Luís Kalil stopped by Guitar World studios to give us another lesson in reverse tapping. This time for his song, "Boulevard," the title track from the 2-song EP featuring Dirk Verbeuren (former Soilwork) on drums and Lucas Arruda (Jack The Joker) on bass.
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00:06 Hey everyone, my name is Luiz Calil and today I'm at Guitar World.
00:09 I actually can't believe I'm saying that.
00:11 I'm here to play my song "Boulevard" and present for you guys my technique of reverse tapping.
00:17 Where you basically reverse the position of your hands and it opens a lot of new sounds and possibilities sonically.
00:22 And I'm going to be playing on this awesome ESP LTD H3-1000 featuring EMG pickups TW models.
00:31 And I'm in drop D tuning so I hope you guys like the song as much as I do, alright?
00:36 Let's listen to it.
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04:06 Alright, so now I'm going to show you guys how to play the riffs and lead parts that I use the most reverse tapping in this song.
04:16 So basically the riff we're going to start off like this.
04:19 Remember we're in drop D tuning so...
04:21 [Music]
04:29 One thing that's very important whenever you leave the fret like this...
04:33 [Music]
04:36 Make sure you really make a pull off, you know?
04:40 And you pull the string hard so it sounds very aggressive.
04:44 Also one very important tip, whenever you're using your right hand and your left hand,
04:50 make sure you play and press the frets as hard as you can,
04:54 because you've got to push the sound and separate the notes.
04:57 This is the hardest thing about reverse tapping, and any tapping in general.
05:00 It's about making the notes pop out in the middle of the mix or your band playing at the same time,
05:07 and making it sound clean and not muddy, because it's a hard technique to execute, easy to sound muddy.
05:14 So pay attention to that and press the frets really hard, okay?
05:17 So second part is...
05:19 [Music]
05:28 This is a little fill that I do.
05:30 [Music]
05:37 So when you get to...
05:39 You come back to the riff.
05:41 [Music]
05:45 And in between, it's not on the original track, but I like doing the...
05:48 [Music]
05:51 Just on the fret 3, so strings D, G and B.
05:56 It's still very Zach Wilde as well, and Sinister Gaze, I like...
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06:00 Stuff like this, Dimebag Darrell, I love that shit.
06:03 So second riff goes like this.
06:05 Reverse tapping is not the main thing anymore, and I just add on the fills 1 and 2,
06:10 so you can come back to the riff later.
06:14 [Music]
06:23 So...
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06:30 Remember, this part of your arm is going to mute everything that's above finger 1,
06:34 and everything below finger 1 will be muted by this finger here, okay?
06:38 This is the best tip I can give you to mute the strings.
06:41 And also make sure you press really hard the strings, as I said before.
06:45 And it's really...
06:47 A lot of the process of playing something and learning a technique is about observing,
06:52 how it feels to play it right, and how it feels when you play it slow and you can mute everything.
06:58 So basically just get used to really aiming at the D string, which is the only one you're playing,
07:04 instead of hitting the other strings below and above and making sounds that you don't want to, okay?
07:10 So second part of the riff is...
07:12 [Music]
07:18 So basically really simple.
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07:21 I'm just avoiding the...
07:23 You know, so that's why I play first with the...
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07:28 As I said, an alternative way to connect the notes that, you know, it's really specific on my taste.
07:34 So third and last part that I use the reverse tapping technique on the song,
07:37 is basically you're only going to use the G string.
07:40 And this is going to play, it's a little faster, a little more complicated,
07:44 but I think it's something really cool for you guys to work on.
07:47 And also you can use this in any solo that you want, any kind of scale that you have.
07:51 You can just pick one string and you can start here and go crawling, you know, towards the beginning of the next.
07:59 [Music]
08:18 So this is a really important thing as well.
08:20 In the end, you notice, you can notice that I do...
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08:26 You know when Dimebag, for example, used on the walks all the...
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08:31 So it's really important when you do, when you come back...
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08:34 You...
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08:36 You know, you do that, so...
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08:48 And also, that's really important.
08:50 It's like your pick attack when you don't have the pick,
08:52 because you don't have enough time to come back with the pick, so just use your finger, alright?
08:56 So guys, hope you like these examples.
08:59 I'm loving being here at Guitar World Magazine.
09:02 It's a dream come true for me.
09:03 I cannot actually believe that I'm here.
09:06 So guys, thanks for having me.
09:08 Thanks ESP, EMG for all the support.
09:11 And make sure you follow me and my band Red Devil Vortex online.
09:15 You can find us anywhere from TikTok to Instagram.
09:18 And check out our merch as well.
09:20 If you want to know more about reverse tapping,
09:22 I have the reverse tapping online course that I recently dropped.
09:25 And it's all made by myself.
09:27 And I, you know, since the...
09:29 From the landing page to the actual videos you see,
09:32 I edited everything and I put my best on it to share with you guys
09:35 how to incorporate this technique in your playing, alright?
09:38 Thank you so much, guys.
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