Cracking the Code Episode 8: “Fast Forward” — Yngwie Malmsteen

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Episode Description:

If the secret sauce of a liberal education could be boiled down to one ingredient, it wouldn't be humanities, and it wouldn't even be beer. (Though a case could be made for sweatpants.) No, the ultimate enabler of the examined life would have to be none other than the singular catalyst of all great ideas since Pythagoras quit his day job at Dairy Queen: free time.

In the summer of 1991, Professor Malmsteen brought his medieval music appreciation class to VCRs everywhere. While pre-med students were busy pipetting their titrations, language majors, with only verbs to conjugate and almost no papers to write, were glued to their cathode ray tubes in an effort to deduce just what the good professor was trying to say.

[BenHigginsOfficial]

Great work Troy and team.. I sat and watched the whole series in one go.. it was like watching a documentary of my own life. Thanks for doing this for us guitar players !

[GregsGarage]

This series is so completely kick ass. I gave up on a lot of this stuff in college in the 90s because I couldn't find the pieces to unlock the code... I'm so back in the game now... Time to unearth all my old spandex, notebooks and copies of Guitar for the Practicing Musician mags. You rock sir!

[kahan]

""slow" for Yngwie is a kind of "slow" for an electron. " Very good!!!

[CodyCleggMusic]

I'm addicted. This series is so amazing.

[TorchwoodLuthiers]

The only Youtuber I will never skip the ads for. That's how good your videos are bud

[TheCrimsonIdol]

The simple genius of Yngwie's descending and ascending harmonic minor on a single string becomes even more impressive when you apply it to the other strings.

In his words, "If you take those same notes and put them on the next string, you have a pattern that spans the whole neck."

Yngwie most famously does this with Phrygian Dominant, Diminished 7th and Harmonic Minor, but that simple concept can be applied to any scale, in any key.

[JesseDanielSmith]

This series is one of the greatest guitar resources ever made

[robertdean]

So, i'm walking around the village and i come to Tower records where a small crowd of metal heads had gathered outside, i walk in and find out Yngwie is there to do a "meet and greet" and sign copies of his just released album.Having no clue i proceeded to the album racks to look and browse. as they let crowd in to purchase the album and then stand in line for a chat and an autograph they began to play the album over the house system.Identical reaction, one of those WTF moments! I grab a copy and as i'm paying i notice a flyer behind the cash register.Yngwie is playing at L'amours that Friday and Saturday and you could get tickets right there! i buy three tickets for Friday and three for Saturday. I lived two blocks from the club and can't begin to list how many guitarists i've seen up close.Friday comes around and i go to our hangout looking to invite someone and no one's around, so i grab this kid, Richie was not a musician not a metal head and we headed down to the club. There couldn"t have been more than a hundred people there!i I stood at the edge of the stage looking up at Yngwie in utter disbelief, i glance to my left and Richie"s mouth is wide open, just staring up. I looked around and everybody's jaw had hit the ground.after the initial schock subsided the line to public phone was endless, the word was out! Needless to say, Saturday's gig was filled to capacity and the rest is history!

[ChrisShredGuitar]

Damn wachting your videos makes so much fun ! All the people, who say Yngwie just doing always the same, and has just copied, should wacht your Series, because you proof how much  of a genius YNgwie is :D !

Thank you for doing so many great videos !

[bakters]

I bingewatched it all at once, and now I have to go back and give a like to every vid. Stupid me...

[KennethGonzalez]

How you guys integrate all the pop culture references is stunning! Had to share it with my peeps. It's awesome!!!

[Luuugssssss]

This series almost seems too good to just be on Youtube. Best thing I've discovered in a while

[superflysoulbrother]

8:50 "I am a Viking" reggae style.. Love these vids

[jakubturlinski]

15:40 "I feel a rising force"

In other words:

"Ability to play like Yngwie J. Malmsteen fills you with DETERMINATION"

[Shane_Peoples]

Richie kotzen solved the picking problem, he ditched the pick.

[cado]

Dude...wtf?
You should have atn least 500k subscribers... what the hell is wrong with youtube?

[bigdaddycsi]

Yes, you are my friend, a technical Genius! Totally over the top. Amazing. I can't say enough. I can't even begin to approach what you're teaching, but it is still fascinating to watch the show.

[hldemi]

Troy this is perfect. I followed you from start of your site until your site stopped at : "filming an indie" title and stayed like that forever . Every now and then I went on site to see if there is any change. And after 5 years I gave up ... I thought such a shame that you dont teach us anymore and I thought that cracking the code went downhill and that project will be forgotten. And then accidentally I saw this. WTF, this is perfect, you really worked hard all this time. I wish you luck and keep up the great work !

[danielB]

This is so epic I could watch as a movie on a movie theater, and would have all the emotion an epic movie has... could be like... the movie about an epic struggle of a guitar player hehehehe

[buxcorp]

Watched the whole lot in one go.. It was almost like a documentary of my life! Amazing work Troy! Blown away.. Possibly one of the best channels I have come across on YT.. Keep up the fantastic work! :)