SOME OF SATRIANI’S TECHNIQUES

SATRIANI IS comfortable playing blues, melodic ballads or hard rock, which he does with authenticity and conviction. Wearing his Hendrix influence proudly, Joe demonstrates his bluesy side on tracks like New Blues, House Full Of Bullets, and even Satch Boogie, all of which have a very different sound but highlight Joe’s Pentatonic phrasing and soulful bends. Legato plays a huge part in Joe’s style, as he traverses the neck with fluid three-notes-per-string phrasing. But as well as longer flowing lines he also executes legato in ‘stuttering’ bursts, as heard on Flying In A Blue Dream. Joe has put his own twist on the tapping technique. Avoiding the obvious Van Halen clichés, he often utilises the edge of the pick to execute lines, either for the fast trill effect in Surfing With The Alien, or as a way of embellishing legato lines. He also loves open-string pull-offs and positions shifts, both of which can be heard on Always With Me, Always With You and Satch Boogie, the latter employing modal interchange where Joe seamlessly implies different modal qualities while maintaining a constant tapping figure. He also applies multi-finger tapping to chords: while forming a chord he will add higher extensions using two fingers of his picking hand. Of course he also loves the whammy bar, which he uses for a multitude of applications, from melodic articulation to crazy sound effects. He applies the bar to melodies or chords, ‘scooping’ into either by slightly dipping the bar prior to picking, or for subtle or extreme vibrato. Joe has plenty of extreme techniques up his sleeve, too, one of his favourites being to add screaming harmonics, either natural or pinched, using the bar to raise them in pitch. Joe will often pinch harmonics over the pickups on open strings, and raise the bar with his fretting hand. Not only does this look cool on stage, it also has a very different sound to natural harmonics. As well as dive bombs, rhythmic bouncing on the bar, and gargle techniques, another favourite that can be heard on Ice 9, is the Lizard Down The Throat’ technique. Joe will fret and slide around the fretboard (often ascending), while simultaneously moving the whammy bar (often depressing it) to keep the same note at approximately the same pitch = a gargling, warbily sound! As well as these technical elements Joe is well versed in scales and modes. Some great examples include The Enigmatic, where Joe harmonised the Enigmatic scale to produce a series of chords that produce a very angular sounding composition. Time and Flying In A Blue Dream are excellent examples of how Joe modulates to different modes, often employing the same mode but in different keys, as a way of producing dramatic and exciting progressions as a foundation for a composition.