“Another Day” solo

General Music Discussion
#21

To be honest, I’m not really sure, but I think UXS is the same thing as DWPS. I think it stands for Upward escape, which is what is the actual benefit of Downward pickslanting (DWPS). Troy wanted a new term to really focus on the positive purpose and gain of slanting the motion path of the pick. So, although still really confusing to me, UXS is the same thing as DWSP and vice versa DXS is the same thing as UWPS.

Please tell me if this is incorrect information so I can delete this post. I don’t want to be the source of incorrect explanations on the forum.

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#22

Haha. Maybe we should get a stickied glossary of abbreviations going. So if you are using DWPS/UXS then for this lick I assume you’re also two way pick slanting for string changes where the last pick stroke using USX isn’t escaping? What mechanics are you using I guess is what I’m asking.

#23

Yes it’s right to assume that something must be happening for the other string changes, but in my case I’m a one way slanter. This forces me to either use legato escapes or swiping. In this case I’m swiping all the string changes that occur after downstrokes. So there are (at least) three swipes in there. :slight_smile:

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#24

Here is my attempt at the solo. I don´t remember exactly how the run is but it is all alternate picked.

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#25

@Spooky_tom Sounds great. I suspect, although it’s hard to tell exactly from the video, that you’re playing the notes I originally thought it was.

Starting on the D# as opposed to the E on the D string. This tab, which is one note off the Escobar tabs. Although at the speed it’s played the execution is way more important than 1/2 step starting point.
Thanks for the help all!!

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#26

I was in the mood for some Petrucci and was really curious if there’s much about his playing on CtC and I stumbled across this. I love this solo!!! It’s always been one of my favorites! Such a great blend of tone, musicality/feel and melody, with a little bit of virtuosity sprinkled in :slight_smile:

Learning this one bugged me for years though, because for reasons mentioned here, I could never decipher the notes in that blazing ascending pattern to learn it. Alas, even if I could have figured it out, I now know that my habitual upwards pick slant would have crippled me just 6 notes in…

But armed with my new knowledge, I really really think, assuming the Escobar interpretation is close enough (sounds good to my ears) , that this is a great candidate for all dwps using swiping . I never knew swiping was a thing before CtC, but it’s opened up so many avenues for me. I’ll only do it if I can execute it without the swiping being heard though. Certain licks in certain keys have the swiped note land somewhere that a natural harmonic occurs. When I’m ascending in 6’s like this though, I can totally mute the note because the underside of my pinky and my prepared index finger both mute the swiped note together, rendering any would-be harmonics silent. A lick like this should be clean when swiped regardless of the key. This has always been a bucket-list lick of mine, and now I think I can probably make it happen with a little practice doing it the ‘right’ (i.e. thoughtfully engineered and well thought-out, not brute-forced) way.

Lastly, a fun personal story about this solo. I swear this is not a ‘fishing story’. Back in the day when I was a poor aspiring musician and taught guitar lessons at my local music shop, I was working on this solo in the lesson studio while I was waiting for my next student. When I played that sweet overbend that occurs around 58-59 seconds (again referencing that Escobar video posted above) my high E string broke! I just felt so unbelievably cool at that moment lol :rofl: I’ve been playing for about 25 years and I’ve probably only broken a string in the middle of playing (not counting tuning) 3 or 4 times, if that. This memory always stands out in my mind. Good times!

Thanks @Pconsoli74 for posting this thread, and thanks @qwertygitarr for posting the Escobar clip. You both made my day!

#27

Oh and actually, after listening to the original solo again, slowed down, I am pretty sure the Escobar interpretation is not quite spot on (but still awesome). Rather than repeating the first six notes, it’s got a chromatic passage in the beginning. After that, it’s right. Here’s what I’m hearing in that ascending flurry, at least what I think John Petrucci was going for. I hear some of the syncing issues too, but c’mon! He’s such a beast and this fits the solo so perfectly!!!

image

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#29

Interesting thread - one of my all time favourite solos. For me, the notes do not really matter so much as the attitude and confidence. Being able to brutally smash through first lot of notes and end up bang on the last note is what it is about. I wouldn’t be suprised if this was one of those early takes where he just went for it and just had that vibe!

If I were to create and record a solo that good, I might consider it job done and quit guitar! :grinning:

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#30

I wholeheartedly agree. I guess my main point is through a combination of my ears improving over the years and (what I consider to be) the groundbreaking discoveries of CtC, I can now recreate a lick that’s vexed me for decades. If I want to do something similar in my own playing, I’ve now got a tool. Before, this was a mystery to me. I couldn’t tell

  • what notes he was playing; AND
  • how to approach the picking, even if I could only approximate the notes I was hearing

Now, for me, it’s clearly a case of DWPS and swiping the string changes. Any time I need asccending sextuplets at speeds in the 110 - 140 bpm range, that’s going to be my recipe. Even if it’s improvising. Troy’s rightly pointed out on plenty threads that improvising is really just randomly selecting ideas from a vocabulary. So before, this lick was a ‘word’ I could not pronounce. Now, I know how to at least spell it on command :slight_smile: With hopefully only a couple more months of practice, I’ll be able to execute it at the speed on the recording without a second thought.

But yes, to your point – for a solo like this, the tension created by blazing through an ascending run and nailing a bend on one of the highest notes possibly on the instrument, I totally agree that the notes that comprise the run aren’t a big deal.

In any case, all hail Petrucci!

#31

This is the slowed down version (speed is reduced from 70bpm to 30bpm) so everyone who is interested can have a listen. Like some people pointed out, the articulation of the notes is not superclean, but you can hear the pitches being played/intended.

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#32

Great post

Right on!

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#33

@nitro1976 can you post the same thing, but use the isolated audio listed above (lars posted it, 4th comment from the original)? Hearing all those other instruments and artifacts at that speed reduction just confuses me. I’ve never been able to slow it down below 50% and you’ve got it beyond that. Just curious how I’ll hear the isolated track. I’m still torn on what I came up with above. Maybe my chromatic stuff is wrong…I know I shouldn’t care, it’s just been bugging me for decades haha!

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#34

I will do it as soon as I can :+1:t3:

#35

Thanks! I guess one of these days I should probably resurrect my home studio. Then I could just drop it my DAW and slow it down. I’d sort of stopped everything a few years back and my little studio got totally disassembled. This site’s gotten me interested in guitar again!

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#36

Here are some clips I hope are helpful. The way I hear this is as sextuplets (6 notes per beat) at tempo 140, which translates to 12 notes per beat at tempo 70.

I included the extra clips, because sometimes you lose the musical feel when you hear things slowed down.

Cheers.

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#37

Definitely agree with that! Thanks for doing this for me.

At the end of the day, I’ve got what I want…I can recreate the attitude of this run, and I’ve got the mechanics and engineering to facilitate the speeds I couldn’t even fathom back when I was playing with exclusively UWPS.

I’m back to scratching my head on the exact notes he was going for though haha. I’ve been practicing it like I posted above

But the first 6 notes ‘sound’ more like this:
image

He’s too ‘worked out’ of a player to write something that sloppy with the repeated A# on the g string, so he was probably doing the chromatic thing I originally posted. I think the rest of it is pretty clearly accurate and I got what I’m hearing with this slowed down isolated track.

In summary:
Maybe some things in life just aren’t meant to be known…maybe after 20 years of wrestling with this on and off I’ve put it on a pedestal…in either case I’ve beaten this dead horse to dust.

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#38

I’m inclined to agree, but one thing I would say is that when the album (Images and Words) was recorded they were not as big a band as they went on to be. There may have been pressures to get the record completed, in a more rushed fashion. They probably heard that the solo sounded great and moved on and were in less of in a position to scrutinise every note as they can now.

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#39

Absolutely. I’m not knocking him, trust me! It sounds awesome at full speed! I probably shouldn’t have used the word ‘sloppy’ and instead called it un-synchronized.

#40

Haha, I get ya buddy - but that is sloppy for JP!

#41

So how near are you to getting it up to tempo? I too have always wanted to do this solo, but never could get anywhere near the speed needed. Maybe its time to try again!!!

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