Sick Riffs: Yvette Young teaches you the celestial fingerpicking of Covet’s Parachute
Ditch the pick and tune in to this masterclass in making the most from alternate tunings
Sick Riffs #47: Happy Wednesday! Today’s Sick Riff comes courtesy of fingerstyle tapping ninja Yvette Young, who joins us to share the secrets behind the intricate riff to new Covet single Parachute.
In the video, Yvette breaks the riff down into four parts to show you how to nail each section, before putting it all together.
Before you tackle this tune, you’ll need to tune your guitar to FACGCE, which gives you access to Yvette’s arsenal of dreamy cluster chords - she further maximizes the tuning using some nifty hammer-ons and harmonics to fill out the sound.
For the lesson, Yvette plays a hand-painted Ibanez Talman running through a Walrus Audio Julia and Vox AC10 - but as long as you set a clean amp on the edge of break-up with a touch of modulation, you’ll be in the right ballpark.
Covet are poised to release new album Technicolor on June 5 - we’ll have more from Yvette next week, but until then dig the original tune below…
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Sick Riffs is a Guitar World video series designed to help guitarists affected by the coronavirus. Self-isolating players around the world have each filmed a lesson where they teach you one of their own guitar riffs, up close and personal. If you dig the lesson, we encourage you to buy music and merch from the artist or stream their music.
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Mike has been Editor-in-Chief of GuitarWorld.com since 2019, and an offset fiend and recovering pedal addict for far longer. He has a master's degree in journalism from Cardiff University, and 15 years' experience writing and editing for guitar publications including MusicRadar, Total Guitar and Guitarist, as well as 20 years of recording and live experience in original and function bands. During his career, he has interviewed the likes of John Frusciante, Chris Cornell, Tom Morello, Matt Bellamy, Kirk Hammett, Jerry Cantrell, Joe Satriani, Tom DeLonge, Radiohead's Ed O'Brien, Polyphia, Tosin Abasi, Yvette Young and many more. His writing also appears in the The Cambridge Companion to the Electric Guitar. In his free time, you'll find him making progressive instrumental rock as Maebe.
