Play The Intro To Steve Vai’s “Building The Church” Without Right Hand Tapping

By: Morton Faerestrand

One of the hits on Steve Vai’s album Real Illusions was the tune “Building the Church.”

What immediately grabbed our attention and blew everyone away was the insane intro lick that Steve also repeats later in the song. He moves it around, making a completely new section of the composition.

What’s cool about the lick, besides its lightening fast speed, is the rhythmic displacement that arises from it being a 5-note pattern. This has always interested me, so I wanted to figure out a way to use this idea but without necessarily using right-hand tapping. Not that I have anything against two hand tapping, I absolutely dig that, especially when Steve Vai does it. I just feel a bit silly when doing it myself. It’s just a personal issue there, like that cool jacket that looks great on your friend, but stupid on you, you know?

Anyway, in this lesson I’ll show you what I came up with, and it’s pretty darn awesome if you ask me! It works great over a bluesy rock track that calls for high energy guitar playing, but where metal style shredding would be wrong for the style. There are countless ways you could use this idea, and countless way you could alter it to make it your own! In this video I’ll show you just a few, and you can take it from there!

Good luck with it! You will DEFINITELY turn some heads if you fire off this lick on a blues jam session, and on any jam session, really. Trust me!

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