some more videos

i decided to upload some videos of the guitarists i've reviewed so far playing in an actual band setting as opposed to just showcasing their individual skills. i did that to try and show as many of their technical abilities in one video as opposed to, say, a famous song of theirs which won't necessarily sum them up well. but here they are anyway.



this is vai's most famous song, for the love of god, from passion and warfare. perfect example of his signature sound.



an early malmsteen song.



a gilbert song from 2006. very bluesy and "classic-rock" but has lots of more shred elements.



a classic RHCP tune. listen to how little frusciante plays.



typical dream theater song. full of ridiculous tempo, rhythm, feel, style and key changes.



one of satriani's most famous tunes. one of the groundbreaking songs that pioneered the genre of instrumental guitar music.



hendrix in full swing, pissed off and amazing all at once.

john petrucci

john petrucci is the guitarist and lyricist for progressive metal band dream theater. petrucci, along with john myung and mike portnoy (dream theater bassist and drummer) are graduates of berklee college of music and this definitely shows in their music.

dream theater are famous/well known for intricate, complex and self indulgent music. many of their songs span for over 15 minutes and contain some of the most terrifying guitar, drum and bass work around.

petrucci has, by far, the best overall technique of any famous shred guitarist. his legato, sweeping, string skipping, picking an anything else you can imagine are in the highest echelon. in other words, he's pretty much as good at all these techniques as you can want to be.

the most coma-inducing of his techniques is his picking. he is capable of doing fast alternate picking runs at 16th notes at over 200 beats per minute. that's around 14-15 notes per second, all of them picked separately and many of his solos and riffs use this technique. as opposed to players like paul gilbert, i think petrucci focuses more on pure speed and "shred" factor in his picking. his picking lines are very dense, short and sharp. he incorporates complex sweeping, blindingly fast legato and millions of other crazy small tricks and licks.

as i said before, dream theater are known for their complex and intricate songs. their music is kind of like pink floyd on crack meets metal. they use complex time signatures and heavy riffs a lot. over their 20 odd-year career they've dipped into pretty much every genre of music. however, as complex as they may be, they are still pretty accessible and well known due to the fact they have a vocalist (their music is not all instrumental, but contains lengthy instrumental breaks) and more straightforward metal songs.

petrucci used to be endorsed by ibanez guitars and played them for many years, having his own ibanez JPM signature guitar before switching to ernie ball/musicman guitars. he now has multiple signature guitars from EBMM. petrucci, along with steve vai, is one of the main users and pioneers of the seven string guitar. many of dream theater's songs are in drop tunings or utilise seven string guitars.

due to his monster technique, the guitar-playing community often joke about and make references to him. in many parodies on the internet, he has become known as "the overlord", "your God" and "satan". he made a "rock discipline" guitar instructional video in the 90's which has been ridiculed to no end due to petrucci's insane level of skill, technique and dedication and also the exercises themselves. here's an example.



this video is a decent example of his overall playing:

john frusciante profile

john frusciante is the guitarist for the band, the red hot chili peppers, the alternate rock/funk/metal band from LA.

frusciante has only been in one band his whole life, RHCP. he joined them in 1988 after their first guitarist, hillel slovak died of a drug overdose. with the help of frusciante, the band rose to stardom and became one of the best known bands in the world, yet parted from their underground, hardcore funk scene. however, fame took it's toll on the young frusciante and he spiralled into a 6 year long heroin habit which almost cost him his life. he rejoined the band in 1997 and released the album "californication". since then they have become, once again, one of the biggest bands in the world.

frusciante is one of the few, famous, mainstream guitarists today who doesn't just strum some powerchord and use lame, harmonized guitars. he is, fundamentally, a guitarist from the blues school of playing; his biggest influence is jimi hendrix and it shows in his playing.

he chooses to use analog effects (circuits and wires in a box as opposed to digital) and old guitars (his main guitar is a 1961 stratocaster, worth tens of thousands). his playing before he left the RHCP is characterized by hard, brash, funk-metal licks, typical of the period. it is no secret that he was a huge jerk during this time and his music reflects this, although, their 1991 album blood sugar sex magik, (frusciante's last before his hiatus) is regarded by many as RHCP's magnum opus; it features sex-laden, laid back funk tracks mixed with acoustic and experimental tracks.

since frusciante's rebirth in the late 90's, his playing has taken on a more "spiritual" path; his soloing is simple, yet effective and he chooses to use simple, melodic playing over shredding like paul gilbert or someone similar. frusciante has said himself he tries to play under flea (RHCP bassist) which is unusal, but works since flea is a very active, intense bassist. as i said before, frusciante's style is very similar to hendrix and other players of the time (but mostly hendrix). in terms of chordal work, he chooses to use sparse double stops and triads (double stops are 2 notes played at once, triads are chords made up of 3 notes) in a 16th note funk rhythm (think disco or something) with a wah pedal (a pedal that takes off treble and adds bass and vice versa) to create staccato, dry, funky rhythms. for other chord work such as choruses and stuff he never really uses anything more than a minor, major or dominant 7th chord (chords with 4 notes). he prefers to let flea take up most of the musical space.

frusciante is a pretty limited and simple player, but he's also very effective in what he does and has managed to inspire a generation of young guitarists and make a mark on music itself.

this video is a perfect demonstration of frusciante's style (post 1998). the very starting chords and lines could be taken straight from a hendrix gig and they are actually very similar to a hendrix song named "midnight". the first chord he plays is an E7#9, also known as the "hendrix chord" (it was originally a song used in jazz but hendrix incorporated into much of his work, most notably, purple haze). he uses his wah pedal and long, bluesy notes, bluesy bends and lots of pentatonic soloing to great extent here, as well as his whammy bar. listen to flea and focus on how much flea is adding to the mix compared to frusciante.

jimi hendrix profile

ahh, jimi hendrix, the grandaddy of them all. where do i even begin?

hendrix is often cited as the greatest electric guitarist of all time, and for once, this is not an over-statement. i'll just say that had hendrix never found that 1-string acoustic in a garbage bin when he was 14, joe satriani would be working in an office job in canberra, paul gilbert would be flipping burgers in texas, steve vai would be a meth addict and yngwie malmsteen would probably have committed suicide in some strange cult setting. the basic fact is, if you play electric guitar, no matter what style, you have been influenced by hendrix in some way, full stop.

hendrix's professional solo career lasted only 4 years, but he changed the guitar completely. he played a right handed stratocaster left-handed and wrote the books on many techniques and styles.

feedback (where the signal emitted from an amp is picked up through the guitar and sent back to the amp creating a never ending loop of high pitched screams)? before hendrix it was an undesired side effect of loud volume, yet he used it eveyrwhere to create music. distortion? hendrix made the guitar sound like anything from a dying animal, to brass instruments. the whammy bar? hendrix could make his guitar sound like a car siren, add indian-sounding dips and dives to his music and simulate bombs and gunfire with it. chords? hendrix invented the style of playing bass and lead guitar parts at the same time thanks to his massive hands. he was also famous for playing at bone-crunchingly loud volumes. it is true though, that there is a certain energy gained from playing at very loud volumes.

the list could go on forever. basically anything that is now commonplace today in guitar was revolutionized or at least fiddled with by hendrix and his influence on modern music is unchallenged. i can't stress enough how much he changed guitar playing. where as some players are famous for 1 certain aspect, hendrix is famous for millions.

he was a musical genius, despite having no formal training was unable to read music. however, he wrote some of the most beautiful, intense, screaming, heaviest songs ever written. take a look at voodoo child, little wing, castles made of sand, purple haze...the list carries on for years.

i listened to hendrix exclusively for over a year straight and he was the initial reason i started playing guitar. all the other players listed on this page cite him as a huge influence. hendrix is the original badass that every kid wanted to be like. but there's something in his playing i've never heard anyone else come close to. it's hard to explain to a non musical person, but his phrasing and, most importantly, his musical vision were extraordinary. he had a scarily, uncanny way of making all of his playing "fit". you'll often be left sitting there going "how did he just DO that?". even if you figure out the notes, you can never play it like he did.

as an example of his intensity and total emotiveness on the guitar, check out this vid, especially from 1:48 to about 2:18.



you can see from his body language how he is focusing his all on his playing and the licks he produces are ridiculously powerful. i have to say, it is, by far, THE most intense guitar playing i've ever heard. sure it's not the most technically impressive, but you can literally hear his anguish in his playing.

also, here is a good example of his softer, more chordal work.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joaMnMPvBe4

as you can tell, i feel pretty strongly about hendrix. i could write an 8,000 word essay on him if i wanted to. i think everything spawned from him. i can't even begin to describe how much he changed and influenced music and guitar playing in general. it's even scarier when you consider that his music is about 40 years old. i would have had a heart attack hearing him for the first time in 1968 (there's the famous story of how he literally reduced eric clapton, the then "best guitarist in the world" to tears when he asked to jam with him). it's funny because by today's standards, his level of technical skill is laughable, but he managed to do more than most musicians do in 30 years. basically, i think he is the god of electric guitar and always will be.

yngwie malmsteen profile

here we have yngwie malmsteen, one of the biggest pioneers in the world of heavy guitar.

renowned for his tight leather clothes, absurdly huge ego and ridiculously good chops, malmsteen made a name for himself in the early 80's by forging a new genre of music; neoclassical metal, a genre combining classical elements from the baroque era with heavy metal elements. the result? wankery.

if guitarists and non guitarists know 1 guitarist, they know malmsteen, even if just by name. his ego is legendary, although it is not without reason. malmsteen is probably THE grandaddy of shredding as guitarists know today. he is one of the masters of sweep picking and especially alternate picking and his technical skils are (well, used to be) second to none.

he developed a unique and new style of guitar playing that had never been seen before; incorporating classical arpeggios (chords played note by note) and violin like techniques to the world of guitar and has inspired many a pasty teenage wannabe rock guitar hero as well.

he broke onto the scene in the early 80s and, unfortunately, since then, his style has changed by about...0%. he has seemed to have been caught up in his fame and newfound style and hasn't progressed still. these days, he still struts around in tight leather pants playing the same types of songs he was 25 years ago, only a bit sloppier.

malmsteen is also famous for using almost exclusively stratocasters (THE iconic electric guitar, see picture) with scalloped fretboards. this means the wood between the frets has been carved out, which means there is no contact with your fingertips on the wood. this results in a much smooth bending action.

a commonly overlooked aspect of malmsteen's arsenal is his vibrato (vibrating the string with the fretting hand, causing the pitch of the note to waver). it is flawless. he produces wide, smooth and consistent, violin-inspired vibrato. good vibrato is a key element in guitar. it is unique to stringed instruments (you can't, for example, do vibrato on a piano) and many players are identifiable through their vibrato and every player has a unique approach. vibrato and bending are hard techniques to master as you essentially turn the guitar into a non-fretted instrument, meaning hitting the right pitches and not making the notes go sharp is all down to your hand and muscles

malmsteen's licks are inspired from classical violin players like paganini; they include fast, smooth, wide intervallic (meaning they span lots of notes) runs. curiously, malmsteen was first inspired to play guitar because of jimi hendrix (more on him later).

malmsteen has recently released a new CD which contains only acoustic work, yet it is, unfortunately all classically influenced. i don't think we will ever see anything else from him.

malmsteen is either a love or hate player. there is not much inbetween. he is often accused of having "no emotion" in his playing but i think he deserves a spot in the highest registers of guitaristry for his contribution to the modern school of guitar. he is, for example, the reason paul gilbert has developed his picking style to what it is today.

here is a good summation of his skills and virtuosity.

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.