Dokken - Alone Again - Guitar Lesson

Tooth and Nail

1984 4:21

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About Alone Again

From the 1984 album "Tooth and Nail", "Alone Again" is one of the cleaner windows into George Lynch's melodic side, sitting in E minor at a steady 120 BPM in standard tuning. The song opens with a clean, arpeggiated guitar figure that rewards careful right-hand control, keeping the notes even and letting each one ring without cluttering the phrase. Where Lynch really asks something of you is in the lead work: his phrasing mixes legato runs with staccato picked bursts, so you need both hands working in tight coordination. The solo in particular has some slippery position shifts that are easy to fumble at full speed, so use the Practice Toolbar to loop it slowed down until the shifts feel natural before bringing the tempo back up. Dokken built their reputation on balancing heavy rhythm playing with genuinely melodic lead lines, and this song is a good place to develop that same balance in your own playing. If you are working through Hard Rock vocabulary, the chord voicings here are worth studying closely.

• The song is played in E Standard tuning in the key of E minor, so no retuning is needed and open-position chord shapes are available throughout.
• George Lynch's solo combines legato hammer-on pull-off runs with picked bursts, requiring you to switch techniques fluidly within a single phrase.
• The clean intro arpeggio is a good exercise in pick control and consistent note duration, making it worth isolating with the Practice Toolbar at reduced speed.