joe satriani profile

joe "satch" satriani sits among the other modern guitar gods such as vai, gilbert and malmsteen. in the late 80's, along with steve vai (satch actually taught steve vai) satriani brought the electric guitar to a new generation of players and greatly expanded the genre and opened the door to many new guitar techniques and styles.

compared to players many other famous "shred" guitarists of today, satch is one of the bluesiest out there. his music focuses on and prioritises melody and more straight ahead, basic, easily accessible music. because of this, he is more famous and well known outside the guitar playing community than players like steve vai, who's music is generally too complex for a mainstream audience.

satriani isn't much of a technician when it comes to guitar playing. about 90% of his fast lines are played using legato, which means pulling off and hammering on to notes using only the left hand. the general rule with legato is that the first note on a string is picked and then 4 or 5 other notes on the same string are sounded using only the left hand. this produces a very smooth sound as opposed to alternate picking. you can probably count the amount of times he's sweeped or done a fast alternate picking run in a song, he does it so rarely, although he does tap a fair bit (tapping strings with the right hand on the fretboard, like a hammer on).

what satriani lacks (or, doesn't use) in the technical area he makes up for in melodies; in every satriani song, every note has it's place and sounds absolutely right and there is very little "wanking". satch himself has said he finds practicing to be able to play fast not very useful as people don't want to hear that, they want to hear music, and it's clear satriani has, throughout his career, focused on creating catchier and emotional songs thatn vai or gilbert. but it's a very fine line; that doesn't mean vai's music is unemotional or boring, it's very interesting and quirky and just as "emotional" in a different way.

satriani comes from a blues background; jimi hendrix and players like jimmy page are amongst his influences, as well as jazz guitarists like wes montgomery, which might explain for satriani's path down instrumental guitar music; it requires total command of the instrument and a thorough knowledge of musical theory.

satriani gets more mileage out of the blues school of soloing than vai or malmsteen. gilbert uses pentatonic and blues scales a huge amount, but in a more radical, shreddy type of way. a good way to describe satriani would be if jimi hendrix went to a yale university party, discussed jazz theory with jimmy page, ingested some steroids and supercharged an electric guitar.

in the same manner as steve vai, satch makes good use of the whammy bar, adding subtle dips and bends to either create wild and whacky effects or delicate and subtle phrasing.

personally, i don't listen to satriani much any more as there isn't enough pure "guitar" in his music for me. for me, he was the next step after bands like hendrix, zeppelin and so forth, but now i crave the warp speed licks of paul gilbert.

if i had to show someone satriani in 1 video it would probably be this:



a quite complex song involving extensive legato (like any technique, something that takes years to get as good as satch has) yet can still keep non-musicians interested with it's melody and structure.