Malmsteen masterclass

Playing Technique
#21

It seems to be pretty common that elite caliber artists are mostly intuitive with regards to their picking mechanics. We see this on almost all the interviews on this site, and the historic instructional videos with DiMeola, McLaughlin, Yngwie, Vinnie Moore, etc… Troy’s analysis often shows them doing things opposite of what they say or think they’re doing at a real performance tempo. The players “just do it”, and are primarily focused on other musical ideas besides exactly what’s going on with the pick.

I don’t think you’ll find very many players who really analyze their technique to the extent that Troy does on this site. Even notorious technique obsessed guys like Petrucci never go into much detail besides to say you should alternate pick here, or sweep there. There’s always been a difference between the intuitive athletic abilities of virtuoso players, and the language we’ve had to communicate these concepts before recently.

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#22

Part of why I used to think that Malmsteen said those things was in order to create a veil of mystery. Isn’t it strange how he says that he only plays exactly that what he WANTS to play, but couldn’t tell you the exact mechanics of what he’s doing? Yet, if you think about it…there is usually only one or two methods that will enable you to do it with comparable ease? Take his repeating triplets. For years, I thought he swept those across three strings because that’s what the tab books of the day displayed. And of course, you ‘can’ do it that way. It’s arduous, requires a lot of movement and string skipping.

OR…you can play them across the top two strings using a two string ‘sweep’ and a hammer-on.

D’oh! They day I learned that, only a few years ago (sadly!) was a big a-ha moment for me. There IS a way that he prefers to do things. It has been engrained into his entire playing style, and while he says he isn’t cognizant of ‘how’ he does it, he certainly does do it one way…most of the time. He inherently knows that for his style, there’s just certain phrases he plays a certain way…most of the time.

But if we knew that back in, say, 89, would we be as impressed? It’s marketing, as far as I’m concerned. And in some ways, it was necessary for him to stay relevant (and profitable). Because you could easily say you don’t LIKE his music, but very few could say what he was doing was EASY…and for him, it looks very easy. And if you don’t know HOW he does the things he does, it does appear VERY hard. Like those triplets I mentioned.

But once you know HOW he does it, and WHY?..I would say that my ability to play Malmsteen licks has come further in the last three years since applying those ‘secrets’ than it has in the previous 25! It’s really that big of a difference. A kid who starts playing today can get that technique down correctly from the start, far faster and better than how I used to do it. And that’s when I considered guys like Wolf Marshall to be the authority on all things shred…can you imagine if we had Troy back in the mid 90s cracking all this stuff wide open?

The closest we had to a guy who laid it all out in a way that wasn’t secretive was Paul Gilbert, whom I consider and educator as much as a musician (in some cases, more so!). And Troy was able to put together the whole picture from all those sources into what we have today: a theoretically realistic approach to mastery of wizard guitar playing from the onset. No more wasted time on stuff that isn’t efficient or produce bad results.

It might not help guitarists with the quality of music they write (subjective in any case) but at least they can play it with more proficiency if they choose to apply these fundamentals.

Anyways, these are just my opinions and observations.

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#23

I don’t think it’s that strange at all. Think about how deeply sub-conscious the mechanics of vocal production are to produce speech. All you’re conscious of is the inner thought you want to express, and the neuro-motor pathways do all the work for you. You’re not thinking about exactly where to place the tongue, the opening of the mouth, the amount of air pressure required, or a thousand other tiny unconscious movements - the words just come out!

I think all these great players have a similar relationship to instrumental technique. That’s the part that’s been conditioned to sub-conscious behavior. Thinking about it gets in the way of actually being able to do it.

#24

I don’t find that comparison accurate…if it were, you’d have far more proficient guitar players, much in the same way we have a majority of proficient speakers of language.

At some point, Malmsteen decided that he’d sweep those two high strings rather than across three. He decided that it was smoother for him to move to higher strings by using one downstroke rather than an upstroke. All that at some point was a conscious decision, because to do it otherwise caused him to slow down. Once he decided that’s how he would play those phrases, that’s the approach he used. Outside of his parameters, he’s just as likely (and often does, I’ve seen him up close three times) hit bum notes just like the rest of us. Which is why he usually stays in his lane, technique-wise. Hence the ‘mystique’ of his technique and why he could keep it under wraps for so long.

But really it’s moot because a) we’ll never really know how he really developed his style and b) he’d never admit to it anyway. That’s just the way he is.

#25

Well we’re talking about the most proficient guitar players, not the average player. Obviously many environmental factors affect the learning curve of language development in a different way to instrumental technique acquisition.

I still stand by my analogy. I don’t believe Yngwie (or practically every other virtuoso guitarist) is deliberately obscuring his technical mechanics. They don’t talk about sub-conscious movements precisely because they are not consciously aware of them.

#26

And that’s absolutely fair enough. It’s not like the later era Shrapnel shredders knew exactly what Yngwie was doing either, nor did they need to. They all developed their own styles to get their points across.

I still maintain my opinion of him, specifically in light of his many interviews in other contexts. I think he took that from Blackmore, that attitude of mystery… a much more old school way of interacting with his fans.

One of the players who I think fits your analogy is Martin Miller, who some time ago while talking with CtC (under the eye of the Magnet cam) came upon the realization of what particular mechanic he used during certain phrases. It was really cool to see, for me. It’s the best example I’ve seen where a skilled guitarist is doing a movement, and only upon closer examination realizes ‘how’ he’s doing it. And he was gracious enough to recognize that fact.

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