Joe Satriani Ascending Fours

Playing Technique
#1

How does Joe tackle this picking sequence here? Is it two way pick slanting?

As a DSX main player I’ve always found ascending and descending fours tricky, the easiest ways I have found is to do the descending sequence on lower strings starting with upstroke, avoid high strings, and use DSX motion plus swiping. The other way i have found is to add some upward economy picking and either a pull off or hammer on, it depends if I’m ascending or descending the sequence, to avoid the USX string changes.

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#2

Can you add TAB? Many people here will know but I have no idea what it is.

By “fours,” is that four notes per string? Oh, no, is

C D E F
D E F G
E F G A…

?

So is this alway split over two string with no more than 3 nps? Now I get the question!

So over the two strings can be

3 + 1
2 + 2
1 + 3

#3

crushingday_ascending4s
crushingday_ascending4s1568×665 68.2 KB

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#4

This is from the SwTA guitar book.

JS CD Run
JS CD Run1920×1606 181 KB

I slept on this song for years as far as what my old “set list” used to be of Satch tunes I loved to play. It’s a shame because the solo is a beast!

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#5

This seems quite accurate! Thank you for this!

#6

Oh I really love this song! Everything about it is great and the solo is killer. Most likely my favorite Satch tune, extremely fun. I would need to really improve my skills with the whammy bar to play anything Joe Satriana tho. I just recently acquired a guitar with floating bridge, I’m thinking of getting another one hopefully soon aswell to be able to use different tunings with the floating bridge.

#7

In this case I’m referring to this type of sequence indeed and that’s what Satch is doing. And being that it has a lot of string changes I think it would be interesting to discuss how Satch does this and also alternatives in case Satch’s way of doing this is not available to some of us.

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#8

Ice 9 probably has the craziest whammy bar parts. That one was my favorite to play from SwTA because of the multiple parts in verses. There’s the lead, the rhythm and the filler clean guitar. Mixing those up has always been a blast. I think the live renditions of Echo and Lords of Karma from Time Machine might be some of the most impressive playing from Joe pre-Crystal Planet. He goes absolutely apeshit in those 2!

#9

What picking technique(s) does Satch use?

#10

Ice 9

#11

He’s known as legato guy. Besides this (very cool) run, I’ve not heard him do much fast continuous
picking. I’ve seen him do a great looking “tremolo strum” that looks very “gypsy” but as far as I know, he’s not a monster picker.

I’m not at all trying to put him down. I LOVE Satch. He was my gateway to virtuoso player. He’s one of the most melodic shredders out there, a great songwriter, and a truly unique voice in instrumental guitar. That said, the clip posted originally in this thread doesn’t sound super clean to me, so I’d imagine he’s not getting much escape in both directions and we’re hearing/seeing some swiping. Not a ding at all, he’s awesome. It’s just not a thing that’s in his wheelhouse IMHO

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#12

I agree with this. I’m sure he’s thinking “alternate pick everything”, and then just letting the chips fall where they may (some swiping, probably some airballs, maybe some displacement). All stuff that is fine, but nothing I’d try to copy on purpose.

#13

So he can do DSX and USX? Does he prefer one over the other? Does he hybrid pick? Is the legato Yngwie-like to simplify picking or more like Holdsworth?

I agree with you that he’s a wonderful guitarist.

#14

His faster playing very rarely involves much picking (Crushing Day is an outlier), so it’s hard to say if he naturally would lean towards one escape over the other. Usually when he picks fast it’s tremolo for effect, like here:

#15

I’m racking my brain for any fast picking sections that aren’t like the one posted above in Time and I got nothin’!! Crystal Planet (the song) has one at the end and there’s a cool 2nps run in Big Bad Moon. Devil’s Slide, which I think might be his fastest playing (that or Bells 2) kind of has one, but that’s just 13 notes and 3 rests on a string before going to the next, and the solo has one of those fast picked bits but that’s mostly the bluesy rake. I’m thinking his fast picked string traveling is a “go-for-broke and hope for the best” kind of thing lol

#16

I definitely can see your point, however I think his way of picking is still good enough for most people I believe. Like I’d rather get that on my four note groupings than always trying to work around it with DSX tricks, just to have more options and slightly different sound.

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#17

If it’s not much trouble could you give me a list of recommended songs from Joe Satriani? I’d like to expand my knowldge on his discography. Just your favorite songs, that you know, aren’t the ones that most people have alredy heard or already know. Doesn’t have to be super long or anything like that, just something to get to know him better.

#18

I love Satch, he was the gateway guy to virtuoso playing for me, but I still think he probably didn’t scrutinize what he was doing here too much. His picking looks like mostly wrist, maybe some elbow or rotation occurring in different higher speed scenarios.

So if you want to play ascending fours all picked like this, and you’re already DSX (wrist?), the options are either to try for some DBX (which may or may not result in swiping), or purposely add in some 2 way pickslanting a la a helper motion (which could also result in swiping haha). I’d probably try working on it in the medium zone first, maybe 16ths around 140-150, and see where the big snags are. Can you chip away at it until it sounds good, or is there some major roadblock?

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#19

That’s honestly a great way to think. I don’t consider any of us “snobby” but I’ve gone down this rabbit hole of fast clean picking and a high standard that most people wouldn’t appreciate if they heard vs something not quite as perfect (but equal speeds). It’s fine, because it’s just for me :slight_smile:

This lick you could just consider a “trick”. Get it good enough and roll with it. Swiping / displacement are great candidates.

#20

Thank you I’ll try this!

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