BILLY CORGAN's 19 Greatest Guitar Techniques!
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- čas přidán 3. 11. 2019
- One of my favorite guitarist/songwriters of the 90's. Love his unique style. Check out all our instructional videos at: www.the-art-of-guitar.com and Patreon: / theartofguitar
Thanks! - Hudba
For people asking about my effects chain it's: Boss Harmonist, Big Muff, Dragoon Overdrive, Boss Phaser, into my 1979 Deluxe Reverb played with my 2006 Fender Strat Deluxe.
Thanks for posting what you were using. What Big Muff did you use?
I really admire your respect and mastery of the tones and techniques you presented here.
Would you say the boss harmonizer fattens your sound? Especially when paired with fuzz? Also. Does the boss harmonized do just as good a job with a distortion pedal. Or would I be better off buying a double tracking guitar pedal (for example the tc electronic Mimiq)
Big muff enough said. Lately have been looking into the gear of billy and the big muff always comes up btw great video. As an aspiring guitarist billy Corgan is definitely up there as my inspirations and this definitely helps break down what I want to take away from his techniques.
I hope you are using .008's, or I'm a wimp. 😂
The bends with vibrato have always killed me... And his solos are almost all really wide bends with awesome vibrato. The only other guy who really does it for me vibrato-wise is Marty Friedman.
My favorite Billy Corgan technique is re-record the other members' parts after they leave the studio.
Holy fuck this is the greatest comment ever
hahaaha. after 5 secs. hahahahaa
Perhaps his most effective! ;-)
Hahahahahahahahahahahaha
To be fair, he made the band one of the biggest alt rock bands of his time. So I guess its justified
Octaves (over open strings) 1:01
Chord inversions 2:29
high string harmonies 3:41
Lead line overdubs 4:44
Octave tremolo picking 5:35
Octave below soloing 6:55
Slow mo bend 7:42
Floating melody patterns 8:43
Prebends(rocket) 9:33
Incidental open strings10:33
The corgan bend 11:21
Flamenco pre strum 12:41
Pentatonic box motifs 13:46
Open string chord staek 15:22
Drop d and c# 16:35
Low string natural harmonies(natural harmonics) 17:24
Slash chord alterations(bullet with butterfly wings) 18:48
Explosive vibrato 20:09
Signal note metal riffs 21:50
Thank you, I hope your girl gets this much attention.🤔
Thx!! The last one could be "Single Note Metal Riffs"
You’re god among me. Thanks bro
Staek
Thanks bro.
Siamese Dream is still my favorite album of all time. I played that thing from start to finish at least twice a day for years. Wore out 2 cassette tapes before eventually getting the CD. I just could not get sick of it. I don't know what my second most listened to album is but I know it is a distant second.
Same, bought it without really hearing them, played it non stop saw them a month later for the first of many times.
One of the greatest albums of all time.
Still is amazing today
yeah i totally agree. even tho i dont listen to the pumpkins quite as frequently these days Siamese Dream is still my favourite album of all time cuz there isn't one bad song on it. there are many albums i absolutely love but there are almost always a few duds on them.
Same
Billy Corgan and John Frusciante are more musical geniuses than their celebrity fame.
There are millions of unknown guitarists who are better in every way. So no, NOT agreed
@@TheSandkastenverbot guitar fans are the worst for real
@@TheSandkastenverbot you know these millions of people? what do you mean every way? do they make money? its very nice to be "the best" guitar player, but you are an idiot if you cant make money while being it.
@@TheSandkastenverbotTechnical proficiency isn't all that impressive. They are unknown because they didn't write great music or songs.
@@ska4dragonsyah I love how guitar fans seem to forget that not everyone wants to see fancy ass guitarists play their fancy ass shit. Sometimes the most simple stuff is the best.
Billy Corgan is one of the best benders in the business IMO. So expressive. I can usually tell it's him just from his bends and/or vibrato.
Like on Ric Ocasek's solo album "Troubilizing" that Billy produced which is pretty much a Smashing Cars album at the end of the day 😃
He's the master Bender with a Blender.
@@mattgilbert7347 and a fender
@@dg3513 Smashing Cars is a pretty cool supergroup name too
Maybe that why I love him and David Gilmour (pink floyd).
i'd love one of these for johnny greenwood. or radiohead in general since ed o'brein also does lots of cool stuff
concur.
you might not be into Blur, I'm not entirely familiar with all of their stuff, but in the 8th grade, aka 1998 or so was the era i learned guitar, and i read a interview or article talking about their new guitarist entering the band on that album or so at that time,
that had, Coffee and Tv on it...i learned in the article about his use of a vintage Boss 80's effects pedal they don't make anymore, i think some of the same ones Prince used, i forget exactly now, it's a good article to look up, maybe it was Guitar or Guitar World magazine
..he gets it to sound all detuned and like a musical box for the solo part of, "Country Sad Ballad Man"...
@@DonnieSmooth That guitarist would be Graham Coxon, but he wasn't new, he was a founding member, and "13" was their 6th album. Great guitarist, too.
When I saw that live video of Radiohead I think it was Jools Holland they played "Paranoid Android" and I was honestly amazed how great they sounded live it sounded spot on to the actual album version it was awesome!!
yes and I'd actually love some Ed techniques. He plays the guitar so calm and smooth like a violin and creates his own atmosphere, underrated af
And billy corgan is very underrated as a guitarist
I disagree. Every muso i have ever known puts BC on the pedestal he deserves
lol not when you compare him to almost any other famous guitar player
i dont think so...he s very famous all around the world......obviously if you 'd ask to my grand mother she didnt know him very well.....
@@elymolloy8333 he's a great songwriter and a great player, there are very few alt rock guitarists who have achieved more over the past few decades.
@@bgilley8199 The coolest thing is that he was one of the best in that era and he knew it. Every other guitarist was trying to do the punk/indie/Kurt Cobain reluctant rockstar thing and Billy was playing guitar like Van Halen was still in style. Absolute beast.
I respect Corgan for not making a Siamese Dream 2 but i really wish he made a Siamese Dream 2.
Listen to pisces iscariot. It's the B side to siamese dream and it stands super well on it's own. It's essentially another album. Because there's also bonus demo material for siamese dream as well. Starla is definitely one of my favorite songs off of it.
Hot take I think Oceania is the closest thing
Siamese Dream 2: Electric Boogaloo
And yeah, Starla is an amazing song.
Buying the Mellon Collie and Siamese Dream albums in 2006 is what opened up the rest of the music world to me. It was amazing to finally see the band live last year (3 hour 15 minute show!).
How old are ya ?
You always have to give an extra bonus to these lead singers whom are also the lead guitarists as that multi-tasking is well beyond being able to focus entirely on one task.
Corgan is ambidextrous though as far as I know, which probably helps
Except that his playing while singing live is sloppy. He's a great guitarist and a decent singer, but doing both at the same time... not so great
Bruce L. I’d say that what he does do is better than most attempting to play and sing what he does. He has gotten better also. Saw them at their last US date this year and they played well. Not perfect, but wasn’t a slopfest either. Even closed the show with Aeroplane Flies High, which was a pleasant surprise.
I hold the opinion that a guitar player that isn’t afraid of being somewhat sloppy on stage (again, not TOTAL slop, but just isn’t stressed about hitting every note exactly in time) tends to be able to let the music flow thru them easier and this can lead to not only some entertaining “happy accidents” that can sound really cool, but also pour more of their emotions of the moment into their playing. This isn’t necessarily all positive or all negative, but could go either way since if they’re in a lousy mood, that means a lousy show and unhappy fans. But when their mood is conducive for the music that’s being played, it can be amazing.
Other than James Hetfield he played guitar and sang and was amazing at it live!!
So true. I’ve tried singing and playing simultaneously in Guitar Hero on songs I knew like the back of my hand for years and found it almost impossible. Sort of like juggling....with your feet, while rubbing your tummy and patting your head.
People like Hetfield, Corgan, or anyone at all who can do it is fucking impressively talented.
We need a Johnny Marr techniques video.
1:46 Cherub Rock (Main riff)
2:03 1979
3:11 Cherub Rock (Chorus rhythm)
4:05 Cherub Rock (Solo)
5:02 Cherub Rock (Chorus lead)
7:25 Quiet
8:03 Today (Chorus)
8:56 Today (Intro lead)
9:13 Today (Intro rhythm)
10:04 Rocket
11:01 Soma
11:37 (Technique used a lot in the Soma solo among others)
13:03 Disarm
14:17 Geek USA (Solo)
15:41 Spaceboy
16:51 Jellybelly (Intro)
18:11 Zero
19:59 Bullet with Butterfly Wings
22:11 Where Boys fear to Thread
22:45 Tales of a Scorched Earth
bro thank you so much
THANK YOU
Soma has the greatest solo ever written.
totally agree
Billy Corgan and Smashing Pumpkins are the most underrated Band for the level of contribution to Rock in Roll Music. I still have not heard all their work and I try too. That's how deep their catalog is.
Finally attention to the great Corgan. Just in time for new solo release this month. Love his slow bends.
Totally remember them opening with "Soma" at Lollapalooza and almost losing my mind because it was (and still is) my favorite tune off of Siamese Dream.
Loved the Darcy picture in the background
Same here, Corgan would be pissed off if he had seen this 😂
I always knew he was a genius. for me, the 90's were the Pumpkins era. they had to much emotion in their songs, and always loved Billy's unique voice.
Sophisticated techniques. Billy Corgan is a genius.
i always thought he was an angel-voiced guitar wizard. this guy broke it down pretty well
Billy really is underrated as a guitarist. People obviously talk about what a great songwriter/arranger he is, but seldom do I hear people talk about his tone and leads. Dude throws in these awesome little lead parts, like in "Ava Adore" and "Here Is No Why," that are just amazing.
And D'arcy IS the 90s to me. I had a huge crush on her. I was so excited about the reunion, but lost interest when I heard she wasn't involved. It's not really SP without D'arcy.
Because he's overhyped enough as a musician. No need to overhype him as a guitarist as well
Petition to fund a time machine to go back in time and rescue D'Arcy from herself.
Atleast she's still alive
@@leob4403 After we rescue her from herself, I'm staying behind. I liked that decade much better than any after.
Shutup simp
And Jimmy and Jonathon Melvoin. Tho Jimmy is doing much better now but I’m sure he still feels responsible for Jonathan’s death.
Save Ian Curtis and Kurt Cobain too. & make blink-182 never break up
Omg thank you for this vid! Billy is amazing his musical talent and authentic personality ! Love hearing more of you playing his songs 🤘🤘🤘🤘
The idea of “incidental” open strings is my personal favorite. I use it in chord progressions constantly, but never attributed it to Corgan. Thanks for pointing it out.
Peter Buck does it all the time.
I genuinely jumped out of my seat and cheered when you started playing Jellybelly. Such a massive song.
I feel the floating melodie over thick chords trick is really the pixies influence shining through on almost every alternative 90s band. Love your cideos
holy shit dude awesome thanks for making this, im a huge fan of billy corgan and his lead work, very underrated as a lead guitarrist imo
saw the Gish tour and a later the Siamese dream tour 3 nights in a row... on Acid.... so incredible
That "Corgan bend" and "Explosive vibrato" are absolutely spot-on Billy signature. I wasn't able to find out what exactly he's doing to get that special "something" into it, but realized it the very moment you showed. Thanks a lot!
Billy was a shredder before pumpkins thats why he is so good !!
Your artist series is great for beginner and advanced guitarists. You capture the guitarist motiff and explain it well. Thanks.
Underrated guitar player. Your video is probably the only one on YT about him.
I would have added a 20th technique : his use of dead notes especially in his solos.
One of my favourite guitarists. So underrated.
Wow. You gave me a greater appreciation for Billy's playing as I now understand how he does what he does. That was cool.
Really dug this video. Billy’s easily my favorite guitarist, his solos just always seem to add the proper energy to the song. The solo in Soma is my favorite, and I’d consider just a perfect, emotionally charged piece of music. Thanks again for putting this vid out.
Nice, one of my all time favorite guitarists too! So underrated
Yep! Even made me a Bat Strat in white 😆 Along with my Marshall and OpAmp they sound sweet. Thier on my page
just watched, incredibly grateful you uploaded this! cant believe you saw them at Lollapalooza, thank you again!!
Corgan is an inspiration to many musicians. Thanks for this!
Thanks for posting this. I have been trying to cobble together a list of Billy’s techniques, and this made it simple.
Love this demonstration and discussion - wonderful to have someone explain a bit about my favorite artist
Wow this made me realize how much they influenced me in my songwriting as far as choruses are concerned.
Great lesson because Smashing pumpkins contribution to alt rock cannot be overstated!!! Billy Corgan is also another very underrated guitarist & arranger by the way!!!!🙏🙏🙏
Excellent lesson!
The rhythms and his voicing choices, are very unique.
I love the clean tones, that transform by either phaser or Uni-vibe, with an endless delay/reverb sound, then just compressed Muff tones bursting through the mix.
I also used to love mashing Today, with Grateful Dead China Cat, just to upset hardcore dead heads. 🤗
Nicely done- I’ve been a SP fan since Gish. Just got back into playing their tunes again. Always fun. 👍🏻
Thanks for the great video! SP is my favorite band and that of course is because of Billy Corgan. I used to play their music on guitar years ago but haven't played in a long time. This video inspires me to pick it back up and try these techniques.
This was an awesome video! I’m a long time drummer learning to play guitar and as you might expect I’m trying to soak up everything. This was very on-point and very helpful!
That’s been a great tutorial, thank you! I just realized that I use so many of his tricks.. I started playing guitar by figuring out their guitars 🎸☺️
Aw thanks for this, I don’t know the guitar but I adore Billy Corgan and the Pumpkins with my heart and soul so it’s nice to see you doing this 🙌🏻🙌🏻
Been waiting for this one, thanks a ton!
We faithful students humbly beseech thee to release more artist series videos!! They are of tremendous import to me personally- I have grown considerably as a musician beacuse of them. You are truly one of the greats, sir. Keep up the GREAT work.
Been waiting for this! Thank you!
Great video dude! Billy Corgan is propably my favorite guitarist so I'm definetly gonna watch this again
Amazing work as usual, thanks for sharing !!!
Amazing video and the Darcy’s picture was the icing on the cake !
Great video and tips for Billy’s sound. Thanks man!
Really glad I watched this, you covered a lot in 20 mins!
Great video!
I've always adored the Pumpkins and Billy's entire musical output.
But this video really reignited my love for it all. And helped put a lot of disparate ideas into context.
I'm about to play guitar for a few hours, as I do every evening, and I think I'll try to put some of this to work.... :D
Great video man. I'm definitely bookmarking this one!! Thanks!
Damn a lot of these clips perfectly capture that melodic and sometimes badass and sometimes beautiful guitar sound
Nice quick pace and very informative. I started playing right when melancholy came out. Didn't realize Billy was such an influence on me. I do a lot of these techniques which feels like 2nd nature at this point. Great job man. I'll work on my bends!
what a great breakdown of the subtleties.. way to go
Ever since I learned cherub rock I fell in love with sliding octaves
22:45 One of my favorite riffs from Corgan. That tone that you got is insane
This is awesome. I really dig the corgan bend ! It's exciting to recreate some of those sounds. These technique videos really fill a gap in learning these songs for me. It's the pumpkins flavor
Great call on the Strength Beyond Strength similarity. Great look at all things Corgan. I'd also call some of the open stringed arpeggios as indicated on Thru The Eyes of Ruby as classic Corgan.
I love your on screen text choice, just like vieuphoria. So 90's, so SP.
I only just came across this video. Really helpful and well explained
i bet, corgan just did the "Octaves (over open strings)" thing, to show everyone the middle finger, while he is playing.
Been waiting for this one!
Your Strat is freakin awesome. Basically it's my dream set up because I learned on a Fender Mustang with the exact same color scheme..black pick guard, rosewood fingerboard, etc.. Cool.
Crazy how so much of my guitar playing style comes from the techniques you demonstrate here. 90% of the songs I learned in the beginning and intermediate stages were Pumpkin songs... so go figure. They have such a diverse catalogue that there are a lot of things to learn at all levels of playing. I remember the octave chords being called the Hendrix chord back in the day. Great stuff... thank you.
Brilliant, learnt loads from this, and plenty of ideas to practice.
Awesome video! I'd love to see you do a video on Elliott Smith's guitar techniques sometime!
The contacts are weirding me out.
The contacts make it hard for me to take him seriously. Your eyes are the most memorable thing about your appearance. So when you wear contacts like that, the most memorable thing about your appearance is fake. Seems like something a woman would do.
I think it looks cool. Just to change it up occasionally. NBD
Kinda cringe
I don’t know what you’re seeing?
To me it just looks like the reflection of 2 studio lights.
Was wondering what looked so different about him. Was there an explanation about them in another video?
I been playing 25 years and learned a lot here. Love pumpkins!
I played ZERO once with a former band project, that was much fun... 😜🤘
Yeah, You did a great overview of his techniques. Thanks so much, gives me some motivation to retry some of the infinite sadness songs...
Those slow bends are why Soma always gets me in the feels even 20 years later.
I love your videos , my 44 year old brain is thinking I wish my 18 year old brain had videos like this to watch on a daily basis back in the day !
76 or 77 ?
Thanks so much. I've been after exactly this for a while :) brilliant
Great video! The fonts were just icing on the cake. ;-)
Wow man , your precision and playing overall is awesome
A deep thanks for your techniques videos, I’m getting a lot from them
Especially awesome your touching on my fav bands 🙏
amazing video. brilliant!
I'm not a guitar player, but am a lifelong smashing pumpkins fun and found this very entertaining, sincere and helpful! I also have to make note of your clever use of font for the subtitles. ;) I've attempted playing guitar enough times to know I make a great piano player! ;) Cheers
Dave Navarro uses that same octave technique in the intro for warped it’s really cool!
Darcy picture at the back,haha we all fan of her
Funny how much shit she gets from some fans. I mean yeah Billy played alot ofnher parts in the studio to save time etc etc. But if you listen to alot of live Pumpkins she kicks some ass. The crazy up tempo Geek USA or the 30 minute Silver Fucks shes in it hard. They've probably had better pure bass players since but i do wish the could have held it all togehter with her.
corgans my guitar god. been learning basically the same songs you brought up on video, guess i did good spotting the interesting songs to learn lol. felt rather good when i knew literally every tip you gave, guess i absorbed more than i assumed. good video, you nail all the coolest riffs and tecniques.
great teaching!
I saw the Pumpkins over the summer with my brother when they were touring with Noel Gallagher (Gallagher opened for them) and it was such an awesome show, Billy is one of my favourite guitarists and is criminally underrated but the stuff he played was still so innovative and just really damn cool
No doubt , he’s a showman for sure and a dam good one
Great video, thanks for doing this!
Hey, just posting this comment to let you know I really like your videos and think they're the creme de la creme of youtube guitar videos.
Agree, he should have a million subs at-least.
I appreciate that font choice my bro. Well done 👍
3:15 actually Billy plays the basic chords and James the root+third major on two octaves
5:10 7:30 those are James leads, at least in a live context
12:55 I think Noel Gallagher was inspired by both Disarm and Today when writing, well, "that"
Anyway, the Big Muff was used only when recording Siamese Dream, never in a live context
Nope Billy had used the Big muff on multiple live occasions including Howard Stern
@@connorandrus1904 Howard Stern show is very close to a studio recording
Thsnks man, really great lesson. Learned a lot.🤙
Totally nailed it!
Excellent explanations of these classic sounds. Now I've heard the low string harmonics sections, I can definitely see the influence on Placebo's 'Nancy Boy'.
Wonderful Mike thanks man
Hasn't been D'Arcy since around 2000! Great video with spot on technique and tone. Thanks!
She played thru the Arising! tour which ended in April 1999. In October they played Bridge School benefit as a trio, & in December they had Melissa Auf der Maur (who played w/ Hole) until the breakup in 2000. They've had a few different bassists since reforming in 2007.
Damn I’m binging these all day tomorrow
Dude, you nailed his vibrato technique.
Maybe do Ler Lolande of Primus or Duane Denison from the Jesus Lizard?
I love how their styles sound unmistakably their own. Bizarre and wild styles yet uniquely melodic and rhythmic at the same time. Both guys sound almost off-the-cuff with their parts but they’re actually much more compositional than a listener might think after first listen.