Luís Kalil – 'Boulevard' Reverse Tapping Lesson
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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MusicTranscript
00:00 [MUSIC]
00:06 Hey everyone, my name is Luis Calil and today I'm at Guitar World.
00:09 I actually can't believe I'm saying that.
00:11 [LAUGH]
00:12 I'm here to play my song Boulevard and present for you guys my technique of
00:15 reverse tapping, where you basically reverse the position of your hands and
00:19 opens a lot of new sounds and possibilities sonically.
00:23 And I'm gonna be playing on this awesome ESP LTD H3-1000,
00:28 featuring EMG pickups, TW models.
00:32 And I'm in drop D tuning, so hope you guys like the song as much as I do, all right?
00:37 Let's listen to it.
00:37 [MUSIC]
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04:07 All right, so now I'm gonna show you guys how to play the riffs and
04:11 lead parts that I use the most reverse tapping in this song.
04:15 So basically the riff, we're gonna start off like this.
04:18 Remember, we're in drop D tuning, so.
04:20 [MUSIC]
04:29 One thing that's very important, whenever you leave the fret like this.
04:32 [MUSIC]
04:35 Make sure you really make a pull off, and you pull the string hard so
04:40 it sounds very aggressive.
04:44 Also one very important tip, whenever you're using your right hand and
04:48 your left hand, make sure you play and press the frets as hard as you can.
04:53 Cuz you gotta push the sound and separate the notes.
04:56 This is the hardest thing about reverse tapping.
04:58 And any tapping in general is about making the notes pop out in the middle of
05:03 the mix or your band playing at the same time.
05:06 And making it sound clean and not muddy, because it's a hard technique to execute,
05:11 easy to sound muddy.
05:13 So pay attention to that and press the frets really hard, okay?
05:16 So second part is.
05:18 [MUSIC]
05:27 So this is a little feel that I do.
05:29 [MUSIC]
05:36 So when you get to.
05:38 You come back to the riff.
05:39 [MUSIC]
05:44 And in between, it's not on the original track, but I like doing the.
05:47 [MUSIC]
05:50 [LAUGH]
05:51 Just on the fret three, so strings D, G, and B.
05:55 So very Zach Wilde as well, and Sinister Gaze, I like.
05:58 [MUSIC]
05:59 Stuff like this, Dying Back Daryl, I love that shit.
06:02 So second riff goes like this.
06:04 Reverse tapping is not the main thing anymore, and I just add on the fills one
06:08 and two.
06:09 So you can come back to the riff later, so.
06:13 [MUSIC]
06:22 So.
06:23 [MUSIC]
06:29 Remember, this part of your arm is gonna mute everything that's above finger one
06:33 and everything below finger one will be muted by this finger here, okay?
06:37 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, a lot of the process of playing something and learning a
06:49 technique is about observing how it feels to play it right and how it feels when
06:54 you play it slow and you can mute everything.
06:57 So basically just get used to really aiming at the D string, which is the only
07:01 one you're playing, instead of hitting the other strings below and above and
07:06 making sounds that you don't want to, okay?
07:09 So second part of the riff is.
07:11 [MUSIC]
07:17 So basically really simple.
07:19 [MUSIC]
07:21 I'm just avoiding the.
07:23 You know, so that's why I play first with the.
07:25 [MUSIC]
07:28 As I said, an alternative way to connect the notes that, you know, it's really
07:32 specific on my taste.
07:34 So third and last part that I use the reverse tapping technique on the song is
07:37 basically you're only gonna use the G string.
07:40 And this is gonna play, it's a little faster, a little more complicated, but I
07:44 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
07:50 have.
07:51 You can just pick one string and you can start here and go crawling, you know,
07:56 towards the beginning of the next.
07:58 So.
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.
08:22 [MUSIC]
08:25 You know when Dimebag, for example, used on the walks all the.
08:30 So it's really important when you do, when you come back.
08:33 You.
08:35 You know, you do that, so.
08:37 [MUSIC]
08:48 And also that's really important.
08:49 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
08:55 finger.
08:56 All right.
08:57 So guys, hope you like these examples.
08:59 I'm loving being here at Guitar World Magazine.
09:01 It's a dream come true for me.
09:03 I cannot actually believe that I'm here.
09:05 So guys, thanks for having me.
09:07 Thanks ESP, EMG for all the support.
09:10 And make sure you follow me and my band Red Devil Vortex online.
09:14 You can find us anywhere from TikTok to Instagram.
09:18 And check out our merch as well.
09:19 If you want to know more about reverse tapping, I have the reverse tapping
09:22 online course that I recently dropped.
09:25 And it's all made by myself.
09:26 And I, you know, since the, from the landing page to the actual videos you see,
09:31 I edited everything and I put my best on it to share with you guys how to
09:35 incorporate this technique in your playing.
09:37 All right.
09:38 Thank you so much, guys.
09:39 [MUSIC]
09:46 [BLANK_AUDIO]