War Pigs

The Intro Section

The track is very much in the key of E, which when we just say "E" rather than E major or E minor we are normally talking about E blues! This essentially means that we are dabbling in between major and minor, with elements of both. The fact that the song is based around powerchords gives us this option, as a powerchord is only a root and 5th note, with that major or minor 3rd.

The intro part is rooted around this movement between the E5 and D5, in a cool 3/4 rhythm, with some improvisational parts using that Mixolydian style scale. So I would say the important notes to be aware of, and remind yourself of as you're working through through this into, are as shown here:

With the powerchords, you can also have some fun experimenting with the 5th in the bass, creating a sort of inverted powerchord. That will give you a much thicker sound, and it's a technique you can always use when playing powerchords based on the A string. Here''s how they would look:

The First Riff!

We're now moving into the standard 4/4/ time signature, as we hit the main theme of the song. We're once again using the D5 to E5. We have a long time now, around 16 bars, of the powerchord part with some very cool riffs in-between. The rhythm of the powerchord part is playing the D5 on the "and of 4" and the E5 on the "1" beat. Just like this:

During these long breaks between the powerchords we have some cool lead parts, generally using that E minor pentatonic Box 1 and Box 2. It's really important to know these shapes as you work through the licks Jed is showing you in the track, so use these diagrams as a reference point. Here are those shapes:

Then we get to the first significant riff, which is based around the D5 to E5 powerchord riff, but we're adding a cool chromatic riff to it as well. The timing and chords look like this:

In between this very cool riff, we're using the E minor pentatonic scale box 1, based on the 12th fret now, to do some licks! Jed walks you through all of these licks clearly and slowly in the video, so just make sure you are visualising the correct pentatonic shape.

The Second Riff

At this point we're not really sure if you'd call this a verse, or a riff, but it doesn't really matter. The riff is again all based around the E minor sound, and uses the same pentatonic shapes we've looked at so far. These are relatively simple ideas, based around downstroke strumming that really defines the metal sound.

The Third Riff

This next theme transitions very smoothly into the solo, and we distinctly change sound a little from that heavy minor pentatonic sound to that more Mixolydian sound we talked about in the beginning. This Mixolydian scale is on the A string only at this point, with the E drone really helping to define the sound! That scale looks like this:

As it progresses into the solo we're very much back to that E minor Pentatonic Box 1 on the 12th fret, but we're not covering that in this lesson! I would suggest improvising this section for the moment. After the solo we come back to the riff using that Mixolydian scale, although we now have a very subtle change to it, where we bend the major 7th to the root, rather than hitting the b7th.

We then move back to the powerchords, just with a little more groove this time round! Notice how Jed at this point, moves to a more traditional strumming pattern, rather than all downstrokes. This really opens up the sound!

Riff 3

This penultimate riff is based around a E5 again, but we're brining in the b7th note and arpeggiating it. We then move into a more traditional E5, B5 and D5, followed by a G5. These shapes looks like this:

So, to quote Jed, "If you're still with me on this heroes journey of Black Sabbath" then we're right at the end! The final final riff (which we'll include in the title of Riff 3) is just playing around the Mixolydian scale once again, this time in this new position:

The structure

So here is our best attempt to get this mad song in a structure. Notice how we've simply put an order to the parts, and not focused in on amount of bars. I don't believe that counting bars in a track like this is the way to go, as it will detract from you trying to feel your way through it, using the band signals to take you from section to section. So, here is the order of events: Intro Jam, Riff 1, Riff 2, Riff 1, Solo & Riff, Riff 1, Riff 3, Final Solo, Riff 3… And that's pretty much it!

The moral of the story with this track, and any epic metal track like this, you need to simply learn the parts and put them in order. You need to know the song very well to listen to it, and then you are just matching up the parts to what you hear. Potentially this may sound like an oversimplification, but compare that to how you might learn a standard pop song, with a traditional structure, and you have to approach this very differently.