Techniques of the heroes: Buckethead

Okay, first things first. Brian Carroll, better known as Buckethead is one of the most bizarre sounding guitarists on the planet in a lot of people’s eyes. My personal favourite guitarist is Joe Satriani, so a lot of people wouldn’t expect me to even think of listening to some of Buckethead’s music; however, he does have a very unique style of playing and because of some of the advanced theory he’s worked into his playing, it goes without saying that his style is very hard for beginners to grasp. This mini-series on him will help you to understand some of the theory he’s using. Also I’ll give you the best look I can into the equipment he’s using and how he gets his signature sound from it.

First things first, the guitar of choice for Buckethead these days is his signature model developed specially for him by Gibson. This guitar features a thicker body than usual as well as some seriously powerful pickups, but something that perhaps you guitar doesn’t have is the kill-switches installed on his. What is a kill-switch? Essentially it’s like an off button that only works if you hold your finger on it; pull your finger off and the guitar sound comes back right as you left it. The reason why this is on his guitar is that he can tap it or them at a certain pulse or rhythm that he wants and gets a staircase sort of sound; anybody who has used a tremolo pedal will know what I am on about. This gives his guitar an extra dimension that other guitars wouldn’t otherwise have, much in the same way that a tremolo locking system on a guitar would allow people to use a whammy bar where other guitars don’t have that option. This is so that you don’t worry if you can’t get his exact sound straight away.

Mostly he uses amps with a lot of gain under the bonnet as well; notably a triple rectifier mesa boogie head and a Bogner Uberschall Head as well amongst others. He also frequently uses a digi-tech whammy pedal which allows him to raise or lower the note that he’s playing just by stepping on the pedal. The more he pushes the pedal the further out he pushes the note with completely down being one octave higher or lower than usual, although most pedals can be altered to fit each guitarist’s preference these days. Notably he uses his whammy pedal a lot on his track ‘Jordan’ to get some drastic note changes quickly and smoothly. The best way to use a whammy pedal is to plan out exactly what notes you’re going to play and practice that same pattern until you can play it without looking at the fret-board, and then try putting the pedal into the equation. The reason for this is simple: you fingers have more work to do than your foot so they need to be on form far more than your foot does.

Also his style of playing uses some pretty complex scales from time to time as well as some very familiar ones too. Before you go onto learning some of Buckethead’s stuff, it’s probably a good idea to learn some stuff like the modes and the pitch axis theory. Believe me this guy doesn’t make it easy for people trying to copy him. Here are three scales that I have heard him use before now to give you an idea of what you’re in for.

This first one is actually a variation of a scale called ‘Harmonic minor’. For those of you new to theory just use the scale and you should be fine. For those of you who know what the harmonic minor scale is, this scale is the same scale with the root note moved one position down in the scale. For both newbies to this scale and those who know a lot of theory this scale will sound weird and disconcerting most of the time, so don’t worry, it’s not you playing it wrong if it doesn’t seem to fit with a lot of songs.

E||------------------|------------------||------------------|-------------------|
B||------------------|------------------||------------------|-------------------|
G||------------------|----------6---9---||-9---6------------|-------------------|
D||--------------6---|-8---10-----------||---------10---8---|-6-----------------|
A||-7---8---10-------|------------------||------------------|-----10----8----7--|
E||------------------|------------------||------------------|-------------------|

Now here’s a much more familiar and easy to use scale, natural minor. This is a very emotional sounding scale, and it’s the one he’s using a lot of the time in ‘soothsayer’.

E||------------------|------------------||------------------|-------------------|
B||------------------|------------------||------------------|-------------------|
G||------------------|-----------7----9-||-9----7-----------|-------------------|
D||----------------7-|-9----10----------||----------10----9-|-7-----------------|
A||-7----9----10-----|------------------||------------------|------10----9----7-|
E||------------------|------------------||------------------|-------------------|

Now here’s a scale called Phrygian, which I know he uses on Nottingham lace.

E||------------------|------------------||------------------|-------------------|
B||------------------|------------------||------------------|-------------------|
G||------------------|-----------7----9-||-9----7-----------|-------------------|
D||----------------7-|-9----10----------||----------10----9-|-7-----------------|
A||-7----8----10-----|------------------||------------------|------10----8----7-|
E||------------------|------------------||------------------|-------------------|

Hope that this lesson has helped some of you out there. I’ll have the next one up as soon as possible.

Techniques of the heroes: Buckethead part 2

Take care guys and I’ll see you next time.