Dream Theater - Afterlife - unison part - is it swiped?

Playing Technique
#1

Hi everyone.

I noticed that the Song “Afterlife” by Dream Theater has a guitar and keyboard unison part that involves a lick with a one note per sting pattern. You can see it in this video from 04:34.

It´s a four note pattern that goes
two notes on the high e string,
one note on the b string and
again one note on the e string, then repeat.

I was wondering whether John is actually swiping here. It´s actually hard for me to imagine that he plays this lick without hitting two strings at a time when changing strings, especially when considering his rather large hand/ arm movements.

What do you guys think?

Have a great day,

Dairwolf

#2

I didn’t watch the video, but I know the song well. Is he picking the first two notes or does he play the first note, pull off, down on the B, Down on the E (sweep picking) up on the E pull off repeat?

#3

From the video and also from how it sounds, I am pretty sure he is picking every note. Starting with a downstroke (which I think he does) would make it an outside string change.

#4

This looks like all the notes are picked, but I don’t know if there’s any way you’re really going to be able to tell from this distance in the video whether he’s playing everything totall on the money. Without a close up camera, wrist technique is just going to look like the hand moving back and forth most of the time.

However from the video you have basically what you need to know in the practical sense, because you can see it’s just wrist motion, no forearm motion, no finger motion. So your main approach for learning this is just to try to play the pattern in this general speed ballpark and see if you can hear or feel any noise.

Once you arrive at a point where sounds and feels clean to you, you’ve reached maximum practical cleanliness. Even if you film yourself and you see that you’re hitting a string you’re not supposed to, there’s no way you can fix that if you can’t hear or feel it when you’re actually doing it. That’s how swiping arises most of the time — i.e. by actually trying to play cleanly, but reaching a point where the errors are sonically invisible, and there’s no more feedback you can use to get any cleaner. If the tree falls in the forest…

3 Likes
#5

Thank you for ypur reply.

“…there’s no way you can fix that if you can’t hear or feel it when you’re actually doing it.”

Does that mean that the only way I could know whether I am swiping or not would be to have a camera affixed to the guitar that shows me my playing in real time or via recording a video?

#6

I’m saying don’t worry about swiping. Do you like the Petrucci clip? It sounds essentially perfectly played to me. If there is swiping, it doesn’t affect the end result.

If you can’t hear or feel something, not only is there no way to change it, but before cameras, nobody would have even known it exists. It almost becomes a philosophical exercise to worry about it. As guitarists we have enough problems to worry about. Sounding perfect but having invisible imperceptible mistakes shouldn’t be one of them!

2 Likes
#7

Yes, I like that lick.

I think there actually are “philosophical ramifications” of swiping, if you want so. I had thought of creating a post regarding this aspect of picking. Now I feel even more inspired to do so. :blush:

1 Like