Home Protest The Hero Tabs The Dissentience Lesson

How To Play The Dissentience: Complete Guitar Lesson

Follow

Share

The prerequisite techniques you will need to know before learning how to play "The Dissentience" on guitar include being comfortable with guitar scales, sweep picking, and playing in odd time signatures...VERY odd time signatures! But even if you haven't completely mastered these extremely difficult guitar techniques, I encourage you to dive in and try learning this challenging guitar piece anyway!

The BEST way to learn how to play "The Dissentience" by Protest The Hero is to break down the parts and learn them one at a time! Many of the guitar riffs that are in odd time signatures will need to be played over and over to lock in on the odd-time rhythms. The fast SHRED guitar parts will require practice too!

Still need a copy of the record to play along to?
Download Fortress at iTunes for $9.99

Get The Dissentience ringtone!

For more Protest The Hero tabs, go to Protest The Hero Guitar Tablature: Complete Lessons!

Intro Riff 1

The whole band kicks off this high-power track with a scalar lead-in to the intro riff. This riff is "kind of Phrygian Mode". Use alternate picking to get up to speed and make sure you palm mute ALL the open sixth string notes!

Click tablature to enlarge:

Intro Riff 2

The second half of the intro riff uses a lot of quick hammer on/pull off combos. The most important nuance in this riff is to get a really TIGHT sixteenth note rest on the first beat of measure three. The band revisits this riff later on in the song.

Click tablature to enlarge:

Verse Riff

As with many Protest The Hero guitar TABS, there may be alternate versions out there in cyberspace! I think this version sounds good, so this is how I play it. Luke Hoskin and Tim Millar double up on this riff. Despite the strong rhythmic syncopation and accents, this riff is in 4/4 time!

Click tablature to enlarge:

"Awesome" Riff

Let's suppose you DON'T have the patience to learn "The Dissentience" all the way through - I wouldn't necessarily blame you! - I would be strongly disappointed if you left without THIS "awesome" riff! This riff is a MUST. OK, maybe I'm just saying that because it's on my list of greatest riffs of all time, but it's definitely an IMPRESSIVE riff to know either way!

Click tablature to enlarge:

"Chunky" Riff

Here is where the "odd time signatures" really start to proliferate. After I learn a riff like this, I will tell people that counting music is lame and you just gotta feel it. But when you are by yourself and no one is watching, it's perfectly normal to count out the rhythms to increase your own understanding of the music. Then when it gets more natural, stop counting and just PLAY it by FEEL!

Click tablature to enlarge:

"Spider" Riff

I call this the "spider" riff because your fingers kind of make a crawling pattern as you perform the riff. Of all "The Dissentience" TABS, this one is probably the most pattern-based riff. Try to VISUALIZE the pattern, and the riff will be easier.

Click tablature to enlarge:

Spider Riff Add On

When learning how to play "The Dissentience" on guitar, you will come across sections like this that are much EASIER than the rest of the song. These parts give you a break from the craziness and let you breathe a little!

Click tablature to enlarge:

Breakdown

The "breakdown" features a recurring theme throughout Fortress. Watch out for Luke Hoskin's scalar run in sextuplets/sixteenth notes!

Click tablature to enlarge:

In the second half of the breakdown, I switch to Tim Millar's part, which is based on power chords and some heavy sixth string notes in syncopated rhythms.

Click tablature to enlarge:

Verse 2 Ending

Verse two extends that diminished riff up through the rest of the strings. Just continue the same pattern that we established in verse 1.

Click tablature to enlarge:

Power Chord Break

Up and down strums will suffice for this purely power chord riff. Just make sure you block out unwanted notes so it sounds TIGHT.

Click tablature to enlarge:

Palm Muted Arpeggio Riff

One of my personal favorite sections of "The Dissentience". The fingering might seem awkward at first, and you may have to practice the wide fret leap from the fourth position to the eleventh position to get it really quickly!

Click tablature to enlarge:

Sweep Picking

ROPE BURN IN MY CROTCHAL REGION!

Quite possible THE MOST challenging part of the song! This part will take a LOT of work to play it clean and in time. Sounds like our friend Mario finally got the flag.

Click tablature to enlarge:

Guitar Solo

I'm not sure if you could actually classify anything Protest The Hero ever did as a bona fide "guitar solo", but it's kind of a lead break nonetheless. Luke Hoskin takes this lead section.

Click tablature to enlarge:

Outro

We will break the outro into three sections. Mostly, you just have to revisit riffs we have already used in the song previously. Learning how to play "The Dissentience" has been a BLAST, I hope! It's one of my personal favorite Protest The Hero TABS to jam on. Here is the outro!

Click tablature to enlarge:

Click tablature to enlarge:

Click tablature to enlarge:

To Top Of Page