Knappsack by Steve Vai is a great example of music over picking style

Harmony & Theory
#1

I’m sure many of you have seen this:

I think it’s one of the best examples of fretting hand dominance over picking hand in terms of musicality, and even speed. Obviously we are obsessed with picking technique here, but I think this is a massive issue that doesn’t get raised enough, I like to think of it as “you can’t go fast if you don’t know where you’re going” kind of thing. Well… you can go fast… and crash, right…

I think CtC has a lot to gain from delving into the fretting hand, How come thats not really happened?

1 Like
#2

There was a lot of “mystery” regarding picking before CtC. However, regarding the fretting hand, do you think that there is something mysterious that we don’t know about, or is “merely” just a question of practice? My guess is that the left hand is well understood (although I am hardly an expert in anything). I would have been curious to try Steve’s guitar and see how much compression he had, etc., and this fine video makes me want to further develop my “HO from nowhere” skills.

Regarding the left vs. right hands, I think that both are critical to make guitar what it is. What is interesting is that the true monsters seem to have taken the right hand to the next level: It can pick and tap with multiple fingers! But I suspect there isn’t a lot of mystery there…

1 Like
#3

I would disagree. I would argue that the understanding of fretting hand mechanics in most guitar pedagogy is very poor.

The future is full of possibilities.

3 Likes
#4

Most the high level players I see do a lot of legato, and from my experience it’s fretting hand first then picking hand, in terms of pulling something off well. Take the combo of single pick escape for example, you have various ways of filling out the lack off alternate picking, and muting, muteing is massively important in playing well and expressively, and if you’ve fretted something well you can literally just wack the strings and get good stuff out, sweeping is also mostly in the fretting hand.

In my opinion the code to crack that acually opens up fast picking and ofcourse musicality (hence why I put. it in harmony n theory) is in the fretting hand. Thats what allows you to just spam the picking fast, properly fretted notes. And Steve’s video is a perfect example of that.

Have a go at playing with just the fretting hand, it really shifts your mind to what you’re acually playing more. Like literally sit on your picking hand or put it behind your back. It’s a totally different animal when your picking hand is not jerkin off lol.

#5

Are you asking about mechanics / technique? This has been asked a bunch of times, and I give the same answer every time: because on average, the number of players with debilitating fretting hand challenges isn’t in the same ballpark as those with debilitating picking technique issues.

We regularly get players coming to us who cannot perform any continuous picking motion smoothly, speedily, and with good sounding attack, at any tempo, even after years of trying. It’s really pretty remarkable. It would be similar to someone playing for years who can’t fret a three-note-per-string scale at any useful speed. I’m sure happens, but it’s not super common.

This doesn’t mean we don’t care about fretting mechanics — we do, and we’ve got some ideas cooking currently. But it just wasn’t the five-alarm fire that picking technique continues to be.

Are you asking about how to access harmony on the fretboard (e.g. for improvisation)? Because I do think that’s a big issue. And I think CAGED-type answers to it are mostly on the right track in explaining what great players actually do, even when those players don’t describe themselves that way. It just needs to be explained really simply for regular people, and there needs to be a more universal awareness that these answers are probably the simplest / most correct answers we have.

I don’t know that we’re the best destination for this type of teaching yet, but I’ve asked questions along these lines in lots of interviews at this point. So we’ve had a lot of opportunity to hear just how opaquely even really amazing improvisers explain how they locate phrase ideas on the fretboard.

I’m not sure that’s really a fretting problem specifically, so this may not be what you’re asking about!

1 Like
#6

Yeah.
And is that true? “on average, the number of players with debilitating fretting hand challenges isn’t in the same ballpark as those with debilitating picking technique issues.”

Perhaps the fretting hand is deceptively putting the blame on the picking hand…?

For example, if your three note per string fretting is uneven then it’s going to trip up the picking hand. I find this fretting issue is really reveled in sweeping, if my fretting is sound the picking will flow along too. And the picking doesn’t even need to be that accurate as long as it’s fed decent fretted notes. But when you do trip up, you feel it most obviously in the picking hand, because it falls over dispite the fretting being what tripped it up.

If we think about speed, you literally can’t pick faster than you can fret. It’s the bottleneck. Not talking about tremolo ofcourse.

I also find the enjoyment of picking well and fast overshadows being musical, as it sends you into a lot of lines rhythms that you play well, taking priority over a more melodic route. And it can be hard to stop the almost automatic tourettes nature of that mechanical satisfaction, when the picking hand is involved I really can feel it taking priority over listening to what you’re playing, and the fretting hands development.

Obviously I’m not claiming picking isn’t important. But I do think fretting is more important. As I believe it’s what determines what you can do on the guitar. And the picking hand is secondary to that.

What I mean by “you can’t go fast if you don’t know where you’re going”, is the fretting hand is like the steering wheel. If you’re steering well you can put a lot more force on the accelerator without crashing. Crashing being getting tripped up in your picking.

Doing legato is a good example of how the fretting hand, in my opinion, is causing a lot of picking issues. Most people can legato faster than they can pick, but thats because you don’t have to worry about being even when doing legato, you can just go for it, not having to worry about feeding the picking hand even notes. When we have to start picking the fretting needs to become even and manageable to be fed into the back n forth of our picking hand, if your fretting isn’t even, it causes the pick to encounter uneven forces and uneven timing, and it gets tripped up. And blamed. But it was the fretting that caused it. Even tho it feels like the picking hands fault.

#7

I second this. As someone who struggles to a monumental degree to get my fretting hand to behave, I suspect it’s easy for those who have figured it out to somewhat overlook just how important fretting mechanics are, and how limited you are without them.

Despite all the amazing CtC content, I can only really make use of tremolo practice. As soon as there’s a video that involves fretting, I hit a roadblock because I can’t get my fretting hand to sync/behave/move quickly enough.

The question I would have is, what actionable approach is there to fretting practice beyond the obvious? Tom Gilroy has posted tons of great content on fretting mechanics so that’s certainly a place to start. But in terms of practice, I’m not sure what the best strategy is other than, essentially, “try a bunch until it clicks” (the “obvious” approach).

(Troy, if you ever do get around to fretting, I will happily be a Guinea pig.)

1 Like
#8

I often think that my fretting hand is holding back my right hand technique progress. So there’s something in what you say @WhammyStarScream for sure. Getting the left hand technique right before you concentrate on the right hand is essential I think.
Also I love this Vai composition, a great example of Vai’s strength being in his left hand fluidity and knowledge of the fretboard.

1 Like
#9

Take 5-10 minutes a day during your practice, put on a fret wrap or use your right hand to lightly hold a barre at the first fret; put on a backing track or drone of some sort and just do left hand only practice. Do it with a goal in mind. Use it to practice licks you’re already practicing or use it to make musical Melodies that fit in the context of the drone or track. I prefer the fret wrap since I can then practice my right hand muting but for some reason I can’t get the fret wrap to work as I need (maybe I just have it setup wrong idk).

2 Likes
#10

Does this mean that composition and improvisation are different processes? I am convinced that a composer does not think geometrically (CAGED, etc.).

And let’s consider jazz cats. While I don’t listen to jazz, I’ve been to parties with some of them and person one will play something, person two will take it and tweak it, person three will take that and tweak it, and they pass it around; how is this possible on the basis of geometry? It seems to me that this requires a much higher level of abstraction. Indeed, now that I think about it, multiple instruments are involved, e.g., the guitar guy might listen to the saxophone guy and then tweak that.

#11

So, so many of my favorite things I’ve “composed” started out as shapes connected to other shapes. And this is true not just on guitar, but also piano. I think the mechanical stuff is often intimately tied to the creative ideas people come up with. We only have to look at Yngwie or Eric Johnson to see how deeply they are intertwined.

1 Like
#12

I was trained in composition when I went to college, so I don’t know if that statement of yours is entirely true. I’ve heard it said that Prokofiev, who had immense facility at the piano, had the effect of other well trained pianists be able to “feel his orchestral works under their fingers”. Sorry I have no citation lol! But to me that indicates that he was writing “from the piano” in a way that passages familiar to him (and others) were extracted and adapted to an orchestra.

I know what you’re getting at, so not trying to be argumentative or anything. Also, we’ve seen enough repetitions or repeated “similarities” in many great guitarists preferred licks that I’d say they were probably “composing” from the guitar. A great example is how Yngwie’s 6’s are all over the place in plenty of his solos.

When I was in college I composed for all the instruments in an orchestra. I couldn’t play any of them, and I was horrible at piano so I didn’t write from that. I just used notation software to “realize” what was in my head. My instructor would laugh at the piano sonata’s I’d bring in. He’d say “we know you don’t play piano…no one could play this stuff you’re writing!” lol! Sometimes relying on geometry isn’t so bad I guess :slight_smile:

2 Likes
#13

Bach is a great example of this. Bach on piano sounds nothing like Bach on violin. Look at any sonata or partita, it’s basically a giant guitar solo. They are designed for violin mechanics top to bottom, from the numerous four-string chords to the one-note-per-string arpeggios designed for legato bowing, i.e. violin sweeping, to the numerous open-string pedal tone “licks”.

2 Likes
#14

The pattern based playing is something I want to get away from, thinking of the voice, we don’t play patterns, we got an intuitive feel and control to produce the pitches we’re after. I think it’s because of the way we learn to talk by mumbling for years and using our ears, that eventually turns into fluid proficiency.

With instruments, especially if you start at an older age, we don’t go through this process.
The struggle with mechanics overrides the musical learning.

Going up n down the string in a serious practice routine is something I’ve been meaning to do for awhile but I’m not very disciplined in doing boring stuff… But that is one way I believe will move me away from patterns and more towards acually learning to play the pitches in my mind on the guitar. Because your going up n down one string it’s very similar to vocals.

#15

I 100% agree with you that any non-electronic piece has to work on real instruments, hence it needs to be playable. But do you fell that this requirement means that the musical ideas originate from geometry?

My expectation—particularly for professional composers—would be “no, it’s not geometric, but it must end up both popular and performable.”

#16

Do you ever write any music? How do you do it? Do you just imagine notes in your head? Once in a rare while I’ll do that, and hum it into my iPhone. But if I have an instrument in my hand I get way more ideas, and way more rapidly, through physical experimentation.

This is one of the many melodies / tunes I’ve come up with that way, and maybe it’s a useful example because it’s not super patterny-sounding:

I found the lead by noodling around with three-note-per-string scale shapes and slides — which is a very guitaristic thing to do. I got the first one, then connected a series of them together into a call-and-response type melody and resolution. Again, all through physical experimentation and listening using fingerings and shapes that are easy on guitar, trying them out, and trying others.

Personally, I could not have written this by walking around humming melodies, or by playing a piano. When I write on piano, it sounds like piano music — it doesn’t have these sustainy, bendy melodies since I get those by fooling around directly on the guitar itself.

I’m not a world-famous composer, but I do think I’m pretty typical among regular people who write music.

1 Like
#17

I personally don’t have an issue with patterns to play music, but I do believe it’s limiting. I’ve been humming away in my head my whole life, if I can transfer that to guitar and not think in patterns then it should unlock a lot as you’ll be able to improvise and learn music faster.

I’m not sure if you’re asking me tho. But for me thats my goal, I’m sick of forgetting songs and patterns. I don’t forget them in my head, but I lose the memory to play the corresponding patterns.

#18

I was responding to kgk’s question about if composers really get ideas from the mechanical structure of their instruments. I know that I do.

For me the mental / humming thing is limiting, and produces a low variety of mostly samey-sounding stuff — whatever I’m thinking about at that moment. It also contains little in the way of idiomatic instrumental characteristics, things like common intervals that are easy to fret, common chord shapes, harmonics, muting, strumming, etc. Or common chord shapes or intervallic stretches on a keyboard. The guitaristic or pianistic stuff that aren’t strictly single-note melodic ideas.

I don’t work as a composer but when were doing regular YouTube features I had to write large quantities of music on a tight deadline. I learned that if I want more ideas and better ideas, I needed to start playing stuff on a physical instrument as soon as possible. This allows you to combine all the brain / humming ideas, with your hands-on musical vocabulary, plus all the happy accidents that come from playing something wrong or unintended — which is another really big source of originality.

1 Like
#19

I think it depends on the genre. I do think that to an extent you’re correct and there is composing that happens outside of anything geometric, but I also think that in many cases it’s going to come down to “shapes” (or patterns, as appropriate for the instrument). If we’re talking something like film scoring or a classical symphony, there’s probably portions where geometry drove some of it. Most composers are/were (great) pianists so I think it would be hard for them to totally divorce themselves from what they know. Even if ideas began just in their brains while they were walking somewhere, they probably got back to the keyboard and developed things. Habits are going to take over at that point. Familiar chord voicings, scale/arpeggio patterns etc.

Now, once they have the composition “done” and it’s time to orchestrate (assign the various melodies and harmonies to the orchestra instruments), I could see geometry vanishing some. In fact, it’s rarely appropriate (or interesting) to just assign the notes you’d come up with on the piano to other instruments in a copy/paste fashion. Each instrument has characteristic timbres in various registers that would guide the composer to re-voice things entirely at the orchestration stage. The chord voicings that worked great on piano could be reworked when given to a brass or woodwind section. That’s going to be where a lot of the art or “taste” takes over. Still, more ‘virtuosic’ sections (fast violin or flute runs) are probably going to be more geometric because they’d be based on scales or arpeggios and those are geometric by nature. These runs are often highly sequential too, so I think that’s again some geometry involved.

Still, this is apples/oranges when we’re talking about this type of composing and what happens when people write for the guitar. Guitar players think in shapes or patterns because…that’s how they know the instrument :slight_smile: Someone who is very “worked out” in their solos, like John Petrucci, composes his solos in patterns. Sure, sometimes he’ll intentionally try patterns that are challenging to play and maybe not totally “stock”, but there’s still always going to be a geometric element. Steve Vai is similar in how worked out some of his material is. He’s very creative, but ultimately anything we play on guitar is going to be some sort of shape or pattern because…that’s how the instrument is played and that’s how we all think of it.

Even if we’re talking improvising, geometry is going to guide things. Allan Holdsworth is arguably the best improviser the guitar community has ever seen, and he had shapes in mind:

image
image1015×723 38.7 KB

He was so well versed in these shapes all over the neck, and his harmonic sense was very advanced so it always sounded fresh and not worked out. But at the end of the day, he had to be thinking about shapes too. I just don’t see how someone could “think that fast”, god-like as he was.

1 Like
#20

I remember an interview you did with someone who said the reason they don’t keep playing in 4ths tuning is because the minor 3rd adds creativity to their playing.