Surf music is a favourite genre of mine, nothing like the high speed double picking, and the aggression of the ocean coming through your amp. Yes I know not all surf music is speed picked, but it is a very important technique. Dick Dale is probably my biggest influence when it comes to total shred, using some of the ideas of his surf instrumentals in my own surf music writing I learned how to tremolo at high speed.

In this tutorial (I will do more on this subject this is part 1) I am going to tab out an example of a surf style dick dale song – it won’t be of one of his songs , but rather one of my own that I wrote inspired by him.

When you can get this style down , you’ll be able to fly on your guitar like a fighter jet, be careful of your picking, don’t tense up. In fact read my tutorial on speed picking on the lesson page.

Ok here we go I will make the main riff simple as to give you the idea – and allow you to tremolo pick the string without having to cross strings

Ok here we go the main riff will stay on the low E pick each note as 16ths (four times per note)

E—-0 —–0——-2——–3——-5——7—–5——3——2—-0—-0——-repeat riff 4 times——————

Now for part 2 move it to A string

A—-0 —–0——-2——–3——-5——7—–5——3——2—-0—-0——-repeat riff 2 times——————

Then move it back to low E

E—-0 —–0——-2——–3——-5——7—–5——3——2—-0—-0——-repeat riff 2 times——————

Now for the interlude it is on the A keep up the tremolo picking

A——2- ——2 ————3———-3————2———2———-3———–3 ——2——2——–0———

After the interlude go into what I call the solo of this song basically your repeating the main riff on the high e string repeat it 4 times. Still keep up that picking speed

After the solo go back to the A string pattern

A—-0 —–0——-2——–3——-5——7—–5——3——2—-0—-0——-repeat riff 2 times——————

And then the main riff repeat twice

E—-0 —–0——-2——–3——-5——7—–5——3——2—-0—-0——-repeat riff 2 times——————

End with a big E5 power chord let it ring.

This really isn’t a song, but something I whipped up to give you an idea one the style, try doing some of your own techniques with this you will be shredding away in no time.

© Brad Corpus 2005