Aerosmith Style

Hi GMC!

Welcome to my new lesson based on the classic rock style of Aerosmith. This band, formed in 1970 by Steven Tyler, Joe Perry, Brad Whitford, Tom Hamilton and Joey Kramer is considered the greatest Rock & Roll band ever from USA.

Music Style:
Their style has roots in blues based hard rock but evolved through the years incorporating influences from Pop, Heavy Metal and Rhythm and blues. In this lesson I recreated the style of their beginnings. That 70’s hard rock with groovy and memorable guitar riffs and classic rock licks that can be found in songs like “Walk this way” and “Sweet Emotion”.

Tonality, Chord Progression & Scales:
As every band that has roots in blues and classic rock, most of their songs are based on minor scale and Mixolydian mode. The third scale tonality most often used in their songs is Major (Ionian). Their riffs and solos are usually composed with pentatonic minor, minor blues, major scale and Mixolydian. This lesson is based on blues progression which can be considered A mixolydian but as it used to happen with blues, it’s mixed with Pentatonic minor or Blues scale (Pentatonic minor + b5).

If you want to explore more about blues progressions and the scales used click HERE.

Techniques:
This lesson includes rhythm and solo section so you will work on right hand strumming, riffing, only downstrokes, palm muting, bending, alternate picking and vibrato. It is not a difficult lesson but it can be more difficult than it seems because of the groove required to master it.

Sound:
I used my Pod HD 500 to create a tone based on Marshall JTM45 which is the most used amp in 70’s hard rock.
I also added a Tube Drive to have a more distorted sound.

The drums have been recorded using SSD 3.5 and the bass with Trillian.

Click HERE if you want to download the patch used on this lesson for Pod HD 500.

Tuning: EADGBE

Tempo: 105 BPM