The Duel

Notes: Okay, this is not my work, but I heard someone wanted it and I had it lying around the house so I thought I'd do someone a favour. I've taken this from the June '95 edition of "Guitar" magazine. This is the riff that Vai plays when he has a guitar duel with actor Ralph Macchio (The Karate Kid) in the film, "Crossroads". Vai performs a series of arpeggios in a reprise of an etude by William Kanengiser (who apparently played all the classical parts in the movie). This study in arpeggios is comprised almost entirely of notes from the A harmonic minor scale (A B C D E F G#). The only nondiatonic series of notes would be found in measure 3, an arpeggio, which in this case functions as a secondary dominant to the Dm in measure 4. E| 8 12^8 | B| 10 10 | G| 5 9 9 5 | D| 7 7 | A| 7 5 | E| 5 6 8 | E| 7 | B| 9 9 | G| 7 9 9 7 | D| 6 9 9 6 | A| 5 7 7 5 | E| 7 | E| 5 | B| 5 8 8 5 | G| 6 6 | D| 5 ^ 7 7 5 | A| 7 7 | E| 5 ^ 9 9 | E| 10 13^10 | B| 10 10 | G| 7 10 10 7 | D| 7 7 | A| 5 6 | E| 5 10^8 | E| | B| 9 12 9 | G| 10 10 7 | D| 9 12 9 6 | A| 8^11 8 | E| 7 10 7 | E| 5 8 12 8 / | / 16 B| 5 5 10 | G| 5 5 | D| 7 7 | A| 7 7 | E| 5 8 | O What more can I say? This is just a truly cool riff. It might be a little tough to start on if you are a beginner, but never-the-less, would be a nice riff to learn and use as a warming up exercise.