U2 & Guitar Gear: Q & A

Originally posted by vanquish:[..]

Is Ultraviolet hard to play? It seems to have 4 note chords, which are kinda hard (I don't quite have independence of movement in my 2 small fingers yet)

I have a few conflicting tabs, one says you should play the verse riff between the 7-10th frets, another the 2-6th frets and a third 12-15.

How does Edge play it?

Originally posted by EyesWithPrideB3:[..]

I'm fairly sure he does something like this-

---------------------------------------------------------
-12----12--------------15--14------------------------
-13----14--------------14--14------------------------
-14----14--------------12--12------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------

all strummed to rhythm, of course. It gets tricky because it's so high up, and the frets are obviously much closer together, but once you know what you're doing/playing, it's fairly easy to get your fingers in the right chord positions right away.

I just taught myself Edge's little 360° verse add-ons, with the second verse being more interesting instead of just the chords like usual. It gets fun, and with a little improvising of my own, I had an absolute blast with this one. I don't even bother with effects settings for it- I just throw on a nice, very light distortion, and switch my pickup switch to the high end.

Playing along with the Sheffield version one, with the crowd noises and everything (ZooTV Milan works for that too, though its in half step), really gets me super energized, and I always level it so that I can still hear Bono/Adam/Larry and the crowd, but my guitar always matches what Edge is putting out. Makes me feel like part of the band

If you want tabs for the rest of the song, check some online websites...some of the fan-submitted ones are fairly accurate. Enough so to get by, anyway, and I can usually teach myself the parts that aren't quite perfect- dunno if you're there yet. I would tab it out for you, but my guitar is downstairs and I'll be heading to bed soon anyway...it's all a matter of getting the strum techniques down. In the 360° versions, Edge plays what sounds like a single string during the chorus, alternating notes here and there, but not actually playing whole chords like in the ZooTV choruses. Keep that in mind and just sort of fool around on your fretboard to hear the notes he's playing, match them up, and you've got yourself the chorus.

Originally posted by vanquish:[..]

Thanks, thats good to hear, I actually prefer playing chords on the higher strings than the thicker low strings (where I don't have enough finger strength and so i sometimes get buzzing)

So is this tab accurate then:
http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/tabs/u/u2/ultraviolet_light_my_way_tab.htm

Originally posted by EyesWithPrideB3:[..]

For some reason, the link isn't working for me- but I also use UG, and if that's the UV tab that uses the chords that I mapped out for you up there, then absolutely. Play the chorus chords listed there for the studio/ZooTV versions, and challenge yourself to figure out the 360° variations on your own

Most importantly- HAVE FUN!

Originally posted by vanquish:[..]


http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/tabs/u/u2/ultraviolet_light_my_way_tab.htm

That's strange,
I can already play the 1st verse riff (2nd verse riff has tricky fingering) and most of the iconic chorus riff,

Originally posted by EyesWithPrideB3:[..]

Works this time.

And yeah, it's not necessarily hard to get down, but depending on if you're playing along with anything, there's quite a few versions of it, and they're all fun to learn. Glad you're already that far along in it though!

Originally posted by RattleandHum1988:What the Edge is playing in this song has always been a mystery to me lol. There's about 4 different ways to play it, scattered across the net. Watch Mick's video's on youtube (mick3b1g) he does a great cover of it, watch his fingers, he seems to have it down pat. That's how I figured it out.

Originally posted by Andrew_C:i just had a good idea (well in my head its good ) since we all love playing guitar here.... and weve got the bootleg round table, we should should start a U2 guitar cover table. each fortnight we pick a song and all record ourselves playing it on guitar(video or audio) then all post it up, that way we can get feedback from other guitar playing u2 fans and during the fortnight we can discuss how to get the sounds right, playing styles, etc. I hope everyone is as keen to do this as me

Originally posted by RattleandHum1988:[..]

I would be, unfortunately I can't be spending time every night on u2start or recording U2 covers

Originally posted by Andrew_C:i just had a good idea (well in my head its good ) since we all love playing guitar here.... and weve got the bootleg round table, we should should start a U2 guitar cover table. each fortnight we pick a song and all record ourselves playing it on guitar(video or audio) then all post it up, that way we can get feedback from other guitar playing u2 fans and during the fortnight we can discuss how to get the sounds right, playing styles, etc. I hope everyone is as keen to do this as me