In Part One, we dealt with using simple, basic techniques as spices in cooking up our riffs and licks. We examined a basic, two-bar lick that could be altered in various ways using slides, string skipping, and octave jumping. In Part II, we'll look at another way to flavor our melodies: the tremolo bar. (Acoustic guitarists - don't despair; the next part of the series will be possible on acoustic/non-tremolo guitars, as well.)

The tremolo, or "whammy" bar, as it's commonly known, is heard all over pyrotechnic guitar records to make extreme sounds. High-pitched sirens, squeals, and dive-bombs are all pretty intense and very cool techniques to use. There are numerous articles and video lessons describing how to produce these sounds. (Listen to any Pantera album to hear the late, great guitarist "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott use his trademark super-high pitched harmonics manipulated with the tremolo bar.) This excursion, however, is about something that is rarely discussed in "how-to" guitar books and articles - how to use the whammy in a subtle, melodic way to make the guitar sing rather than scream.

To make the most of your options, having a double-locking, "floating" system of the Floyd-Rose† type is ideal. This type of bridge allows pulling upward on the bar as well as dropping down; therefore it allows double the choices of a more traditional, Stratocaster (Fender®) style system that only allows detuning/lowering the pitch of the note(s). My personal settings allow an "up-pull" - a raising of a pitch - a minimum of one fourth, and a lowering of the strings to totally slack (dead, percussive notes). One major advantage of having the "double-locking" system is that the strings are clamped tightly at the nut, and are locked into their tuned pitch. This prevents the tension added from severe whammy use from pulling the strings out of tune. The techniques covered here, though, will not be so extreme. In this instance, the bar is used as a smooth, less-noticeable inflection device rather than a full-on aural assault. Let's look at some examples.

As in Part 1, we will use a two-bar lick, in 4/4 time, at a moderate pace. We'll start simple, and add spice as we go. Here's the basic starting lick:

Now, as we learned in Part 1, using slides can smooth up the feel...
Using the whammy, though, we can add a really seamless, vocal-like quality to the lick that is entirely different than the previous two lines:

As you can see, the quality of this technique lends a haunting, drifting sound to the lick. The second bar is a bit tricky, as the bar must be pulled up one full step PRIOR to sounding the note, and then slowly lowered to its level position for the unaltered note. This technique, both with the bar and in regular bending, is called a "ghost bend" as the listener doesn't hear the actual raising of the pitch - only the lowering. This particular lick has a totally different sound than the previous examples, thanks to the melodic use of the tremolo bar.

Here's another example, this time using open strings as well as fretted notes. Let's use this example as a base:

We can add that ethereal, flowing sound using the tremolo bar, and drifting into notes with bends rather than playing straight notes. When studying/playing this example, be sure to remain disciplined with the bar, and

hit the correct notes. Going too high/low with the bar will make the line sound sloppy:
This example obviously has a different sound! If done properly, it is reminiscent of slide bar use or Hawaiian/steel guitar passages.

Experimenting with soft, deliberate tremolo bar techniques will add graceful, melodic flow to your passages, just as abusing the bar can produce extreme, over-the-top effects. Next time, we'll look at some other tactics that you can add to your sonic spice collection to season up those bland-tasting riffs.

† Floyd Rose refers to Floyd D. Rose, who invented his namesake locking tremolo bridge - the first of its kind - in 1977. The many types of double-locking systems currently available are essentially variants on the Patented Floyd Rose Original design.