The Duel - Steve Vai ------------------------------------------- Transcribed by Jeff Young [Laboriously typed up by Mardi Gras(TNT)]
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.
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.