Steve Vai Special « martingoulding.com

Steve Vai was born on the 6th of June 1960 in New York, USA. He started playing guitar at the age of 13, influenced by Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin and Alice Cooper. Before long, Vai met up with an older player from his high school, the now world famous Joe Satriani with whom he took lessons from throughout his early teens. After high school, aged 18, Steve Vai went on to study at Berklee college of Music in Boston. It was here that he became obsessed with the work of Frank Zappa, going on to transcribe his most challenging compositions and then sending them to Zappa himself, who was so impressed that upon meeting the young Vai, invited him to join the band. Subsequently Vai toured the world with Frank Zappa, played on many of his albums in the early eighties, earning himself a reputation as one of the most talented hard rock guitarists on the scene.

By early 1984, and with his own recording studio in California, Steve Vai had started to fuse jazz, rock and classical music into his style. These styles were the main influence behind his first solo project which resulted in the self financed releases Flex-Able and Flex-Able Leftovers in 1984, in which a Zappa influence can still be heard. Shortly afterwards, Vai replaced Yngwie Malmsteen in the hard rock act Alcatrazz, playing on their 1985 release Disturbing the Peace. The same year, Vai got an audition through friend and bass top gun, Billy Sheehan for ex-Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth’s new band. Vai landed the gig and went on to play on the 1986 debut Eat ‘Em & Smile, which went on to become one of the year’s top hard rock releases. Steve Vai was voted Best Rock Guitarist of 1986 in Guitar Player magazine and up until the early 90’s was seen frequently by the worlds guitar press at the top of the honours and on the front cover of the magazines. The next David Lee Roth album Skyscraper, which again featured Steve Vai’s unique style, was released to critical acclaim in 1988.

Following a successful tour, Steve Vai left the band and joined Whitesnake, recording the highly successful 1989 release Slip of The Tongue. However this was a temporary move and Vai soon left to pursue his own musical direction which led to his ground breaking 1990 instrumental release Passion and Warfare. The album became a hit, going gold inside a week and features some of Steve Vai’s most imaginative and innovative playing, again with album of the year honours and a Grammy nomination. By now, Steve Vai had become a household name and in the process influenced guitar players the world over with his incredible and unique style.

Steve Vai’s next release Sex and Religion, came in 1993 with a band line up featuring Devin Townsend on vocals, T.M Stevens on bass and Terry Bozzio on drums. After a tour, Vai decided to go back to the instrumental field and released his excellent EP Alien Love Secrets, which features some of his most emotive playing to date. Throughout the rest of the decade, Vai released a succession of instrumental albums including Firegarden (1996), The Ultra Zone (1999), as well as team up with former teacher and best friend Joe Satriani to co-headline the annual G3 tour with a third guest player which has included John Petrucci, Yngwie Malmsteen, Eric Johnson and Robert Fripp amongst others. Live footage from these extravaganzas has been released in the form of live albums and DVD’s. Still very much at the cutting edge of musical experimentation, Steve Vai’s latest work in Real illusions: Reflections, released in 2005 is still raising the bar with the track Lotus Feet receiving a Grammy nomination for Best Instrumental Rock Performance in 2006.

This feature draws from Steve Vai’s vast and colourful array of techniques with examples that highlight his diverse approach to phrasing, use of the whammy bar, harmonics, alternate picking, legato, tapping as well as dynamic clean rhythm styles and choppy rock riffs. Together these examples make for a great routine that covers the spectrum of rock instrumental techniques and styles, as well as provide an insight into one of the greatest rock guitarists of our time.

Ex 1 : This next example starts with a C# min11 spread, embellished with a cool little single line groove. In bar 4, there is a very distinctive little string skipping move that utilises pinch harmonic slides ending with wide downwards vibrato. Bars 6 and 8 also use this Steve Vai trademark intervallic approach. With the string skipping, always mute the string above with the fleshy tip of the left hand index to cut out any unwanted noise. I would avoid barring any fingers in this specific lick, and encourage the use of separate fingers (second and third) to execute the adjacent notes. In bar 7 there is some quirky whammy bar usage with some scoops and doops! Try holding the end of the whammy bar between your third and fourth fingers when you go to execute this idea.