[Vince]

...recently.

Alright, Let's say we're working with a chromatic chord progression like this... B5, C5, B5, A#5, repeat. Each chord takes up 2 beats, so the pattern repeats in 2 measures of 4/4.

The bass & rhythm guitar are just playing the basic chords, no color tones, nothing unusual. The drums & percussion are clicking along at about 125 bpm.

What do you do?

I've tried running arpeggios similiar to Petrucci's in The Glass Prison, I've tried being ultra melodic, but when the chord changes to the A# I have problems resolving. I've thought of playing in B Locrian or B Phrygian for the first measure and then B harmonic minor for the second measure, and that works harmonically, but I can't seem to put together a melody or pattern that really works.

Any ideas? I'm fucking stumped here.

[InTheRavensName]

...fuck it, I'll sound arty

Turn the amps up, play through and just rip, go crazy, don't stress about what you're playing, your ear will probably keep you in key...but just wail, try whatever, maybe a different technique? Tapping?

[Vince]

Originally Posted by InTheRavensName

...fuck it, I'll sound arty

Turn the amps up, play through and just rip, go crazy, don't stress about what you're playing, your ear will probably keep you in key...but just wail, try whatever, maybe a different technique? Tapping?

lol, that was exactly how i started working on it! I wound up in an absolute mess of tapping on the G string

It's difficult to keep in key, because the underlying riff itself isn't in a particular key, it's chromatic.

[InTheRavensName]

oh right, well in that case I'm stumped,

you could go slayer on its ass, just rip the trem off the body haha

[distressed_romeo]

Why not treat B as the root note, and think of everything around that tonal centre? If you want a scale choice, how about B Double Harmonic: B C# D E F# G A#. You could try playing various diminished or chromatic ideas and resolving them to a tone of whatever chord you're on...

Or there's always the Kirk Hammet method of just playing blues licks over the whole thing...

[metalfiend666]

Just abuse the living shit out of your trem or a whammy pedal set to 2 octaves up. Works for me!

[Ken]

After reading this, I didn't really know what I'd do either, so down to the studio I went to find out what my brain had to offer. I left the drum track at 120 bpm, recorded the progression for a few measures, then started laying down lead work.

At first it was kinda sketchy, because the chord structure isn't diatonic. Time to get creative.

I found after a few runs at it that I liked E Harmonic Minor, with the tonal center on the 5th: B. You got 2 out of 3 of your notes, and the Bb just adds just enough flavor to spice it up a bit.

Of course, Harmonic Minor is one of my weak points, so I lost interest rather quickly after that.

[Dylan7620]

Originally Posted by desertdweller

the underlying riff itself isn't in a particular key, it's chromatic.

then you have your work cut out for you unleash the kerry king within!!!

[The Dark Wolf]

I did like Ken, and jammed it out, recorded it.

I was wanking with something in F phrygian that sounded acceptable. It feels like a pseudo resolution on F and Eb. As long as you throw some chromatic passing tones in there, kinda pitch diatonic melody out the window, and just let wankage begin, it sounds rather interesting.

[Durero]

The riff can be heard as diatonic to any scale that has 2 semitones in a row.

My personal favorite is Hungarian minor. I visualize hungarian minor on the guitar as 1,#2,3,4,#5,6,7 with 6 as the root.

But probably most others would prefer to think of it as 1,2,b3,#4,5,b6,7. This is the same as harmonic minor with a raised 4.
So over this progression you could think of A#=#4, B=5 & C=b6. So the notes in your scale would be: E, F#, G, A#, B, C, D#. I love the sound of this scale - give it a try

to strictly adhere to this scale, you would have to change the upper note of your last power-chord to E natural instead of E#(F). This would change the last chord of your progression to a tri-tone instead of a power-chord and would add a sense of pushing the music forward.