They actually don’t flop around with a high action, granted some adjustment in technique is required, but it’s only going to make you more efficient, and sounds killer. I’ve come to the conclusion not all nickel strings are the same, the YJM set certainly has a different feel to it, I wish I could get them more easily.
What brand of strings is Joe Stump using @Troy? He looked to be using different picks as well, maybe 2mm Delrin?
Haven’t seen his name mentioned here, but Frank Marino uses/used .008 gauge strings too and may be tuned down a half step.
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I love Marino! I had no idea about his gear, although I know he builds a lot of his own stuff.
Just wondering, does anyone know what the “mixed minor” scale is that Joe plays?
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It’s Joe’s term for Yngwie-style licks where you’ve got the natural seven and the sharp seven in the same scale:
The B string, with four notes on it, suggests harmonic minor, but the G string also has three notes on it which would suggest natural minor. Honestly, I think Yngwie is just doing this to make the picking work out. This way he can do his four notes / escaped upstroke thing on the B string, then his down-up-pulloff thing on the G, and so on.
I’m not aware of anyone really using this as an actual mode within which you’d write tunes. I’m only aware of this term ever being applied to Yngwie’s fingerings. I think Wolf Marshall once called this “harmolean minor” in an instructional product of his, and it was met with some gentle ribbing. Again, because it seems more like something Yngwie just did for mechanical reasons more so than it sounding a certain way. That’s how it always seemed to me, anyway.
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Thanks, Troy. Those licks he plays were going past too quickly for me to figure out the notes. I like the term “harmolean minor”, it has a cool ring to it. Sounds better than “synthetic scale”.
I think of it as Dorian with the flat 5 in.
Moreso because that was something I already used than because that’s how I think Yngwie is thinking.
It’s a handy note to add in as it turns every one of your awkward Major scale positions into 3nps fingerings without having to shift position (if you put it in once per position).
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Last weekend I started practicing the Black Star lick from Volcano seminars. That extra natural seventh made no sense for a long time and when I play it, it sounds terrible. Yngwie makes it sound terrific. It takes special kind of wizardry to make it so fluid you don’t notice that chromatic stepping stone. I now call it the Hermionian scale, because it comes straight from Hogwarts.
When shall we see the full interview of professor Stump?
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Figured this was the best thread for this on account of visibility. Joe really nailed it on the new Alcatrazz album, really tasty playing.
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