Rush - Freewill - Guitar Lesson

Permanent Waves

1980 5:22

Listen on Spotify

About Freewill

Few songs in the Progressive Rock catalog demand as much simultaneous precision from a guitarist as "Freewill." Alex Lifeson's work here sits in E minor at a steady 120 BPM, but the challenge is not the tempo: it is the dense, layered chord voicings he favors throughout, mixing open-string ringing notes against fretted shapes in ways that feel awkward until they suddenly click. The intro and verse riffs use a lot of suspended and add9 voicings, so spend time making sure each string rings cleanly rather than rushing to the next shape. The rhythmic interplay with Neil Peart's drumming means your picking hand needs to lock in tightly, and any flamming between your pick attack and the beat will stick out immediately. Use the Practice Toolbar to loop the trickier chord transitions slowed down, because the muscle memory for those stretches really does need to be built gradually. Rush rehearsed arrangements like this relentlessly, and that kind of patient repetition is exactly what this song rewards.

• Alex Lifeson's chord voicings throughout the song make heavy use of suspended and add9 shapes, requiring clean finger placement to let open strings ring properly.
• The 120 BPM feel demands tight rhythmic accuracy from the picking hand, as the guitar locks closely with the bass and drums across irregular phrase lengths.
• Playing in E Standard tuning in E minor gives the open low E string an important role in anchoring several of the song's main riff figures.