Your Favorite Rake. In A Guitar Solo - String Perpendicular Or String Parallel (aka Scrape)

jesussaddle

Power User
I've been thinking of guitar techniques and fx that some have creatively introduced for types of fx, or mastered far more than others, that get little attention (to this level) in youtube guitar tutorials. I would call them rakes and scrapes. As for the scrapes, I use more or less thick picks (usually 1.5 - 3 mm) and they are expensive and too hard for this - and I haven't really even used the scrape technique - but I've thought it has been used to fantastic effect by certain players.

(Rapidly sliding the finger when playing with distortion can be used as a scrape as well... its easier for me than using a pick but much less of a scrape. But getting the feel and timing of certain examples isn't always simple - achieving the same feel of the slide down by Jimi Hendrix in Purple Haze for example. I imagine Hendrix wasn't the first to do this, but I would bet his effect that he achieved by his excellence and flamboyance and style with it was a first )

Raking moves perpendicular to the strings, either behind the bridge, or nut, or on the fingerboard. As with pick scraping, there are certain creative uses and degrees of proficiency that are noticeable highlights IMO. Rakes behind the bridge were used by Eddie Van Halen and Danny Gatton among others.

For instance to me it was a harbinger of the intensity of the guitar playing to come, when it happened in the first listening of Van Halen 1, Just after the bass came in, in the intro to runnin' with the devil.

The more typical rakes happen over the fretboard, used as muted notes rhythmically leading into one or more pitched notes). A player who used ordinary rakes particularly well (arguably ?) was Jan Akkerman, who can be heard using numerous ones in this tune:



The terms rake and Scrape may be used interchangeably by some. There's the "Gojira Pick Scrape" which I'm calling a rake in this post (see the youtube video with that in the title - its perpendicular to the strings.)

A finger "scrape" is used in Hotel California twice (once at 4:50, and then shortly thereafter). Actually I wouldn't call it a scrape because the tone is too clean. But its very nice sounding in this context. Its something the guitarist does often but in a less pronounced way - taking the finger and launching it up the fingerboard, I guess as a kind of stylistic accentuation.

The next version of creative finger scrapes I can think of that was heard all over the radio is the one in Give Me All Your Lovin'

()

- at 1:00 into the video.

But my all time personal favorite for scraping style and timing has to be Alex Lifeson. Two examples of his use are the ones in Trees

()

(at 1:32), and, more intensely ( o/o) in the guitar solo of La Villa Strangiato.

The former is a nice touch (emphasizing the conflict and misunderstanding - "And the oaks just shake their heads...") and the latter dramatically punctuates, and for me practically makes, the solo (although he doesn't always do it live).



7:17

(no, I'm not one of these guys, I don't know them, and I did not make the video above either :D)

Another spectacular Alex Lifeson example of various rakes/scrapes is in Hemispheres at 07:25 below:



I would love to see other examples that stand out for you of any musical guitar effects that are more subtle and nuanced for players to use than they at first seem.
 
Last edited:
For me, it would be very interesting to learn how to do these "noise effects". I never knew what to call them (English is not my native language) so I never had any luck finding any info, demos or lessons online. I hear those on recordings all the time, and some of them sound fabulous... Then I try to do the same and it's laughable.

Thanks for providing a proper term for these, now I can search. But if anyone can point out instructional videos, that would be great.
 
For me, it would be very interesting to learn how to do these "noise effects". I never knew what to call them (English is not my native language) so I never had any luck finding any info, demos or lessons online. I hear those on recordings all the time, and some of them sound fabulous... Then I try to do the same and it's laughable.

Thanks for providing a proper term for these, now I can search. But if anyone can point out instructional videos, that would be great.

I know exactly what you mean. I tried for years to perfect the slide downs in Running With the Devil. At some point, when I realized i was playing chords more difficult than Eddie was playing, I was like, wow, I wish a youtube tutorial/cover guitarist would do some of these more precisely (and in the variety that they actually exist in). I would love to see that!
 
"Beat It" comes to mind immediately.

Yeah, Eddie was epic in all things "feel" - and some of his "feel" comes so much from nuance of "how" he chose to time or accent or swing his notes, or lay back or push forward, its really like he was just on a cloud above the more academic musicians, saying, hey guys, have you heard it like this before? How about this? And how about this..... Like it was an infinite bag of new things he could pull out and do. Hendrix was much like this as well, and so were many other players. Those two are pretty much the creative genius masters who set the bar for later guys. Guys came along later and picked up a certain area (say whammy bar pyrotechnics) or two or 3, but not many added at so many different fronts simultaneously.



But slides and scrapes and rakes can add so much feel if done at that very highly nuanced level that means something akin to words, but emotionally, like the examples above all show. And they don't seem as fancy as notes but the vibe is easy to miss.

Two things that started my search were this:



and this (intro and ending among other bits - and the Sammy Hagar as a kid was actually blowing out his chords from the beginning - very great then ):

 
Last edited:
Stevie Ray and Clapton immediately cane to mind to me, but I might wrong about Clapton.

I think Eric Johnson has a few choice takes in cliffs of Dover? I haven’t listened in a few years so not sure.

They sound especially delicious in a nice high gain but slower and bluesy’ish solo, just can’t think of any real examples at the moment. Buddy of mine used to use them all the time and he could just absolutely nail it
 
Back
Top Bottom