Posts tagged metal
Top 10 Pick Squealers of All Time
Oct 6th
- Eddie Van Halen
There has always been a good deal of mystery surrounding the pinch harmonic, or, as hip players like to call it, “pick squeal.” A pick squeal is simply an artificial harmonic, or high-pitched sound, produced by choking up on the pick and allowing the thumb or thumbnail to catch the string in just as it is picked. The result, of course, resembles a squeal. Or a squawk. Or a scream. (It could take several tries before you get the desired s word.) Anyhow, what was once the domain of blues-rock string benders is now a staple for most metal guitarists. Here be the dudes who made it so.
10.) Greg Howe Sure, he’s moved on to smoother and faster fusion pastures, but early on in his rock career, velocity merchant Greg Howe used the pinch harmonic like it was going out of style. Listen to Howe II to hear him bend notes into frequencies perceptible only by canines. Sure, it went out of style. But it came back.
9.) John Sykes A speed freak of the scalar variety, Sykes really showed his know-how for the squeal upon joining Thin Lizzy for their 1983 swan song Thunder and Lightning. The repeated, howling fills in “Cold Sweat” were the precursor of the exaggerated squeals that became rampant in metal guitar playing during the decade. Later, Sykes would Top 40-fy the technique on Whitesnake’s “Still of the Night.”
