Jason Becker - Opus Pocus - Guitar Tab

Perpetual Burn

1988 5:38

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About Opus Pocus

Few guitar pieces from the late 1980s demand as much from a player's right hand as "Opus Pocus" from Jason Becker's debut album Perpetual Burn. Sitting in E minor and standard tuning, the track draws heavily on sweep picking and legato runs at a tempo that leaves very little room for sloppy technique. The challenge is not just speed, the arpeggiated passages require clean economy of motion, so any tension in your picking hand will show up immediately. Working through this in Progressive Rock style means balancing melodic phrasing against sheer technical discipline, which is harder than it sounds when the lines move this fast. Isolate each arpeggio shape separately before chaining them together, and use the Practice Toolbar to loop the densest passages slowed right down until each note speaks clearly. Once the mechanics feel comfortable at a reduced tempo, gradually bring the speed back up rather than forcing it from the start.

• The piece centres on swept arpeggios in E minor, requiring a well-drilled sweep picking technique with minimal wasted pick motion.
• Played in standard E tuning, so no retuning is needed, but the left-hand stretches across the fretboard are still demanding at tempo.
• Looping individual arpeggio sequences slowed down is the most effective way to build the muscle memory this song requires.