You’re right he does it a few times here, mostly for tremolo:
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This video is timeless 
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This is the example I use in the lesson. There must be different edits of this, because in the one I grabbed years ago, when he does the elbow trem at 1:45 they stay on the wide camera the whole time, i.e. not the one pointing at his back.
I wonder if the individual camera footage still exists out there in a box somewhere.
Dumb question: he is playing several guitars without strap buttons or locks. Is that some kind of quick release thing or does he just spend a lot of time playing sitting down?
I noticed this too, I’m guessing they’ve been relegated to solely “sit down” status lol
He’s using the Dunlop flush mounted straplok system. Strap just clicks in when you need it and is completely out of the way when you don’t. Clever little design!
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Nice, I didn’t even know these existed!
Nor did I till I got the YJM, I want to put them on all my guitars!
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Also some have better quality than the album version!
I’m only half way but I love this video so far, Yngwie is cool and relaxed, the playing is great. I think he doesn’t deserve the “full of himself” and “arrogant” image that sticks to him.
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I think Yngwie underwent a deliberate stylistic change around 84-86.
If you listen to Alcatrazz live sentence - by the time he was playing solo he seemed to be moving away from playing like this. I think even the rising force album is different. Listen to the differences in the early versions of those songs/ pieces and when he recorded them on rising force. Rising Force has much more legato and an absence of those 2 string turnaround licks that feature all through his Alcatrazz stuff.
I heard him say once that he liked a blended approach - not what he refers to as staccato (picked) or pure legato - but a hybrid.
I think this may be why he moved away from the hyper picking you hear on the Steeler/ Alcatrazz recordings. Just an opinion.
Love to hear any other theories.
I didn’t realize there was already a topic on this video, I was very surprised to find he published it on YouTube…watch it while you can, I have a feeling it will come down at some point. I find that this format matched almost exactly the type of atmosphere of his ‘live’ Masterclasses. Lots of playing, some ‘answers’ to questions…but at least these questions were more than just the typical fanboy sutff he always answers. Yngwie is truly a one of a kind. I love his music. And I respect him as a musician. The rest of it, well, it’s opinion and I will try to keep that to myself. It’s all too easy to rip into him, his persona, all that. He’s a trendsetting genius, and that’s something that will live forever. Sure, it’d be great if he had a personality like Paul Gilbert, but, oh well!
So many comments to make, I need to watch it a few more times before I comment. Some quick stuff: it doesn’t look like he has a Facebook account anymore. I may be wrong. But usually, any…and I mean ANY dissent to the ‘company line’ with Yngwie gets removed. Maybe April just got tired of having to pay someone to scan and remove all the negative (ie, anything remotely unflattering to say about Yngwie) comments all day long, lol. Hey, you know what, I understand that. Yngwie has been answering (‘answering’) these questions for decades, and I’m sure it must kill him that he still has to do these ‘seminars’ so he can afford to keep the Ferraris gassed up and the Rolexes ticking. This is the new ‘rockstar’ job, so to speak, and some are doing far better at it than others.
Look at it like this: Troy and company (and others on the web) have done a ton more to get people to understand what Malmsteen does…rather than listening to Yngwie’s explanations, which are often short, defensive, dismissive and unhelpful. But he needs to do this to stay relevant in a largely changing musical/business landscape.
That he even ENTERTAINED the topic of the musicians he tours with is a huge thing, if you know Yngwie. He didn’t lie, either: they ARE very talented guys. And here’s where we never really know if Yngwie is just taking the piss, or really feels this way: he puts himself so far out in front during his shows, you never watch a BAND. You’re watching YNGWIE. And I suppose that makes sense to some degree…if you’re Yngwie. But I’ve seen him live three times, and the only time he sounded INCREDIBLE in a band context was during Generation Axe…and that’s because he didn’t have a choice, he had to play with the absolutely incredible backing band provided by Vai. And no surprise, his songs …his SONGS have never sounded better. Only thing is there were no vocals during that show, which hurts. Hurts even more when Yngwie has to sing them, something I think he does on principle: he very much wants us all to understand that HE is in charge, HE is the one who will play ALL instruments, sing, etc, if that’s what HE wants to do. It’s quite pompous, and requires a facility that he doesn’t have: mastery of all instruments. Read: he’s no Wolfgang Van Halen! But hey…Wolf’s no Yngwie either. You don’t get to Yngwie’s level of shred mastery by specializing in other instruments.
So while he may not sing the best, play the best drums (his bass is fine), he feels he must do this in order to be in charge. He says in this video that he IS in charge, but that doesn’t match to what he’s said historically and what we know: he gives the idea that there is no compromise with him in his artistic vision, but that’s only the last ten or so years. Basically when he went to Seymour Duncan. Before that, he was largely at the whims of record labels and companies.
Some key compromises: played Dimarzios for almost 30 years (that he supposedly didn’t like), played with actual musicians as his backing band (until he got rid of Ripper Owens), recorded a commercial-attempt album with Odyssey (great album in my opinion, but he apparently doesn’t like it). I could go on.
The Dimarzio thing alone cracks me up: the question is which three records did he use the Dimarzio signature pickups, and he politician-like changes the frame of reference to “Which 3 records?”…and goes on about Steeler and Alcatrazz, lol. Fact is this: his three greatest solo achievements, Rising Force, Marching Out and Trilogy are the tones that the world remembers of Yngwie. I have no doubt that the Duncans are quality pickups. And by and large, it seems those who compare the two, go for the Duncans (I haven’t tried them yet, and my YJM was the last year to have the Dimarzios).
Yngwie, like many other musicians today, make money from their endorsements. So you’ll never hear him say something good about something he no longer is affiliated with. The worst part is this: his Fender line of products has been discontinued. In fact, most all of his signature products have been discontinued: his Marshall has been out of production for years, his Fender pedals, gigbag, even his strings have been discontinued. I think you can still find his cables new online. The distribution on his stuff was horrible, and I never once saw any of it in any major guitar store across the country in my travels. His Fenders are the last of them, and those will probably be around forever (can anybody confirm that the lastest models finally fixed the issue of the vintage trem spacing on the modern narrow necks, that causes all the high E string slipping issues?)
His DOD pedal is rarely mentioned, and he still must get cash from Boss…the delay pedal, noise gate.
But this constant flirting with Gibson is very interesting…he’s been doing it for about a year or so now. I would not be surprised in the least if he gets them to make him some kind of sig model…maybe a V? Who knows. But the biggest shock for me watching this video was him playing a Gibson. I’ve seen short clips before, but nothing like this, abridged as it was. Very interesting, and proves once again that you can shred like this on ANY guitar. On my LP shapes, I can get a very good Malmsteen sound happening. And with the extra fret, you can do a lot of fun things that you just can’t on the Strat (well, his Strat, with the 21 frets).
So that he even gave the question of “why do you pick such crappy tour musicians?” the time of day is remarkable, and Yngwie really looked uncomfortable answering it. Good, lol! The more he tries to be Mr Marketable Malmsteen, the more we can see how he really is. And that’s not good or bad, it’s just the way it is, the way he is. I am certain that he hires these guys, pays them what they’re worth, they ask no questions and he calls the shots. Hell, played to backing tracks when I saw his ‘masterclass’. And this online one lasted longer than the what we got live, and paid a lot more for, lol.
I was hoping for some more detail on the bridge setup. First, he says it’s set to floating. Which most of us know by now. But by how much, that we’ll never know I guess. It doesn’t look too high, from the pictures (lucky they thought to show it), and he says ‘there are no secrets’, yet many years ago he said the opposite: there was a way that he strings the instrument to ensure the string doesn’t get bound in the nut, involving a strange, time consuming ‘twisting’ method to ensure the string isn’t twisted from bridge to nut to tuning peg. I’ve never bothered to try it. But his guitars ‘always stay in tune’ so he says. EVH laid claim to similar things, and largely achieved it by the standards of the day pre-Floyd Rose.
Yngwie has been saying these stock answers to questions for decades. It’s nice to see and hear him play, and that he still has a passion for this style of music is remarkable. I found the video enjoyable, although there is nothing new to see. I’m looking at this as a long time fan, ever since I started playing guitar anyways. He’s an enigma. He is contradictory, opinionated, obtuse…stubborn. But he’s also a genius. Sure, somebody else would have probably come around to cover what he did, but man…his style was so revolutionary, and COMPLETE…he basically had it all upon completion of Rising Force, if you want to get down to it. I’d personally like his period of actual ‘songs’, rather than his noodles as he currently does them. Like the titles, lol: I call this one “E Phrygian”. Hilarious!
Long live the Maestro, and may we forever (respectfully) discuss the mystique of Malmsteen!
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A YJM Gibson V with a factory-scalloped neck?! 
I need one! YJM will need a whammy bar, but would he use a Floyd? 
(Probably not.)
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There are photos around of his vintage white themed Flying V, and I’m not sure if it had a trem. Don’t see why not, but he has so many guitars, after all. Nothing I’m sure he’d ever record with. But who knows?
Nice!
I think my favorite V at the moment is this one, but it’s not scalloped, like a YJM would be: Wolf Hoffman Signature. I’m tempted to snag one from overseas and sneak it into the USA.
I think that most of the time he doesn’t think about it.
For instance, I got a friend who can play ridiculously fast with a pick on guitar even though he’s actually a bass player using fingers.
He’s muscle memory is over the top so most of the time he doesn’t actually know how he does stuff he just plays them. Things that usually take 1-3 weeks for a “normal” person to learn takes him about 10 minutes.(not kidding).
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Troy, I know often you mention how the common myth surrounding the top guitar players we idolize is that they are genetically gifted to play this fast. And you try to deconstruct that myth by demonstrating how if we just learn the CtC techniques earlier on and practice those that we could reach these speeds and fluency as well (sorry if Im butchering that, just giving a very brief overview of that idea). I generally agree with you on that, but wouldn’t you say or couldn’t one argue that the players who are able to pick up these tendencies on their own and at such a young age are genetically gifted in that manner?
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I think we start to get into a dangerous kind of defeatism if say that talent has mostly to do with “genetic gifts”, as if the thing preventing you from mastering guitar technique is that you weren’t “born with it” already. The thing that every great virtuoso has in common is a powerful drive to self-improvement. Yngwie wasn’t born with the ability to play fast, he earned it through continuous practice from ages 7-21, and unbreakable self-confidence.
Have you seen the Lisa X interview?
It shows a fascinating view of how musical talent and technique are developed outside of “studying mechanics”. She plays difficult, complex instrumental songs with ease, but doesn’t practice exercises (sounds a lot like what Yngwie has always said he did…). Lisa X loves to play guitar, believes in herself and works hard - the body just figures out what it needs to do to keep up with her inner ear.
I agree with you on the every great player having a powerful mindset and that is the most important thing. My intention was not to be defeatist or say talent is in large due to genetic gifts. But there are tons of other young kids who may work just as hard and be nowhere near the level of Lisa-X at her age or Yngwie’s level at 18. Maybe this just becomes a looped debate, but I think about it a lot. And I wouldn’t call it defeatist because it doesn’t stop me from playing or practicing. Lets take mindset out of the equation for one minute. If every kid is practicing many hours but not all are to the level of Lisa-X at her age, what can that say? Maybe they’re not practicing correctly. So for these people who are able to instinctively overcome all the hurdles of an instrument at such a young age, you wouldn’t credit any of that to the possibility that there may be something in their genetics or brain-muscle connection that allows them to pick up on these things faster than others?
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