I have spent a great deal of February glued to YouTube at 0.25 speed... partly because of the horrific news of the last couple of weeks, but for the most part because I've been deeply immersed in the incredible playing of Dream Theater's phenomenal shred master, John Petrucci. It's going to be a very brief potted history this month, because there is one hell of a lot very high level stuff to get into! I'd recommend checking out the thoroughly entertaining Andertons TV interview “The Captain Meets.. John Petrucci” for some more details and to check out the man's incredible technique and sense of harmony. And his beard!!
Born July 12 1967 in New York, the young Petrucci took up guitar age 8 as he saw his sister being allowed to stay up late to have organ lessons! From such small acorns... As it turned out, his first attempts didn't pan out (oh, SNAP) – but at the age of 12 he tried again, and this time, it stuck. His major influences at this time were AC/DC, Led Zeppelin & Black Sabbath and this would lead over time to an interest in heavier, more complex music like Iron Maiden and the legendary Canadian prog trio, Rush.
Petrucci would go on to study at the renowned Berklee College Of Music alongside childhood fried and bass player John Myung, and here they met drummer Mike Portnoy. With the addition of another childhood friend Kevin Moore on keyboards, in 1985 these four formed a cover band focusing on Iron Maiden and Rush covers. They initially recruited local friend Chris Collins as lead vocalist but fired him in November 1986 – it would be a year later when they finally replaced him with the far older and more experienced Charlie Dominici.
With the lead vocalist issue settled, the group began gigging more intensively around New York and further afield, but this brought it's own problems. The band was originally named Majesty, but around the time of Dominici's hiring another band from Las Vegas with the same name began threatening legal action, so the band hurriedly renamed themselves. Various names were tried but it was Mike Portnoy's father who came up with “Dream Theater”after the name of a small cinema in Monterey, California. They continued to perform and record and on June 23 1988 were signed to Mechanic records, a division of MCA.
And there ends the history lesson – let's get stuck in to some licks!
It should be noted that all of these came from just TWO solos - “Pull Me Under” and “Answering The Call”, and I never actually finished “Answering...” - this should give you an idea of quite how intense and complex Petrucci's playing is! It's no surprise that he has also appeared as a solo artist on the G3 tours along Joe Satriani and Steve Vai.
Onto the first example – this is from “Pull Me Under” and starts with what you could view as a C#m arpeggio morphing into a run that features E Dorian, E minor and E Harmonic minor- but at the blistering pace it's pulled off it's more about the overall effect creating the “tension”. Dream Theater stuff is rarely strictly diatonic and Petrucci's playing frequently goes “outside”. With all of these licks, start slow and build up – there's a LOT going on here, and to be honest even if you don't ever get them up to Petrucci's frightening tempos, you can still learn a lot.
Next up is this run from “AnsweringThe Call” - in fact all the next examples are from that track, just as a measure of how dense and intense that track is!
This is all based around a diminished 7 arpeggio, which is built around stacked minor 3rds, giving the pattern R b3 b5 bb7. We start off with F#dim7, F# A C D#, but because of the symmetrical structure of the arpeggio, F#dim7, Adim7 (A C D# F#), Cdim7 (C D# F# A) and D# (D# F# A C) are all the exact same chord with the exact same notes in. You can see how Petrucci moves the same pattern three frets (the interval of a minor 3rd) up the fretboard to create the run.
You can't look at John Petrucci's playing without mentioning his use of chromaticism. This next example (which is in fact the very next thing he plays in “Answering The Call”) rips across the fretboard with blistering alternate picked runs. What's particularly interesting here is his picking technique as he groups uneven numbers of notes (5s and 7s in this case) before crossing strings. Counting these irregular note groups is tricky so recommend a word or phrase – I use “opportunity” for 5s, “what an opportunity” for 7s.
Further on into the solo, I came across this almost bluesy lick... I'm not sure if this is a regular feature of Petrucci's playing but it's cool as hell and bears checking out! There's elements of the C# blues scale, C# diminished7 7th arpeggios there plus some chromaticism, so we're pulling together some different facets of his style here! This lick will also sound cool played at a more moderate or “sane” tempo, as opposed to it's original “melt the skin off your face” speed. An interesting point to check out is how the early part of the lick pivots off the C# root note on the 14th fret B and to watch the sweep through the diminished 7 arpeggio.
If anyone is wondering how they might
make use of these diminished 7th arpeggio in their regular
blues/ rock playing, a little theory can throw some light on to
it:
Diminished 7th – R b3 b5 bb7 (aka 6)
Blues scale – R b3 4 b5 5 b7
Dorian mode – R 2 b3 4 5 6 (aka bb7) b7
So with a few judiciously placed scale tones around them, the diminished 7th may well become your secret weapon of choice – it's certainly one of mine! (So yes, you can use them in “Johnny B. Goode” ;-) )
As with Larry Carlton last month (and Steve Vai next.. and really everyone so far!) a month isn't remotely enough time to do justice to his INCREDIBLE technique and musicality, but it's given me an insight into his style and a LOT of cool new ideas to try out!
See you next month for Steve Vai – in the meantime, all TUNEICEF proceeds and Two Pint Solos proceeds will be going to fund the DEC humanitarian mission in Ukraine - £50 so far, not much but better than nothing. I can only hope that sanity prevails soon.
Slavia Ukraini, slavia heroyem
