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Sudah Siap Nge-rock Bareng Steve Vai Malam Ini?
Panggung Jakarta, Senin (22/7/2013) malam ini kedatangan salah satu legenda musik dunia. Legenda hidup yang dimaksud tak lain adalah Steve Vai.
Steve Vai akan menggelar konser di Tennis Indoor, Senayan. Tentunya sudah banyak penggemarnya di Tanah Air yang sudah menantikan kehadiran sang idola.
Sedangkan, untuk tiket gitaris asal Amerika Serikat itu sudah dijual sejak 18 Mei lalu. Tiket dibanderol dengan harga mulai Rp 295 ribu.
Harga tersebut dijual untuk kelas Tribun. Sedangkan, untuk kelas festival dibanderol harga Rp 495 ribu.
Steve Vai memulai karier sebagai gitaris solo sejak tahun 80’an. Sepanjang kariernya, Steve pun telah menelurkan delapan album solo gitarnya
Steve Vai Mengumumkan album solo bulan Agustus
Steve Vai telah secara resmi mengumumkan 14 Agustus tanggal rilis untuk album barunya, The Story of Light.
“Aku selalu mengejar pengetahuan, saya seorang pencari keseimbangan spiritual, dan musik adalah bagian besar dari itu,” kata Vai dari tema album, yang berfokus pada karakter yang telah menjadi gila oleh kesedihan. “Saya terobsesi dengan ide-ide seperti selama bertahun-tahun.”
Drummer Dream Theater Pukau Ribuan Penonton
Mike Mangini during his Zildjian-sponsored clinic held at the Percussive Arts Centre, Singapore on the evening of 25 November 2004. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Resmi menggantikan Mike Portnoy sebagai drummer sekaligus pendiri band beraliran rock progresif, Dream Theater pada 29 April 2011 lalu, Mike Mangini memang telah menunjukkan diri sebagai drummer papan atas dunia.
Tak heran memang, dengan perjalanan panjangnya sebagai penggebuk drum bersama beberapa band dan musisi besar dunia seperti Annihilator, Steve Vai, Extreme dan lainnya, menjadi jaminan kualitasnya.
Apalagi Mangini merupakan guru besar di Percussion Department, Berklee College of Music sebelum akhirnya memilih resign dan bergabung dengan Dream Theater.
Saat melakukan solo drum di tur dunia 2012 Dream Theater bertajuk A Dramatic Turn of Events, Mangini pun menghipnotis ribuan penonton di Mata Elang International Stadium (MEIS), Ancol, Jakarta Utara, Sabtu (21/4) malam.
Teknik, kecepatan, serta stamina pria yang berumur hampir setengah abad ini membuat decak kagum dan tepuk meriah penonton. Bahkan beberapa musisi kawakan tanah air yang menonton seperti Ian Antono, Doddy Katamsi, Achmad Albar, Charly, Once, Lilo Kla Project pun terlihat memberikan apresiasinya.
Ikmal Tobing, drummer band Ahmad Dhani, TRIAD pun terpesona. Beberapa kali dirinya mengacungkan kepalan tangannya dan berteriak sambil merekam aksi Mangini yang pernah didaulat sebagai salah satu drummer tercepat dunia sepanjang 2002-2005 tersebut.
“Keren abis tuh Mangini. Tak kalah ama Portnoy lah, meski gue sebenernya sangat suka ama permainan Portnoy,” ucap Mahfud, seorang penonton.
Little Wing – Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Orianthi (Live House of Blues, Hollywood 7-10-2011)
Komentar Drummer Baru Dream Theater Tentang Mike Portnoy
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Mike Mangini, drummer yang pernah bermain untuk Annihilator, Extreme dan Steve Vai, secara resmi telah menjadi pengganti pemain drum Dream Theater, Mike Portnoy. Mangini menyingkirkan enam saingan beratnya dalam proses audisi yang sempat direkam dan rencananya menjadi film dokumenter Dream Theater mendatang.
Mangini, yang merupakan guru di Berklee Colege of Music di Boston dan dikenal sebagai salah satu drummer tercepat di dunia, menyatakan kebahagiaannya bisa menjadi bagian dari band itu. Ketika dihubungi oleh Dream Theater untuk bergabung, Mangini sempat menangis beberapa kali.
“Otak saya butuh beberapa menit untuk memahami apa yang sedang terjadi. Dan ketika semua sudah mengendap, perasaan itu menjadi lega luar biasa,” kata Mangini.
Bagi Mangini, bukan hanya soal menjadi bagian sebuah band ikon progressive metal legendaris yang membuatnya bahagia, melainkan juga karena ia merasakan hal itu sebagai sebuah pemenuhan dan tujuan hidup.
“Saya merasa seperti kepingan puzzle. Dan dengan Mike Portnoy khususnya, saya merasa sangat terhormat meneruskan obor ini untuk dia. Saya akan terus membawa semangatnya,” imbuhnya.
Terlihat cukup jelas bahwa Mangini sangat mengagumi Portnoy atas apa yang telah ia ciptakan bersama Dream Theater.
“Saya sangat berterimakasih pada Mike Portnoy karena menetapkan bar begitu tinggi dalam musik Dream Theater. Saya memainkan bagian Portnoy khususnya untuk audisi karena saya ingin menempatkan musik pertama-tama, bukan chop saya,” katanya.
“Sekarang saya merasa berada di dalam persaudaraan musikal sejati. Dan mulai sekarang saya tidak harus menjelaskan lagi mengenai diri saya kepada siapapun,” pungkas Mangini.
Steve Vai
Image via Wikipedia
Permainannya mulai dari blues, jazz, rock sampai klasik dan ethnic music. Permainan gitarnya pun tidak terbatas pada komunitas gitar saja tetapi juga bagi orang-orang awam yang tidak mendalami gitar.
Pada umur 6 tahun, Steve mulai belajar piano. Pada umur 10 tahun, Steve mulai belajar bermain akordeon. Pada umur 13 tahun barulah Steve mulai mendalami gitar dan sejak saat itu lahirlah seorang dewa gitar yang baru.
Steve Vai mengawali kariernya dengan album debutnya Flex-Able Leftovers pada tahun 1984. Pada tahun 1990, Steve merilis album keduanya yang berjudul Passion and Warfare. Album ini mendapat pengakuan internasional dan Steve memenangkan polling pembaca majalah Guitar Player dalam 4 kategori yang berbeda. Album Steve yang ketiga berjudul Sex & Religion dirilis tahun 1993 dan album keempatnya Alien Love Secrets dirilis tahun 1995. Pada tahun 1996 album kelima Steve Fire Garden dirilis.
Tahun 1999, Steve meluncurkan album keenamnya yang berjudul Ultra Zone. Dalam album ini Steve lebih banyak memfokuskan dirinya dalam komposisi lagu dan bereksperimen dengan gitarnya. Tahun 2001 album The Seventh Song dirilis dan album ini berisi lagu-lagu slow/ballad yang pernah dirilis Steve dengan ditambah beberapa lagu baru. Dan di tahun 2001 Alive in an Ultra World pun dirilis.
Steve Vai juga pernah memproduksi 2 album Natal yang berjudul Merry Axemas Vol.1 dan Merry Axemas Vol.2, juga konser G3 bersama Joe Satriani dan Eric Johnson/Kenny Wayne Shepherd dan terakhir John Petrucci turut juga bergabung dalam G3.
Belakangan ini Steve Vai lebih memfokuskan diri bereksperimen pada permainan gitarnya dan sekarang ini band Steve Vai ditambah seorang pemain bass yang sudah tidak asing lagi buat fans-fans rock tahun 80-an, Billy Sheehan.
Joe Satriani
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jika ada hal yang dapat diceritakan mengenai gitaris veteran Joe Satriani, adalah kegilaannya untuk performe di hadapan massa penggemarnya. Bernama lengkap Joseph “Joe” Satriani, gitaris yang dilahirkan 15 Juli 1956 di Westbury, New York, ini adalah gitaris rock Amerika instrumental dan multi-instrumentalis, dengan beberapa nominasi Grammy Award.
Pada awal karirnya, Satriani bekerja hanya sebagai instruktur gitar saja dengan beberapa mantan muridnya telah mencapai ketenaran dengan kepiawaian gitar mereka, yaitu Steve Vai, Larry LaLonde, Kirk Hammett, Andy Timmons, Charlie Hunter, Kevin Cadogan, Alex Skolnick. Memang Satriani telah menjadi sumber inspirasi para musisi dunia sepanjang karirnya.
Pada tahun 1988, Satriani direkrut oleh Mick Jagger sebagai gitaris untuk tur solo pertama Jagger, namun kemudian, pada tahun 1994, Satriani sempat direkrut sebagai gitaris untuk Deep Purple, kemudian sempat pula bekerjasama dengan berbagai gitaris dari beberapa genre musik, termasuk Steve Vai, John Petrucci, Eric Johnson, Larry LaLonde, Yngwie Malmsteen, Brian May, Patrick Rondat, Andy Timmons, Paul Gilbert, Adrian Legg, dan Robert Fripp melalui konser tahunan Jam Concert G3.
Satriani sangat dipengaruhi oleh gitar blues-rock ikon seperti Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Ritchie Blackmore dan Jeff Beck, namun memiliki gaya tersendiri yang tetap menjadi ciri khasnya dalam memainkan gitar.
Selama dua dekade terakhir, Satriani telah berkeliling dunia, bermain untuk pertunjukkan besar dan tercatat sebagai headliner yang amat baik, sekaligus sebagai pendiri ekstravaganza all-star “G3″ gitar. Dari ke-14 album solonya, LintasCafe mencatat dua diantaranya memperoleh platinum dan empat emas dengan 15 nominasi Grammy untuknya. Sempat pada tahun 2009, Satriani bergabung dengan mantan Van Halen, yaitu Sammy Hagar, Michael Anthony mantan bassis, dan drummer Red Hot Chili Peppers ‘Chad Smith, untuk membentuk suatu kolaborasi rock, Chickenfoot. Debut mereka ini mendapatkan disertifikasi emas oleh Asosiasi Industri Rekaman Amerika dengan lebih dari 500.000 keping penjualan album.
Joe Satriani Konser di Indonesia Juli Mendatang
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Joe Satriani direncanakan akan singgah ke Indonesia bulan Juli nanti. Joe datang dalam rangkaian tur ke kawasan Asia.
Kota yang akan jadi saksi Joe menyayat-nyayat gitarnya di depan para penggemar yaitu Jakarta. Dari pihak promotor belum memastikan venue yang akan digunakan oleh sang Dewa Gitar itu.
“Belum, kita masih mencari tempat yang pas nih,” kata Arief, koordinator media dari Original Production, promotor yang bertanggung jawab mendatangkan Joe Satriani, saat berbincang dengan Okezone melalui telepon, Sabtu (5/2/2011).
Begitu juga dengan harga tiket yang akan dijual nanti.”Nanti pokoknya kita kabarin, akhir bulan ada rilis nanti,” ujarnya.
Joe Satriani adalah sosok gitaris instrumental rock asal Amerika Serikat yang paling berpengaruh saat ini. Beberapa muridnya seperti Steve Vai, Larry LaLonde, Andy Timmons, Charlie Hunter, Kevin Cadogan, dan gitaris Metallica, Kirk Hammet, cukup sukses setelah belajar banyak dari Joe.
Sumber : yahoo.com
Steve Vai Tempo Mental
| Tempo Mental
by Steve Vai Written in 1983 for a music magazine, but never published. It was the summer of 1978. I had just turned 18 years old and had sent some transcriptions to Frank Zappa. He responded by putting me on salary to transcribe tons of music, everything from lead sheets to orchestral scores. The bulk of the work was guitar solos, some with their accompanying drum parts. Frank played all the guitars and Vinnie Colaiuta was the drummer. These guys used to take it out to lunch, experimenting a lot with rhythms and odd phrases. My task was to transcribe the stuff the best way I thought possible. The tracks were recorded in several different manners. On some occasions, the band played together live. Sometimes FZ overdubbed his solos in the studio. One interesting thing that Frank did at times was to take a drum track from a certain time and place and then take a guitar solo from yet another time and place and lay them on top of each other. Frank released a book of some of these guitar solos and drum parts. It’s called “The Frank Zappa Guitar Song Book”. While transcribing the material, I was often confronted with situations that led me to reach into the intuitional areas of my imagination to come up with various notational devices and constructions that I had never seen before. I soon discovered that many contemporary composers were then (and are still) using these notations. In this article, I would like to show and explain some of these concepts and devices. Besides being of great educational value, this will also help to clarify the ambiguity behind some of the notation in the transcriptions found in “The Frank Zappa Guitar Song Book”. A polyrhythm is just what it says. Two rhythms, or “feels”, happening at the same time. Most people reading this have a good understanding of the basic triplet. This, in essence, is a polyrhythm. It’s three 8th notes being played against two 8th notes. Some more basic examples follow…
These rhythms could be played rubato (fluidly) or non-rubato (very strictly and evenly). Both ways have their own advantageous effects. SUBDIVIDING OVER TWO OR MORE BEATS The concept of putting an odd number of attacks in the space of one beat holds true for putting an odd number of attacks over two beats.
Although some of these examples may seem ambiguous (and/or terrifying!), they can be played accurately if understood and practiced. When you have a basic pulse and you superimpose altered rhythms on top, you set up a certain flavor in the piece that cannot be expressed in any other way. Metric Modulation Some composers use metric modulation when they write. It’s an effect that can give the piece an accelerando or retardation feel.
Off-Beat Rhythms Another notational situation I came across was hearing rhythms go by that didn’t start on the beat. Some examples of this are as follows:
These examples could be rewritten using odd-time signatures, possibly making it a bit easier for some people to play. But if there were a strict pulse being used, then the way I notated it would likely be the best. Discontinued Polyrhythms Another fine effect is a rhythm being displaced by a disconnected polyrhythm. It’s almost as if a metric modulation occurs in the bar, but the overall time it takes to play the bar is the same.
This bar starts out with two quarter notes (that’s one beat). During the next figure, the first two 8th-notes are played as 8th-notes of an 8th-note triplet. The time then resumes to normal so that by this point, one and 2/3 beats have gone by. The 16th-notes are played normally, making two and 2/3 beats played. The next 8th-note is played as an 8th-note from an 8th-note triplet. That brings the tally to three complete beats thus far. The remaining part of the bar is played normally. Another (and what I feel to be simpler) way of notating this follows:
When using this type of notation in a composition, there would have to be some type of explanation of the beginning of the piece. Here are some more examples of this:
This is another way of writing example #1:
Another situation comes about when you have a metric modulation inside a bar followed by the tempo returning to its original time, leaving some unaccounted time to be dealt with. In this example, you have two 8th-notes, then two 8th-notes from an 8th-note triplet. That makes one and 2/3 beats played so far. Then you play four 16th-notes in the original time, making two and 2/3 beats. The next bracket indicates to play two 8th-notes in the place of one quarter-note (bringing the tally up to three and 2/3 beats) plus one 8th-note from an 8th-note triplet. What the bracket indicates is to play two notes evenly in the space of one and 1/3 beats.
Some more examples of this follow. These examples take place in 4/4 time, but you can take this concept and mutate it for odd-time meters, waltzes, sambas, etc.
As you can see, these things take a lot of practice and good understanding. The best way to attempt to execute them is bit by bit. Here’s one for all you maniacs:
You might say, “Why, Steve?” This is extreme for today…but maybe not for the computers of tomorrow. [Note: this article was written around 1983 or 1984]. Another technique I use is that of overlapping polyrhythms. This can get kind of sticky and is best used when there’s no definite time signature going on.
One way of executing this phenomenon is to play the first five 8th notes as if they were equal to the 8th notes of an 8th-note triplet. You can also rewrite it to look like this:
Another way of approaching it would be to play the first two 8th notes as 8th notes of an 8th-note triplet. Then play the next three in the space of one and 1/3 beats. Another way of writing it would be:
Some more examples of this type would be:
You can find examples of this in “The Frank Zappa Guitar Song Book”, although they are not quite as extreme. Among the stranger things I’ve transcribed for Frank was the notation of actual speaking voices. An example of this follows:
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Steve Vai Lesson Martian Love Secrets
U.R. That
Uniqueness. Individuality. These are traits that ambitious musicians aspire to. When these qualities are recognized in others, trends are set and fashions are established. Everyone has the ability to be unique, because no two personalities are exactly the same.
Individuality is developed by the mind. The first step is to believe that we’re unique, and that if it’s not blatantly apparent in our art form (music, taste, or whatever), it can be developed. In this series, I will take an unorthodox approach to helping you develop your own personal style and expression. Some of the methods may seem a little ‘out there’, but stick with it.
I will not be dealing much with music theory, finger exercises, and ‘hot licks’. You can get all that stuff from a billion other sources. I don’t frown on those things at all; on the contrary, a certain prerequisite is always helpful. But uniqueness is not always a reflection of what you know or how fast you can play. I believe that individuality is defined, for the most part, by how well you exercise your imagination with the proper blend of emotion and physical, technical, and mental ability. It sounds like a lot, but what it really boils down to is ‘just playing’.
To make the best use of these columns, I feel it’s important to have a good amount of theory and chops under your belt. It’s not absolutely necessary, but you will find it beneficial. Although these columns deal more with discipline of the mind than of the fingers, you should be well educated in the following:
SCALES:
All major scales and modes and the theory behind how they relate to each other; Pentatonics; Melodic and harmonic minor scales; Whole-tone and diminished scales. You should know these scales in every position on the neck, and also starting from the low E string and climbing to the highest available note. You should have the sound of these scales memorized. Practice them with melodic patterns based on seconds, thirds, fourths etc.
CHORDS:
Know how chord scales work. Know at least 5 ways to play every major, minor, major 7th, minor 7th, and other chords. Know how to identify a chord by its notes. Memorize the sound of these chords.
THEORY AND IMPROVISATION:
Know every note on the guitar ‘cold’. Memorize the circle of fifths and know basic harmonic theory. Understand the basics of improvising over chord changes.
READING AND WRITING:
Understand basic music reading and notation. Be able to read down a song just given the chord chart and melody. Know how to read tablature, and how to read and write chord tablature. Be able to write an idea down in manuscript form (in other words, be able to notate a melody). You should also develop technical exercises to help you in areas in which you feel you lack ability (such as arpeggios, double-picking, hammers, and two-handed playing).
This is all basic stuff. It’s been covered in enough books and columns to sink a battleship, so I will spare you these things in this series. You can find this information in any music store or library with a music section, or ask a teacher.
While a thorough understanding of all these basic theory points is very useful, it’s not a necessity, because music is an art form. No one has the right to say, “Our noise is better than their noise”. It’s totally relative. However, if you are a connoisseur of fine theory, here’s a list of some books that I found very helpful when I was a student:
- Ted Greene’s “Chord Chemistry”
(Dale Zdenek, dist. by Columbia Pictures Pub., 15800 NW 48th Ave, Miami FL 33014). - All of the Bill Levitt Berklee series books
(Berklee Guitar Series, dist. by G. Schirmer, 886 3rd Ave., New York NY 10022) - A good fake book.
- Nicholas Slonimsky’s “Thesaurus Of Scales And Melodic Patterns”
(dist. by G. Schirmer, 886 3rd Ave., New York NY 10022) - “Rhythms 1 & 2” by Gary Chaffe.
- Violin or saxophone books for reading practice.
- Gardner Reed’s “Music Notation”
(dist. by Crescendo, 48-50 Melrose St., Boston, MA)
[Most or all of these books are available from amazon.com.]
…and of course, all columns appearing in “Guitar Player” magazine. These preliminary music theory concerns may take some people a while to sort out, so save those columns!
Remember, our approach will be more mental, emotional, and imaginative than theoretical. Our goal is to develop the individuality in your guitar playing. And as in any avenue of study, attitude is the most important element.
Have you ever heard the phrase “I am that”? I believe it means that you are what you think you are. The way you perceive yourself is what you will ultimately become. The problem is that many of us aren’t always aware of how we perceive ourselves. This gets into realms of psychology that probably exceed our comprehension, but I believe it’s possible to give yourself a conscious message that will incorporate itself into your psyche and lifestyle. Here’s a simple example: Imagine that you’re trying to kick a bad personal habit of some sort. If you tell yourself over and over all of the reasons for doing so (even if you don’t quite believe them), you’ll eventually find that you really dislike the habit and sincerely want to quit. The same phenomenon can be applied to any goal. It’s sort of self-hypnosis, or self-induced brainwashing. (Wash the dirty part, though).
I believe it’s a law of nature that every person is different, with a unique capacity for self-expression. As a result, we all have the ability to be unique in the way we express ourselves musically. A lot of people don’t believe this, and find themselves copying others and sounding like someone else. They end up frustrated with themselves because they feel they can’t “slack up” with the competition. But how can you compete with individuality? The only one you’re competing with is yourself. When you can identify with your individuality and accept and respect it, peace of mind comes in. The first falsehood to shoot down is the fear or belief that you lack uniqueness.
So this month’s first lesson (besides memorizing all the theory and such outlined earlier) is to realize there is a total uniqueness and individuality about yourself, and that it will make itself more and more apparent each day. You must believe it. Dwell on it every day, and it will become part of your thinking. You will be what you think you are. “I am that”.
But remember, it’s important to keep your ego in check. It’s easy to get carried away with yourself, and that’s guaranteed fire damage to the soul. If you’re unique, then everyone else is, too. You must appreciate and respect the uniqueness of others. Think about this every day — even without reading or studying a word or note of music — and you will feel your “uniqueness muscle” getting stronger.
Even though this month’s “sermon” doesn’t have hands-on guitar playing in it, I believe it’s the most valuable advice I can give anybody.
Musical Meditation
When you concentrate on a given situation wholeheartedly, you’ll get the best results. The key is single-pointedness of mind. This holds true for any pursuit; a bricklayer who concentrates on the work at hand covers every detail and gets the job done quicker and better. When you read a book with your mind fully focused, your comprehension and retention are vastly improved.
Here’s a musical example: I was transcribing music for Frank Zappa, doing everything from guitar and drum solos to orchestral scores and lead sheets. The work was quite intensive, and I found myself spending 10 or 12 hours a day listening to just one minute of music. I was concentrating so intently that I felt dazed whenever I stopped for a moment, but I achieved unprecedented results. I discovered new forms of written notation, greatly developed my ears, and transcribed some of the most rhythmically complex musical situations ever recorded — all by sheer single-pointedness of mind.
Mind control of this sort is a meditation. People meditate all the time without realizing it; watching TV is a meditation, in a sense. When many people hear the word “meditation”, they relate it to spiritual realms. “Stilling the mind” is probably the highest form of meditation. That is, keeping one’s mind from erroneous thoughts and focusing on the divine (or whatever path you’re on). We get the best results when we meditate on a subject, but alas, meditation is not easy. The mind loves to wander, and these intrusions keep you from the precious results you seek.
Now what on the face of God’s beautiful blue earth does all of this have to do with learning to play the guitar?
When you meditate on something, you’re forced to look at it from many different angles, including some you’ve probably never thought of. You’re forced to reach down into the depths of your identity and individuality. Consequently, your results will be uniquely yours. That’s what we seek as musicians: to light that tiny flare (or bonfire) of originality and individuality.
The following exercise will help you develop your musical meditation skills. Take one isolated musical idea, such as a single chord or riff. For our example, let’s take vibrato. Vibrato is a very expressive technique, and can say a thousand different things when properly used (or misused). Sit with your guitar and a clock, and vibrate a note for one hour. Sounds simple, but here’s the catch…
Never deviate from holding that note.
Pick it as many times as you like. Try many different vibrato approaches (fast, slow, soulful, mellifluous, etc).
Most important, don’t let your mind wander. When you find yourself thinking of anything other than vibrato (and you will, probably in the first few seconds), pull your mind back to the note. Your mind will wander off into thoughts such as “Am I doing this right?”, then “Boy, what a waste of time this is!” Eventually, you’ll find yourself thinking about your friends, your financial situation, what you did yesterday, what you’re going to do tomorrow, and of course, “Let’s eat!” This is the hard part. Just keep pulling your mind back to vibrating that note. It’s a discipline worth working on.
Eventually, you’ll exhaust all conventional vibrato approaches, all the ways you saw someone else do it. Then (if you have the discipline to continue), your mind will enter private realms and you will reach deeper into your own uniqueness for different ideas.
You may have to start practicing this technique little by little, doing it for just five or ten minutes. Try timing yourself. Ultimately, you’ll find that when it comes time to “just play”, you’ll use these vibratos with great ease, and you will discover something different in your playing.
You can practice this exercise with any riff, solo, or chord change. Just keep your mind on it and constantly analyze your performance. It can become very soulful. You might, for example, take just two notes — any two — and play them for an hour without straying from them. Try any approach; stretch them, use different picking styles, play hard or soft, make the notes long or short, or vibrate them.
One of the great things you’ll gain from this type of practicing is authority. When you play something, you’ll feel confident about pulling it off with flying colors.
But most important, you’ll gain discipline. Great results require discipline, and meditation is a discipline. But if you are really into this, it won’t seem like a discipline, but a pleasure. But there’s one thing for sure: Nothing you read in a column can teach you anything. You just have to do it!
Emulating a State of Experience
The more you are able to identify and express your inner personality, the more respect you will give the instrument of expression — your guitar. If you start identifying more with your different states of mind, you will have new insights into your playing. Your music will take on different characteristics: playful, sad, perverse, pure, or whatever. Guitar playing, after all, is a very personal thing.
If you ever feel you’re just meandering on guitar, or bogged down, here’s an exercise that will help improve your rapport with your instrument. Think of the last few days, and break them down into a series of individual events. Pick one event and play it back in your head a few times. Your emotions will probably change as you feel that state of mind again. Now construct a musical situation that reflects that state of mind. It could be a chord, a progression, a lick, a melody, a sound effect, a whole sonata, or just a single note.
If you are thoroughly saturated in that state of mind, your playing will reflect it. This is where the magic power of music comes in. Take, for example, a simple chord: a construction of notes being struck, strummed, plucked or hacked a certain way can represent a state of mind. Start by imagining the type of chord you think best suits the state of mind you’ve hypnotized yourself into. Once you hear that chord in your head, try constructing it on your guitar. If you feel you’re losing sight of your goal, replay the event in your head and imagine the sound of the chord again. When you think you have a harmonic structure that represents your state of mind, play it over and over, keeping your mind fixed on the event you’re emulating (as we did in Martian Love Secrets Part 2). Your playing approach, and maybe even the chord itself, may change to suit the mental environment more precisely.
Next, try stringing a few chords together to help represent your state of mind. They can be simple or complex, familiar or unusual. There’s a chord progression performance to match every human experience that ever was or ever will be. With that in mind, you’re not likely to run out of ideas.
Now try playing a riff, single note, or melody that reflects the events in your mind. When you find something satisfactory, keep repeating it as the event runs through your head. Remember, finding a tempo and groove for your state of mind is important — it’s one of the biggest factors of expression. We all know how different grooves make us move and feel different ways.
Eventually you’ll find yourself changing what you’re playing a bit, in order to better match your state of mind. The bridge between what you’re playing and what you’re thinking will get smaller and smaller until it feels as though you and your instrument are one. It’s very special when this happens. It takes work, discipline, concentration and patience, but sometimes it happens when you don’t even realize it (and it’s important not to get strung out if it doesn’t happen).
Whenever you play these chords, they will mean a lot more to you than the thoughtless meandering you were previously doing. Put it all together in a piece of music and it will be very powerful.
A word of caution, however: When choosing a past, present or future event to focus on, choose a variety of emotional states. It doesn’t always have to be a strong emotion such as sadness, anger, frustration, happiness or joy; it could be just a thought or impression. Some people dwell very heavily on the negative events in their lives. If you do this too often, your playing will reflect frustrated, twisted, anxiety-ridden emotions and you will attract those sorts of people to your life. On the other hand, if you emulate a wide variety of events, you will look forward to playing your beautiful instrument and people will perceive your visions.
You probably experience thousands of states of mind each day, more than there are adjectives to describe. Let’s say you didn’t eat for eight hours and someone handed you a nice, cold, ripe apple, then CHOMP! You might experience many states of mind in these few moments: hunger, the thought of what to eat, your feelings towards the person before and after they gave you the apple (colored by your hunger), the thought, “Yes, that’s right; that apple is history, babe!”, the biting of the apple and the taste sensation, choking and coughing and spewing out the apple because you were too hungry to chew it properly, or the embarrassment of having predigested apple all over the shirt of the person who gave it to you — I don’t know!
But these are all legitimate feelings to draw from. You can apply any of these states of mind to this exercise. For example, I have the perfect chord for spitting out the apple:
This technique can help you through difficult times in your life, and people will identify with it. It is very powerful in its suggestions, and this is where the magic of music comes in again. The intensity of that power comes from you. When you send out that strong state of mind, you will move people. In what direction you move them is entirely up to you. Remember, your instrument is only wire and wood. You have to choose what kind of sorcerer you will be. Caution is advised. Listen to your heart, and you will play from the heart.
The Physical
Your face reveals much about your personality. When people talk, they use their faces, as well as their voices. Sometimes the true meaning of what they are trying to communicate (or not communicate) is visible in their face and body language.
Body language is an important part of expressing yourself. Just try getting through a conversation while keeping a stone-cold, straight-faced appearance — no laughing, hand gestures, or body movement, just lips. You’ll see that it’s much harder to express yourself.
The way your body moves reflects your true personality. When someone plays an instrument, facial and body language play important expressive roles. Some people hardly move at all when they play. This doesn’t necessarily mean they’re not expressing themselves, not that what they’re playing doesn’t mean anything — some people simply emanate expression from their very being. This, too, can be cultivated with the proper attitude.
Sometimes when you play, you hit a note or chord, and your facial and body expressions contort to match the audio expression. When this happens, it gives you a certain sense of freedom and accomplishment, and it’s very entertaining for an audience.
Here’s an exercise to help you use your body expressively. First, tape record a musical situation — a jam session, let’s say, or a series of chord changes with an overdubbed solo. Listen back and choose a particular section — a chord change, or a riff — that you like. Listen to it several times, and picture the music as an actual “little person” (looking like you, presumably, or a familiar figure like Gumby). If the little person were the riff, what would his body and face look like? How would he contort himself to give viewers the impression of audible sound? (This could be quite amusing….)
Now go back and listen to the tape again. Listen to the passage you selected over and over, but as you picture the body language of the little person, emulate it with your face and body. You’ll feel the notes more, and this will translate into your playing.
Here’s another exercise: While you’re jamming, choose a lick and cycle it over and over. While you do this, think of the point you’re trying to get across; then think of how what you’re hearing makes you feel. Let the sound express itself in a certain body movement. The movement might consist of throwing your head back, or blinking an eye, or a little pelvic thrust, or rolling on the floor in a convulsive frenzy while humping your guitar in an erotic extravaganza with your eyes rolling back in your head while your nostrils flare and large red veins bulge from your neck — but please be careful. (I think I know that riff, by the way).
Another exercise is one that I stumbled on when I was about 12 years old. Take a familiar piece of music, such as a favorite solo section. As you listen to it, let your face contort and express the music. The first piece I remember doing this with was “Midnight”, a great Jimi Hendrix song that appears on ‘War Heroes’. Try this technique with your own playing — let your face express what’s coming out of your speakers. This is great fun, and very entertaining. The more animated you allow yourself to be, the more the music seems to come alive.
True, it takes a certain lack of inhibition to use this technique live, but hey, what do you care, right? I don’t suggest you use these body language techniques ALL the time. But in the never-ending struggle to be original, you must search the depths of your soul, and these techniques may help.
The Physical, Part Two
Music evokes certain emotions in people. A familiar melody can remind you of whole periods in your life. When I hear ‘Led Zeppelin II’, Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Are You Experienced?’ or even some old Motown song, the music brings my consciousness back to a time in my life when that music was popular. When we experience this phenomenon, we may actually feel the way we did at the most memorable time we heard the song.
When I was a teenager, for example, someone in my town threw a party almost every weekend. I would make my way to the stereo and put on a copy of ‘Led Zeppelin II’. (I always carried the cassette, in case they didn’t have the album). When “Heartbreaker” came on, my friends would clear a spot on the table or the floor and ask me to “air guitar” the solo. Of course, I’d act reluctant at first, but I was a ham even then, so I’d start jumping around and flailing like a wild animal. Everyone got a kick out of it, especially me. (This was back in the days when Apple Ripple wine, at $1.25 a bottle, was all the rage — you remember, right?)
Well, to this day, when I hear those familiar songs, I’m right back there again, smelling scents of the time, and feeling 15, ready to blow up the proverbial bridge, to GET IT! I actually feel the same sensations I felt then. For me, this proves the great inherent power of music.
In this series of articles, we’ve been trying to develop our playing so that it has our own identity. We must find personal thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations and bring them to fruition through your music. Remember, you have uniqueness — you just need to dig for it. The deeper you dig, the more you will uncover.
Translating feelings and sensations into sound is a unique approach, and the same sensation may mean something different to each person. I know what a bump on the head or a tickle to the feet means to me, but it may have a different meaning for someone else. I perceive things through my senses, and my perceptions are colored by my disposition and view of the world. The way I emulate these things on my instrument is a reflection of how I view the original sensation, how I synthesize it through my imagination (which is unique, like yours), and how I execute it with my technical apparatus (flesh and bones) and coordination expertise (chops) — phew!
Let’s try examining some physical sensations, with an eye towards expressing through our instruments. Grab your guitar, and let’s go.
There are millions of possible physical sensations; let’s take just one, and try to come up with a lick or chord that simulates it. Take the simple sensation of the wind hitting your face. Go out to the wind, if available, and expose your face to it (or your naked body, if you like). Picture the sound that best represents how the wind makes you feel. It may be a chord, a song, an effect, or whatever, but think in terms of expressing it on your guitar. The way you feel about the wind will be colored by variables like the temperature, your surroundings, your state of mind, and so forth. Here’s a chord that I came up with:
You can ornament your idea with different effects, various strumming approaches, superimposing a melody, or whatever. Or you can string together a chain of these sensations to make a song. If you come up with just one new idea from this technique, it will have been worth your time.
Here are some other physical sensations you can experiment with:
• a sneeze
• a tickle
• pulling hair from your head
• an ice-cold shower, or a nice warm one
• a burn
• a kiss (four different kinds)
• jumping into water from 4’ (or 20’)
• running as fast as you can for 40 minutes
• a feather on the belly button
• an ice cube down your shirt
• waiting on line at the Department Of Motor Vehicles
• a somersault
• spinning until you fall down
• and of course, an orgasm (just turn on any Prince record for a blow-by-blow expression of this one).
Your suggestions for relatively safe physical sensations are encouraged.
But in any case, you must truly examine the sensation, letting no detail elude you, and keeping your initial impressions of how the sensations would translate into sound. Getting absorbed in the details is important. The more you get it, the more inspired your results will be.
Mind Pictures
Sometimes we play things that just come out, and we don’t know why. I believe it’s divine inspiration. It’s possible to simply take these things at face value, but instead, let’s try to pin some “pictures” on these flirtations with divinity.
Pick up your instrument and play one chord. Try to invent one that you’ve never played before. (It’s simpler than it seems — just out your fingers in places you’ve never put them before, or detune a string or two.) Now strum the chord any way you like, and record it. As you listen back to your recording, let the chord “speak” to you. Allow the sound of the chord to evoke a scene in your mind — perhaps something familiar, maybe an experience in your life. Let your imagination run off for a while. You may start out with a mere impression, and end up with a whole story. Finally, write down whatever it was that you visualized. (When we were 16 or 17, my friend Joe Despagni and I used to do this extensively. We’d sit with a guitar, and one of us would strum a chord. We’d describe to each other the pictures it would conjure up in our minds — far-out and liquid).
This is an exercise of the imagination, and it should be taken to extremes. Don’t stop with just one chord. Listen to something that you’ve written in the past, or a popular song that you like. As you do, let your imagination go off on tangents. As you search for that special theme or melody, you may draw from mental pictures of an actual past event, a future one, or some totally off-the-wall scenario. After a while, you’ll see how this procedure affects your playing.
The following exercises may lead you to discoveries that you could not have attained any other way:
• Think of a person who is very close to you, or maybe even yourself. Construct a song in a standard form (AABA, or whatever), and have each section reflect a personality trait of that person. You’ll probably have to start out by defining how you view these different aspects of your subject’s personality. (This exercise may sound offbeat, but hey, what am I here for?)
• Try exaggerating your playing. If you think that a passage calls for a chord to be struck hard, smash it to pieces. If you need something fast and aggressive, be as furious as possible — more furious than you ever thought yourself capable of being. (But keep it clean and accurate, unless the part demands something else.) If a passage calls for subtlety, you yourself must be in a very subtle frame of mind. This approach is useful with dynamics — especially band dynamics — because dynamics are most effective when they are exaggerated.
• Think of the familiar expression markings you encounter when reading a piece of music (adagio, legato, and so on). You can actually apply any adjective to a piece of music. Take a random word from the dictionary, and apply it to a riff, song, chord change, or soloing approach (and don’t forget to use the exaggeration technique).
Whatever you do, GET CARRIED AWAY! (But don’t hurt yourself, or anyone else for that matter).
In Closing…
If you’ve been following these articles, you’ve probably noticed that my approach is rather unorthodox. Oh well, I trust you can find information on all the technicalities of music and performance in a host of publications. I hope that what I’ve said has inspired you to delve into your imagination, heart, and soul. If any of these articles inspires you to create an original or personal sound on your instrument, it will have been a success for me. But what it all boils down to is you and your attitude.
Attitude is probably the most important ingredient in any form of education or progressive evolution. Always keep your attitude in check. It’s not easy, because you must first figure out what a healthy attitude is. I can’t tell you, nor can any book, because everyone is on their own path. But I firmly believe that in our hearts we know the answers to the questions that we ask ourselves. A healthy attitude makes it easier to appreciate the works and teachings of others, and a healthy attitude will reflect itself in your own performance and self-esteem — in fact, a good attitude is the main ingredient. Don’t ever take for granted the power of human morality.
I’ve seen many great musicians — especially while attending Berklee College of Music — whose technical abilities far overpowered mine. But some of them lacked a healthy attitude about their music and themselves. I’m not saying that you should be an egomaniac, but if you don’t appreciate what you’re capable of doing, how can you expect others to?
Making music can seem baffling at times, and you may sometimes feel confused about all your inspirations. As you play, you may wonder, “Am I thinking right? Am I getting the picture across? Is this the best note to play here? Should I be playing fast, slow, loud, or whatever?” Sometimes, “just playing” is the hardest part of creating music. You must clear your mind and let divine inspiration take over. No lesson can teach you how to do this, but if you set it in your mind as a goal, you will see changes in your consciousness and your playing. But it’s important to remember not to get strung out on these things. Don’t get frustrated if it doesn’t always work out the way you would like. When it happens, let it happen. When it doesn’t, well, big deal, maybe next time.
The guitar is a beautiful instrument, and it deserves our respect. As you go through your playing career, you will touch that instrument in a way that you will never touch anything or anybody in your life. It will bear the brunt of your sorrows and joys. It will see and feel your passion, your anger, your love, and your hate. It will lead you to your victories and your humiliations. Although a guitar is just wire and wood, you may feel that it possesses a soul of its own, and rightly so. But it is a reflection of you. Grow with it, and respect it.
In closing, I’d like to thank you for all your support. Your inspiration and influence have been monumental for me. My best wishes to you all.
by Steve Vai
(originally published February 1989).
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