GET THE SOUND

Everything you need to know before playing ‘The Trooper’

From galloping rhythms to harmonised guitar lines and a blistering solo battle between Adrian Smith and Dave Murray, all the signature classic Maiden elements are present here in The Trooper. The song begins with the two guitars riffing in unison before quickly diverging as Murray plays a high harmony line. Now, Judas Priest, Thin Lizzy and Wishbone Ash had all employed this twin-lead technique before, but it’s a Maiden trademark too, and well worth digging deeper into.

At the heart of the sound is ‘diatonic 3rd harmony’ – which, despite the jargon, is relatively simple to understand. The two guitars play essentially the same licks, but one stays a fixed number of notes higher than the other so they’re always in harmony. We’re in E minor (E F# G A B C D) here, so, when one guitar plays E, the other plays G; when one plays F# the other plays A, and so on. Read on and we’ll explain a bitmore and you can check out the tab.

Dave Murray used a ’57 Stratocaster fitted with humbuckers – a Dimarzio Super Distortion in the bridge position and a PAF at the neck. Adrian Smith played an Ibanez Destroyer II DT-300. Amp-wise the pair used Marshall JCM800S, boosted with an Ibanez Tubescreamer and an MXR Distortion+ respectively. The ideal tone is a crunchy distortion that has a percussive attack for the palm mutes and a smooth sustain for the lead parts. By today’s standards Maiden’s distortion setting is only moderate, so resist the urge to dial in too much.