Thursday 4 January 2007

Learn to shred: Style; Joe Satriani

now you have some technical skill we are going to 
look at the playing style of Joe Satriani, and how to play like him.

Most of joe's solos use extreme legato runs,
and playing hese requires you to adapt your technique

  1. Keep your fretting hand's wrist relaxed
  2. your frethand should be parallel to the neck
  3. your fingers should be positioned straight on to the frets, not skewed
  4. your thumb should be on the back of the neck; relaxed
  5. when a finger is not fretting a note; keep it close to the frets for economy of motion
  6. when playing legato runs; you should be as relaxed as possible; to make you play better
When joe plays his legato solos he slides up and down the strings a lot.

here is a satriani type legato run


right hand muting technique:
joe has a developed muting technique using his fingers on his right hand to mute the strings
that are not being played.

to learn this practice a legato run slowly and conciously mute the open strings with your right hand fingers, do this a lot and it will soon be part of your subconcios playing



Satch harmonics.

in Joe's own words:

"You'll need a guitar with a whammy bar, an amp with a generous amount
of distortion, and a pick. You will also need to be familiar with the technique of creating harmonics with the right-hand thumb. This is accomplished byallowing a bit of your
right-hand thumb to touch the string or strings as they are picked.
Start with a broad downstroke across strings 4, 3 and 2, about four inches from the bridge.
Use the right-hand thumb technique to create two or three harmonics.
Simultaneously, reach over with your left hand, grab the bar, and swiftly but
smoothly bring it down, then up as far as you can. Hold it for a brief moment,
then quickly bring it down until the strings fret out.
This should take about four seconds."