A lesson in Chaos

I don't usually post these things, but I got an email from a guy who was looking for advice on playing the guitar part in Chaos Theory mvt. 1, during the section with all the pedal tones -- the most difficult part of the entire piece. This was my response. Hopefully, it was helpful...?

Hey XXXXX - I don't have the music in front of me, and I don't want to tell you what to do with every single finger, but see if this helps... starting at letter H:

First two bars, I play in fifth position, between the 4th and 3rd string. I keep a half-barre down on the fifth fret the whole time.

The next bar, I'm still in fifth position, but I'm holding down the pedal tone with my second finger on the 6th fret, 4th string. On beat 4, I play the high note on the 2nd string.

Next bar, I slide up to seventh position, with my second finger still holding the pedal tone, now on the 8th fret, 4th string.

Next bar, still in seventh position, but now my third finger is holding the pedal, 9th fret, 4th string. I play the beat 4 note on the 2nd string.

I stay in the same position for the next half bar, then I slide up to 8th position to finish the bar, with my third finger playing the pedal (10th fret), and the high note on beat three starting on the 2nd string.

Same position for the next bar...

Then slide up to 9th position. Third finger still holding the pedal (11th fret), high note starts on the 3rd string, 12th fret, with my pinky holding it down.

Next bar: I grab beat 2 QUICKLY with my pinky on the 2nd string (11th fret), then go to my first finger, 2nd string, 9th fret, and slide and stretch my 3rd finger to the 12th fret,4th string.

The next bar, I play beat 3 (3rd string) and beat 4 (2nd string) high notes with a barre on the 13th fret with my pinky (!). It's not so bad... or you can roll your pinky and grab those notes too.

Next bar: 11th position, pedal tone on 13th fret, 4th string, with third finger. I play beat four by stretching my first finger back to the 10th fret.

Next bar: still 11th position, pedal with pinky on 14th fret...

Next bar: 12th position, pinky on pedal still (just slide it up), NOW on beat four, I barre with my first finger on the 11th position, to FINALLY put the pedal on the 3rd string.

The second half of the next bar totally breaks the nice cross-string pattern. Just do the best you can to find a good solution (I can tell you mine, but it ain't pretty)...

Eventually, you can play cross-string again, and very soon you can do it between the 2nd and 1st strings, and now you're doing contrary motion, and oh sweet jesus what was I thinking, because it took me almost a YEAR before I could play this part at tempo flawlessly. But don't worry, by that point, the band is so frikkin' loud no one will ever hear you anyway...

Hope that helps!!!

In this case, a little tablature could go a loooong way...