John Petrucci: “My Favorite Chord Is ‘The Alex Lifeson Chord’”

John Petrucci in ancient times. (Image credit: Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)

John Petrucci recently went out for a drive with the folks from Cosmo Music. In the resulting Rockstars in Cars video, shown below, the Dream Theater guitarist talks about his favorite solo to play live, his mix of technical and emotional guitar playing, and more.

“It’s the opening chord from Hemispheres by Rush,” Petrucci replies. “It’s the F sharp major with the added 4th and the flat 7. That should really be named ‘the Alex Lifeson Chord,’ because he invented that.” Hemispheres was Rush’s sixth studio album and featured “Cygnus X-1 Book II: Hemispheres” as its opening track. The video of the track is below, along with the full Rockstars in Cars video.

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Christopher Scapelliti is editor-in-chief of Guitar Player magazine, the world’s longest-running guitar magazine, founded in 1967. In his extensive career, he has authored in-depth interviews with such guitarists as Pete Townshend, Slash, Billy Corgan, Jack White, Elvis Costello and Todd Rundgren, and audio professionals including Beatles engineers Geoff Emerick and Ken Scott. He is the co-author of Guitar Aficionado: The Collections: The Most Famous, Rare, and Valuable Guitars in the World, a founding editor of Guitar Aficionado magazine, and a former editor with Guitar World, Guitar for the Practicing Musician and Maximum Guitar. Apart from guitars, he maintains a collection of more than 30 vintage analog synthesizers.

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