Still Of The Night Tab/Technique

Playing Technique
#1

I have always held John Sykes’ solo on “Still of the Night” as one of the pinnacles of the shred/rock era. Unfortunately, his solo seemed buried in the mix (which has been rectified in recent years with remixes), which made it seem elusive in terms of figuring out exactly.

As far as the tablature for this song, it has been all over the map, dating back to guitar magazines.

Anyone have a thought/insight into what exactly Sykes is doing in terms of his solo and the technique/picking motion? ![Screen Shot 2023-07-12 at 10.11.28 PM|569x500]
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(As a starting point, here is one transcription of the solo and the song below for reference.)

#2

In the following video, it appears as if Sykes completely locks up everything below the elbow when playing at extreme speeds. It looks incredibly tense and unhealthy to my eyes, but I know looks can be deceiving when it comes to analyzing a player’s technique.

#3

Yes John has always looked like a DSX player to me when he does into hyperpicking-adjacent mode, and elbow technique is essentially always DSX. More generally, most of the techniques we have seen that go that fast have been DSX techniques, regardless of which joint is being used. Some of the Gypsy-style motions can be USX at super fast speeds and those are usually wrist motion – reverse dart, specifically.

John’s very fast technique looks to be just elbow blazing through whatever string changes. And again, elbow is DSX. The fretting organization of those lines is not DSX-friendly. So beyond this we don’t know if legato is being used, displacement, swiping, ghost pickstrokes that stop short of hitting the strings, and so on. Those are all the most common hacks we know of among very fast single escape players who play “non-conforming” phrases.

But if you’re trying to play the lines, I don’t think it matters too much what John is doing. His signature stuff is all common shred patterning, and even a completely trapped motion that hits every string change can still sound good with those, a la Jorge Strunz. The most important step is to make sure you have access to a fast single escape motion of any variety, and that your hand sync is on point. Given those two ingredients, almost anyone will sound great on these kinds of lines.

Edit: That song and solo rules! Sorry, forgot to mention that.

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#4

Troy, some questions:

Do you think that transcription I posted above is in the ballpark? Or perhaps you know of a better one?

Do you have a video of you playing the solo?

#5

I’ve never tried to play this, because you couldn’t hear it back in the day! It was buried in the mix as you say. I don’t know if the tablature is correct, but you can pop the YT player into 25% speed and at least verify the pitches. Once you get into the weeds of which note was on which string, my interest starts to drop off especially if the bigger picture — having a solid, synchronized motion — isn’t in place yet.

Do you have a fast alternate picking motion (any variety)? How is your hand synchronization? e.g. Can you play three-note-per-srting shapes with solid hand sync at all your available picking speeds? For example, the old standby:

Once you have that, I’d then move to single-escape (all evens) patterns across the strings with whatever your escape is. It could be these Yngwie patterns across the strings, or anything from Metronomic Rock if you’re a DSX player.

You can get very far on guitar with single string lines played perfectly, very fast. I suspect these Sykes lines are being done with elbow or elbow-wrist (i.e. single escape) motion and that all bets are off as far as string changes as long as it sounds good — which it does!

So that’s where I’d start — fast, clean single escape motion.

#6

:exploding_head:

Wow, that was amazing to learn!

#7

Here is a performance of “Still of the Night” from an old Licklibrary course by Danny Gill. I remember coming across this years ago. I tried to find the original, but this low quality version is all I could find now. Still, it’s enough to see how Danny plays it, especially with the camera focused on his picking hand. Danny takes the economy-of-motion approach to fast picking, that’s for sure. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone use such teeny-tiny pick strokes.

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#8

What are these? :thinking:

#9

I’ve not been convinced that playing with an elbow mechanic is an entirely unhealthy thing. People like Vinnie Moore have been using elbow joint DSX motion to shred since the 80s. However, I’ve experimented with both the Zakk Wylde elbow + rotator cuff USX mechanic (as well as more conventional elbow DSX) and that did mess up my shoulder (nothing major, couldn’t bench press for about a week, normal after that), but not my elbow.

#10

Wow that’s really interesting! Is that finger joint motion? It kinda looks similar to Dannyjoe Carter’s motion :slight_smile:

#11

John Sykes is such and incredible player/singer/songwriter…

If you haven’t already, check out his playing on Billy/Blue Murder, or You’re gonna break my heart again/ Whitesnake…

John is fierce double picker… serious stamina and endurance at those speeds.

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#12

Troy, would you be willing/able to upload your take on the Still of the Night solo, either here or on social (Instagram)? Seems like something you could whip out at the drop of a hat, and would be interesting to see how you interpret.

#13

We’re a tiny team and we’re struggling to get stuff done — so respectfully, no.

Set the YT player at 25% speed and try to write down the pitches. You really can’t because of the missing notes. It’s still a classic, but like many from that era, it’s not note-for-note clean and there is no way to know what he was trying to play. What we do know is that John’s technique looks like elbow. And elbow probably cannot actually play the line fully picked as we hear it. My best guess is he is a DSX player and is simply winging it with “mistakes” — legato, displacement, swiping, simple lack of hand sync, etc. Again, it’s a classic but it’s not a great line for trying to learn technique for the rest of us.

The cool factor of this line is mainly that it’s very fast. Otherwise it’s just diatonic scale playing. Any scale playing at that speed will sound cool when paired with a song that great. You’d be much better off writing something that sounds similar, can be played perfectly with single escape motion, and working on that instead.

Where are you at currently? Have you taken the table tap tests? Do you have a joint motion you can do at at tremolo speed? Do you know which escape it has? Do you have hand synchronization at those speeds? Can you do the Yngwie pattern up and down a single string? Can you do the Gilbert sixes pattern across the strings?

These are the basic building blocks. There was a time when that stuff was space age and if you could do those things, you were a local hero. But nowadays it’s not a huge ask to be able to play these kinds of lines with no errors at 180bpm or faster. That’s where I’d start.

#14

Troy, respectfully, I signed up for the 6-month membership. And I have watched your series since it came out and purchased standalone items. In short, I am a big supporter.

I guess I was under the impression that member support would equate with interactivity. I’ve seen you respond to requests for videos before, but I guess that depends on standing and proof of playing aptitude (?).

Frankly, yes, I would like to do a Technique Critique but I don’t have a magnet and it seems like it might be similar to this type of episode: I ask a question and then get a flurry of questions back, only to find out I’m “doing it wrong.”

And if I am being honest, I think some of my confusion with CTC stems from the fact that I watched all of your early videos. The terminologies seem to have been altered (DSX used to be upward pickslanting, etc.) and there is a lot of content on the site now – it seems daunting knowing where to start.

(I guess I should just stick with the video material at my own pace and steer clear of the forum.)

And Gilbert sixes at 180bpm across the strings? I must have missed that – I’d love to see it.

#15

I have never promised any kind of custom video creation for users. If I’ve done something like that, it’s possible it was something simple, or something I felt was not addressed in our lessons. Or during the pandemic when we couldn’t get in to update the lessons.

However both Tommo and I have put an enormous amount of time into Technique Critique responses. There’s a directory you can browse ( Technique Critique Directory – Cracking the Code ) which lists critiques which are readable by subscribers. The link to the directory should be right on your dashboard. You can pick any of them, but here’s a recent one which is typical of the detail with which I will respond:

I try to keep feedback practical and constructive. I don’t tend to frame things as pointing out when players are “doing things wrong”. As if I even know what that is. It’s hard to say when things are categorically wrong — the player’s question about stringhopping in this technique is a good example of that. Instead, it’s much easier to say when things are right. Everyone has something they do that works. If we can figure out what that is, then we can build on that. So I’m not sure where you’re getting that. If that’s just my tone in this discussion, I apologize.

As to the questions I asked, every critique starts with questions. What I would be wary of is anyone offering playing advice without asking anything. In this case I have no idea what your current technique looks like or where the pain points are. So I’m offering the short list of things I think matter. Do you have tremolo speed? Is is easy? How is hand sync? These things are the bedrock. Then we can ask about escape. Which one is it? This determines which types of phrases will even work. And so on. With a TC I’d have video and table tap test results, so I’d probably already know the answers to those things. Here I know nothing. So once again, if that came off as dismissive, I apologize.

The “Still Of The Night” phrase, whatever it is, was very likely not played in any kind of traditional way without what we very loosely call “mistakes”, or mistake-adjacent weirdness that we see with the cameras, like displacement, swiping, etc. But what is almost certainly playable is a phrase that sounds a lot like it and is designed to work with your technique. This was the intent of my questions, and it was genuine.

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#16

Troy, given your observations on the “Still of the Night” solo, I guess it’s safe to say you’re never going to do a breakdown of Living Colour’s “Cult of Personality” lead lines. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

#17

Living Color was/is incredible, Vernon is a great player who wrote monster riffs and his lead playing fit the band’s punk edge.

I know you’re joking but these questions are hard. We’ve learned with our lessons that it’s much harder to have honest critical conversations about mechanical subjects when it involves things that could be interpreted as mistakes, particularly when made by beloved players, because it can be seen as a value judgment when it’s not. Playing can be great while not being 100% accurate, even to the point of not really being transcribe-able.

The aggro nature of this, the virtuosic earwormy melody that caps the run, the wild bend that is still somehow pitch-perfect — it’s all awesome. But it’s not a great vehicle for trying to learn picking technique. A much better choice would be something that we know can be played easily with a simple joint motion, and could achieve more or less the same vibe if played fast enough. We’d have to compose that.

#18

I’ve always called that sort of playing “dazzling them with bullshit”, which for sure would be called a value judgement. I did that a lot early in my playing, because it was an easy way to make people ooh and ahh and think you’re a guitar god.

I’ve always thought Reid’s lead playing on “Cult of Personality” was garbage, because it too much reminded me of the sort of thing I did. Just wail away as fast and hard as you can, not even trying to get your hands in sync. So long as you’re fretting notes that are more-or-less in key, it kind of works. Though to Reid’s credit, I think he was sincerely trying to paint textures and create soundscapes, not fool people into thinking he was a technically proficient shredder. And I do love that song. Wonderful riffing and phrasing between all the bits where he bites down starts wailing away.

Sykes I’m not sure about. Perhaps there is a reason that solo was originally buried so far back in the mix. It certainly is less impressive when you can actually hear it.

#19

This is how I interpret it looking back. I’ve never seen any interviews where he discusses his lead playing, so I don’t know what he was going for. But his style was so over the top — instant shred right from the drop — that I have to see it as kind of a performance art / energy level thing. And glam metal teenage me was not ready for that yet.

For a similar vibe with more accuracy, we did an Instagram post on Arthur Rhames:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CQwfr1XlFqX/

Arthur was a jazz pianist and sax player as well so the fusion vibe is strong here. But you could still put this on a spectrum with Vernon Reid and it makes them both more intelligible to those of us coming from a rock background. I think I read somewhere that Vernon had seen Arthur play live and was influenced by him to some extent.

#20

While Arthur Rhames’s playing here certainly isn’t my bag musically, I can hear the intent in what he’s doing. Certainly more accurate than Reid, and he doesn’t give the vibe of a player who is just trying to play a lot faster than they can actually play.

It’s an interesting discussion: musical vibe versus technical accuracy. EVH’s “Spanish Fly” is sloppy as can be in the picking department, but there’s no denying it’s a very musical piece, probably more so for the aggressive sloppiness. And you can tell Ed was generally aware of what his hands were doing, and not just squeezing his eyes shut and hoping for the best.

The fast ascending bit at the end of the Jake E. Lee’s “Bark at the Moon” solo is another example of this kind of thing. It’s a wing-and-a-prayer lick not played for accuracy, but it makes for a great climax to the solo.

There is something thrilling about hearing someone play at the ragged edge of their abilities. It gives a sense of danger, like driving a car too fast on city streets. The player might wrap themselves around a light pole at any moment. I remember Frank Gambale said someone once suggested that he should look like he’s actually trying when he’s effortlessly playing all his fast lines, and I get why. That sense of danger—and hence the thrill—is gone when a player obviously has no difficulty in executing even the most challenging things. That’s where performative “guitar face” comes in to save the day.

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