Unpicking Yngwie Malmsteen’s arpeggio obsession
Swedish guitarist Yngwie Malmsteen might not be all that well known in the general metal sphere, but throughout the 1980s, he had hordes of fans raving about his neoclassical take on the genre. During his spells in Steeler and Alcatrazz, Malmsteen elevated what it meant to shred a guitar.
The outspoken grunge sceptic was known for his frank opinions and might be the only guitarist in the world not to gush with praise for Jimi Hendrix, who Malmsteen made a point of saying had no musical impact on him whatsoever. There were also the wild on-stage antics that saw him promptly kicked out of Alcatrazz following an onstage fistfight. But beneath the outspoken nature and raucous stage presence was a diligent, patient guitar player with a staggering technical proficiency.
But Malmsteen didn’t just stumble across his skill, and by his own admission, he had to work incredibly hard to master the guitar. He had a laser focus when it came to arpeggios, which he described in his Guitar World column as an area that “gives a lot of guitarists problems”.
But he came to master them after playing nonstop when he first picked up a guitar. Malmsteen came from a musical family, first forming a band at the age of ten with a school friend. This morphed into a teenage fascination with classical music, with Niccolò Paganini and Johann Sebastian Bach being key influences on the young guitarist.
“When I was first getting into the guitar, I played it incessantly. I lived it, breathed it, ate it and slept it,” he explained. “I was also extremely self-critical, so from early on, I made sure to develop good playing habits. I constantly strove to sound in tune and have a great tone, and to play cleanly and in time.”
His tendency towards criticism meant he was extremely tough on himself when he botched a note, saying: “I whipped myself mercilessly” whenever it happened. He never allowed himself to repeat a mistake because, to his mind, every guitarist wanted to be great – but few were willing to put in the work he was.
“If good intentions were all it took,” he said, “then everyone would be great.”
His unrelenting obsession with technical perfection allowed him to rise above the guitarists who could only get away with playing arpeggios over two or three strings, but Malmsteen had some prudent advice for those wanting to push to those spanning over five or six strings.
“The only way to really get any speed when playing these kind of arpeggios is to use sweep picking, picking three or more strings in the same direction with a single stroke,” he advised. “I think most guitarists have a general idea of how to approximate the sweep picking technique, but only a few truly play it correctly. That’s because most players simply don’t put in the time and effort necessary to master it.”
