Crushing Day Solo by Joe Satriani

Playing Technique
#1

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Do you guys know the solo for Joe Satriani’s Crushing Day?

I’m trying to figure out how to pick the part that begins at the G7sus4 meausre?

In my mid, I’m hearing an emphasis at fret 22, then 21, then 20, so I want to down pick those notes. Something like (D is downstroke, U is upstroke, P is pull-off):

D22P15 D22P15 U15 D21P15 U15 D20P15 D20P15 U15 D21P15 etc etc.

But I’m worried if I learn it like the above, I won’t be able to accelerate it. Maybe I should just straight alternate pick it? Like:

D22P15 U22P15 D15 U21P15 D15 U20P15 D20P15 U15 D21P15

Thoughts?

#2

Ah yes I know that solo well, great solo, it’s a nemesis of mine and apparently Satch even struggles to play it live and confessed to not liking it. He even sits down to play it on one of his live videos on Youtube.

Anyway yes I have encountered that same problem because he is obviously emphasising those picked notes before the pulloffs and I tried it both ways but in the end it was downstrokes on the pull offs upstrokes on the 15th that produced the right effect. The way you’ve got it is exactly how I do it, or try to do it anyway.

I find that is actually one of the easiest parts of the solo. The arpeggios at the start are much dodgier for me and I’m not sure the tab book has it 100% correct.

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#3

He plays it like this on that live video:

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#4

the tab is wrong in many parts. I found someone on youbute, ‘constantine’, that seemed to transcribe correctly the ‘wrong’ portions of the tab:

#5

Aha yes much more logical to enable the emphasis on the picked E string notes. I never noticed that, good spot !

#6

Cool I’ll have a look. So many problems in that tab book.

#7

You think so? on two stings?

It feels better playing it on one string. And your first finger is already anchored on 15 on the high, why note use it for the upstrokes?

#8

Seems like it’s easier to get the feel and rhythm right with the 2 string version. At least I can make it sound like the record pretty well.

However if i play it on one string I can do it faster, probably because I’ve been trying to play it like that for years and it’s burned in, but it always takes a bit of skill to make it sound like the song. If you ignore what it’s supposed to sound like and just floor it tho it’s pretty cool.

I learn something new on this forum every day !

#9

I think he just likes this sort of 2-string lick. The later arpeggios use the same picking approach.

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#10

Something else incorrect in that solo is the pentatonic lick at the start of the solo which is tabbed in the book on the D and G string using 0, 3 and 5. I learned it there and made it sound good after a long struggle.

Then I saw him play it live and it’s actually played on the E and A strings at the 10, 13, 15 !! :open_mouth:

I was tempted to throw that book in the trash, well maybe the recycling bin, but the book does get the notes right; they’re not necessarily tabbed right but the musical notation is correct so I guess you have to keep that in mind with a lot of these books.

#11

Yeah, the youtube video above (part one) demonstrates the correct way.

I’ll give a pass to the transcriptionist, was the late 80s, there was no youtube with ongodly amounts of tape to watch!

#12

To be fair, it’s possible he DID write and record the solo with pull-offs to open position notes, but then rearranged it to something he found a little easier to play when he started touring this song again 20 years later. Listening to the album version vs that love version, the part does sound texturally different, and it wouldn’t be unprecendented for him - “Raspberry Jam Delta-V” was a fretting hand tapping lick played with the picking hand holding down an octave on the 4th fret G string and 7th fret high E string B to give him three open B notes to pull off to, but he’s been touring it as a picked lick pedaling off the open B string:

#13

Yeh you’re right it could well be like that and that lick on the record really does sound like he’s using open strings, the hammer ons also sound a bit smoother like they’re done with the index and ring finger, hard to explain why I get that impression or why we could tell the difference but it just feels like that :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

#14

The first part is definitely 10th position on the album. The first bend is a pinch harmonic on the 6th string.

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#15

I definitely trust your ears over mine!

#16

I was thinking about arguing the point but then I remembered that you are a professional transcriber and based on what you’ve done on the JP material it’s very likely you know better than me :wink: