Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (Mozart). When I was about 16 years old, I received a few cassette tapes from 15 year old Paul Gilbert shortly after he was featured in Guitar Player magazine’s Spotlight column. (The same issue/Spotlight that also featured an unknown Yngwie Malmsteen.) Paul played about four bars of this Mozart piece in one of his guitar solos and I thought it was the coolest thing I ever heard. Classical music played on a distorted electric guitar? You can do that? It only took me 35 years to learn more than the first four bars.

As for study notes, this piece features:

  • speed bursts
  • legato runs
  • tremolo picking
  • slides from nowhere