Originally printed in Guitar World Magazine, July 2008

Start with technique. Freeform expression—and speed—will naturally follow. See how in the following interview with master fretburner Joe Satriani.

When I first moved out to California in the early Eighties, I was on a mission to remove from my playing anything that sounded methodical. I was hearing other guitarists playing scales up and down the neck really fast, and I struggled with that approach because it held no appeal to me. I was coming from the school of Jimi Hendrix: guitar playing was supposed to be expressive— different on every song, different on every performance. Hendrix never sounded like he was practicing or playing anything that he might have practiced. It just sounded like pure music.

I made a choice to follow that path. It meant I would no longer attempt the methodical approach popular among other guitarists, but making that choice turned out to be the greatest thing in the world for me. I found that I enjoyed playing expressively, and that made me want to play more, which made me want to write, and then play, and then write, and so on. That’s all that really matters. I don’t want to deal with anything that bums me out or turns me off when it comes to playing music.

Having said that, I spent years studying every scale harmonized in every which way and every key, and I forced myself to know everything about, say, Af harmonic minor, just as easily as I would the C blues scale or E natural minor. That meant endless repetition of scales and years of practicing 12 hours a day and studying theory. Because all of that was so ingrained in me, I never completely turned my back on it. Rather, I decided I’d had enough and was ready to explore an area of freeform expression, where technique informs expression, any technique is okay and all techniques are equal. And that’s where I am today.

As you might suspect from this rather integrated approach, I like to combine things when I play. That’s particularly true when I solo. I might have the idea that I want to get a legato sound—meaning lines played with mostly hammer-ons and pulloffs, as in bar 1 of FIGURE 1—followed by some alternate picking (bars 2–4) and some phrases that incorporate the use of open strings (bar 5; here, in the key of E minor, you’re afforded quite a lot of choices). I might then segue into some string bending (bars 6–8) and maybe throw in some arpeggio-based lines (bar 9). That’s the kind of overall musical approach I want to hear, so playing something like this (FIGURE 2) represents a normal amount of “mixture” of the different approaches and techniques I like to combine.

A good example of this type of variety and balance is my solo in the song “Andalusia,” from my new album Professor Satchafunkilus and the Musterion of Rock, in which I additionally allow open strings to ring through phrases. Each phrase either begins or ends with some open stings ringing, which is something I did as a way to make the solo sound more harmonic and less singlenote- oriented.

The idea is to try to connect the lines together and, depending on what the bass and drums are doing, figure out the spots where I can move quickly around a scale to create excitement. Sometimes you can create the feeling of turbulent emotions by starting low, playing a lot of notes and leading up to something that’s screaming. It’s the feeling of “tension and release” that I’m looking for. I’m really just thinking, What am I eliciting from the listener? What kind of emotions am I playing with here?

ALTERNATE PICKING IN E NATURAL MINOR

Playing the E Natural minor scale (E Fs G A B C D) over a three-octave range (FIGURE 3a) is a great way to simultaneously work on alternate picking and get your scale patterns together all over the fretboard. Experiment with different ways of getting up and down the scale (FIGURE 3b) without necessarily ending the same way or stopping on the root every time. Instead, think in terms of the areas of the fretboard that appeal to you because of the sound that is produced.

Also, forget about practicing in a fixed tempo, or “on beat” with your phrasing; just amble about, making fingering choices based on tone. In the heat of the moment, when playing live, I go to certain strings and positions because of the sound that is there. If you’re unfamiliar with the lower part of the neck when playing an E minor scale, then you’re going to be stuck with the sound of only the higher part of the neck.

For that matter, forget about E minor scale positions for a moment— can you play the E natural minor scale on the high E string, moving from the lowest to the highest position (FIGURE 4a)? You can then expand it to this (FIGURES 4b and 4c), combining legato techniques with an open-string idea.

In regard to fret-hand articulation, try to get the string under the fingertip as opposed to the finger pad, and use as little energy as possible while still looking for the best possible result. This means really focusing on getting “bang for the buck” with your fret hand. If you try to create a bit of an arch with the fret-hand fingers and aim for that perfect spot on the fingertip with which to fret, you’ll achieve a nice, big sound with the legato technique (FIGURE 4d), so that it has authority. That’s what you’re looking for. To capture that authority, you have to drill it on the B string, the G string and so on, and put in the work. A good practice technique is to play along to a song and try to improvise a solo on one string only. This will help you discover if that type of approach will cause you to stumble.

LEGATO

A great way to build up fret-hand strength for executing long legato passages is to practice legato phrasing on each individual string (FIGURE 5). In this case, I pick the string only once, at the very beginning of each phrase, and sound all subsequent notes with hammer-ons and pull-offs. You should practice this slowly at first, striving for even volume from note to note, and gradually build up speed. You could also play trills—hammering between pairs of notes—using different combinations of fret-hand fingers.

No matter what you practice, you run the risk of reducing things to “practicesounding” phrasing. Work to avoid this. If you can keep your practicing within a musical framework, like playing to a backing track, I think it will make your playing sound more musical, which will result in you experiencing music, as opposed to experiencing “practice.”

SCALE POSITIONS

I learned about scale positions through books that showed fingerings, such as sixth- and fifth-string-root scal e s played across two and three octaves. From there, I worked at playing each scale up and down one string. I also would sit and stare at the neck, looking for ways to connect two scale positions, play the scale on just three strings and so on. If you’re dealing with a seven-note scale, like a diatonic mode, you can wander around in smaller areas of the fretboard. It’s more difficult to do this with pentatonic scales, because the space between the intervals is greater, so you will have to move farther on the fretboard.

I started with these two-octave scales (FIGURE 6a) and these three-octave scales (FIGURE 6b). You can practice going up the scale one way and taking a different path coming down (FIGURE 6c). You can also play different modes back to back, such as Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Locrian and Phrygian-dominant, off of the same root note (FIGURE 6d). I would practice every scale I could think of, and then I’d do it in every key. For the brief period of time that I was studying with legendary jazz pianist Lennie Tristano, he would have me harmonize every scale in fourths, which was hard to do, and some of them sounded terrible. His concept was not to worry about timing. He said, “If you don’t know what to play next, wait until you know what to play.” In other words, don’t make a mistake!

Singing the scales as you play them is also very beneficial because it helps to create a visceral connection between the sound of the music and your body and establish a physical recognition of the sounds.

In my experience, it is essential to lay down a solid foundation of musical knowledge and familiarity on the fretboard. Once you’ve done that, playing fast will come naturally, since your ear and brain will know what to do.