Boston - Foreplay/Long Time - Intro - Guitar Lesson

Boston

1976 7:48

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About Foreplay/Long Time - Intro

The intro to "Foreplay/Long Time" is one of the most demanding keyboard-to-guitar workout pieces in Boston's catalog, and replicating it on guitar means taking on a rapid, arpeggiated figure that never really lets up. Sitting in G minor at 120 BPM in E Standard tuning, the passage demands clean, even picking across string groups at a pace that will expose any inconsistency in your right-hand technique. The challenge is not just speed but accuracy: each note in the arpeggio sequence needs to ring clearly rather than blur into the next, so sloppy fretting hand placement will be heard immediately. New players should set the Practice Toolbar to 60 or 70 percent speed and loop the opening four bars until the pick strokes feel automatic before pushing the tempo back up. This is a piece firmly in the Hard Rock tradition of treating the intro as a technical statement, and earning it takes patient, incremental practice rather than powering through at full speed from the start.

• The intro is built on a continuous arpeggiated figure that requires consistent alternate or economy picking to stay clean at full tempo.
• At 120 BPM in G minor and E Standard tuning, the part sits in a range that makes string-skipping accuracy especially critical.
• Slowing the passage down with the Practice Toolbar is the most effective way to isolate fretting-hand position shifts before adding speed.