Thing is, the rhythm is so tight that you barely ever see bands being able to nail it. 

stratman3142

UnclePsychosis said:

AC/DC always struck me as being the kind of band that sound like it should be easy to cover but turns out you actually need a skill that a lot of guitarists are missing - impeccable timing. 

See also Green Day - BJA's parts just seem like palm muted power chords which should be easy, right? Thing is, the rhythm is so tight that you barely ever see bands being able to nail it. 

AC/DC have a certain groove that's difficult to capture as well.

A few years ago (on the Reaper forum) I tried to recreate the backing to BIB (see link below) but it ended up sounding pretty stiff. My midi drum programming probably didn't help

http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=69607&styleid=12

I used my HSS Strat, and another thing I learned was that the chords don't sound quite solid enough with a floating trem bridge. I can hear a discernible slight wobble in the pitch.

Still it was a useful learning exercise.

tone1

Am I right in thinking that they detune slightly from A=440?

usedtobe

tone1 said:

Am I right in thinking that they detune slightly from A=440?

I think so...

rico

It's never struck me as particularly tricky! 

Voxman

The thing about AC/DC is that their stuff seems straightforward - until you try to replicate it properly with 2 guitar parts. Although Angus has the image and is renowned for the fancier noodling, its not until you really listen to what Malcolm does that you realise just how good a rhythm player he is, how good AC/DC are as a cohesive unit and how vital Malcolm is to the AC/DC sound - he is a fabulous rhythm player and a walking metronome - the only other rhythm guitarist I can think of that similarly stands right up there is the late, great Rick Parfitt.  

A good example of the way that Angus & Malcolm work seamlessly together is a track with relatively lead guitar, that we are currently trying to get right - 'Shoot to thrill'.  This is a great power track that really rocks along - you can do it with one guitar, but if you want to get the real 'drive' 'power' and 'bounce' you have to have two guitarists playing very tightly together.  We've been working on this for a few weeks and believe me its a lot harder to do with both guitar parts than you might imagine - you've got to be absolutely spot on timing wise together or it sounds naff.  

Voxman

rico said:

It's never struck me as particularly tricky! 

And nor me to be honest. But we are all 'wired' differently and there are plenty of other riffs I struggle with that others can pick up and play very naturally.  

viz

Maybe stop trying to think of the run as 8 notes, but as a group of 3 and a group of 5? Or   groups of 4? I think the latter is what I do.