| abstract
| - %22Eruption%22 is an instrumental rock guitar solo performed by Eddie Van Halen. It is widely considered one of the greatest guitar solos of all time. It segues into %22You Really Got Me%22 on the album Van Halen, and the two songs are often played together by radio stations. The song was also released as the b-side to the %22Runnin' with the Devil%22 single.%22Eruption%22 starts with a short accompanied intro with Alex Van Halen on drums and Michael Anthony on bass. The highlight of the solo is the use of two-handed tapping. %22Eruption%22 was played on the Frankenstrat, with a MXR Phase 90, an Echoplex, a Univox echo unit and a 1968 Marshall 1959 Super Lead tube amp. The Sunset Sound studio reverb room was also used to add reverb. The Frankenstrat was tuned down a half-step. %22Eruption%22 begins in the key of A flat and ends on a E flat note that is a twelfth fret, 6th string harmonic processed through a Univox EC-80 echo unit.The %22Eruption%22 introduction is based on the %22Let Me Swim%22 introduction by Cactus. After the intro, an E-flat major quotation of the %22Etude No. 2%22 by Rodolphe Kreutzer is heard. The end section begins with a series of rapid two-handed tapping triads that have a classical like structure and eventually finishes with a repeated classical cadence followed by sound effects generated by a Univox EC-80 echo unit.The piece that would later be named %22Eruption%22 had existed as part of Van Halen's stage act at least as far back as 1976, when it featured no tapping. %22Eruption%22 popularized the tapping trend of the '80s. Although one-handed tapping (hammer-ons and pull-offs) had been previously done by many guitarists, %22Eruption%22 introduced two-handed tapping to the mainstream popular rock audience. Previously, Baroque-like tapping had been recorded by Steve Hackett of Genesis in 1971/1972.Initially, %22Eruption%22 was not considered as a song for the Van Halen album as it was just a guitar solo Eddie performed live in the clubs but Ted Templeman overheard it in the studio as Eddie was rehearsing it for a club date at the Whisky a Go Go and decided to include it on the album. Eddie recalled %22I didn't even play it right. There's a mistake at the top end of it. To this day, whenever I hear it, I always think, 'Man, I could've played it better.'%22%22Spanish Fly%22, an acoustic guitar solo on Van Halen II, can be viewed as a nylon-string version of %22Eruption%22, expanding on similar techniques. Similarly, it was suggested by Templeman for inclusion on the album after he heard Eddie Van Halen playing a classical guitar. In March 2005, Q magazine placed %22Eruption%22 at number 29 in its list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks. %22Eruption%22 has been named the 2nd greatest guitar solo by Guitar World magazine.%22Eruption%22 is also featured in Guitar Hero: Van Halen and is considered as one of the most difficult pieces in the game.%22Eruption%22 is also used in excerpts for the queue video for the Zombiegeddon house in Universal Orlando's Halloween Horror Nights 20: Twenty Years of Fear.In the 2015 film Minions, Stuart plays this song after receiving an electric guitar presented by Queen Elizabeth II.
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