Mag Guitar World Stairway To Heaven

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IMMY PAGE: "STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN" Hybrid pick, skip and scale your way up Led Zeppelin's celestial steps. BY NICK BOWCOTT

WENM E STUDIO vef~ionof "StaltWay TO Heaven" first saw the Iimt of day back In Novernberof 1971, It was hailed as a true muslcal masterpiecethe deflnitlw hard mk ballad. Two decades later, this flnely textured work of art still stands head and shoulders above anything in it's genre. Guitar Warkl celebrates the song's 20th anniversary with a transcrlptlan of the live version of the Zeppelin classic from the soundtrack atbum, The Sorg Remains m e &me. What makes thls performance of special Interest is Page's ingenious arrangement of the multi-layered tune for one guitar. This adaptation has b m m e the blueprint for other gultartsts who aspire to perform the classlc rock standard. HEAVEN'S GATE

The song's Introductoryfour-bar phrase Is perhaps the most famous and Instantly wognlrable passage of Rs type. If a p proached sensibly, It's not as dlfflcult as

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It sounds. Before you attempt to play pluckingthe ist-stringnote with your rightthese inltial four bars, notlce that the left hand middle flnger (see Flg. 3). The pickhand is merely hotdlng down some r&a- Ing pattern for the remalningnotes of each Is provided in Flgure 4. tively slmpie chord shapes, as Figure I chord In Section I Incldentalfy, one reason the first three shows. Once you can finger this chord sequence smoothty and comfortably, chords in sectlon 1sound st,hauntlng is you're ready to work on performing the the contrary motlon of the 1st and 4thstring notes. Page cleverly comblnes a passage as Pafie does. chrometic descent on the 4th ~ W n g with HYBRID PICKING The chordal arpeggiatlan In the above pas- an ascending line on the 1st string (see sage can be performed by flngerpicking. Fig. 5). Sections 2 and 8 But Jimmy, like many rock gultarlsts, employs &Md picking, a a n i q u e where- Section 2 of Rgure 2 Is fairly easy to deal by a flat plck Is used in conjuctfon with the wRh. The suggested hybrld plckingpattern right hand's free fingers to pick the and kll-hand fingerings are shown In Figure 6. sttjngs. In Sectlon 3 (Rg. 2), the second of the To explain Page's use of this simple, but hlghly effective, economical plcklng two A minor shapes can be play$ with a . technique In 'Stairway," I'm going to break straightforward pick strum (downstroke). the first four bars of the song down Into But the first Am shape and the G/B chord three sectlons (see Flg. 2). Before going that precedes It requlre you to use the any further, hold the plectrum between hybrld pkking approach illustrated In Figyour rlght-hand thumb and Index finger. ure 7. As you can see, the 5th 4 t h and This will enable you to use your pinky, rlng 2nd strings are sounded slmukaneously by the plck strlklng the 5th strlng while and middle fingers for plucking. the rlght-hand middle and ring fingers Sactlon 1 Section 1of Figure 2 conslsts of four pluck the 3rd and 2nd strings, respectlvarpegglated chords which change every ley. Once ypu'v6 mastared all thtee sections two beats. As you can see by looking at the tablature, each new chord shape Is separately, you should encounter few Introduced by simultanaousty soundlng problems when ptaylng them together as notes on the 1st and 4th strings. Plck the a dngle entlty. Breaklna down a difficult 4th-string note with a downstroke while passage into sectlons Ilks thls is ofken 4

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Figure 9 Is another example of how excerpt (bars 87-89)from the fourth verse of the song,Performing this figure would Jlmmy uses hybrld picking. Here, all notes h y h d plcking. The .-per you d e b into h quite cumbersome to execute with a on tjk 1st string are plucked wtth me @ht "Stairway," the more you'll appreciate Ule flatpick, due to the large amMlnt of strlng hand mMle finger white the rest are either usefulness of hybrld plcking, partlcufarlly sklpping Involved. By simply availing ywr- plcked or slid Into. Wlthout question, in those areas where the arpea+ations self of the plucking capabilities of your hybrid pidcing is a technlque worth maw b m e faster and somewhat more corn right hand's middle and ring fingers, as tefln$ It makes certdn plcking parssages plFcated from a right-hand perspectl~.R& susested In Rgure 8, ell such striwskip easler and can open up many new gum1 ure 8, for example, depicts a threebar plng hurdles are remowd. playing possibilities.

TRANSCRIBED BY KEN* CHIPKIN

WORDS AND MUSIC BY JIMMY PAGE AND ROBERT PLANT

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"Stairway T o Heaven"

TRAISCRIBED BY KLNN CHIPKIN

WORDS AND MUSIC BY JIMMY PAGE AND ROBERT PLANT

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