OK, I was braced for this one. Anyone who's heard any of Paul Gilbert's stuff – whether that be solo, with Racer X or even just his aptly-named “Terrifying..” guitar videos on YouTube – will be well aware that this guy is a straight up lunatic. Technically flawless and utterly fearless, Paul's playing really is “more is more” with a MASSIVE grin on it's face! By this point I'd already tackled Godfather of Shred Yngwie Malmsteen, not to mention G3 core Satch, Vai & Johnson and the prog rock insanity of John Petrucci, so I wasn't scared, I was wired for this! And let's not forget YouTube's handy feature of slowing down to ¼ speed....
As is by now tradition, let's start with a little potted history. Born November 6th 1966 (happy 56th as I write this) in Ilinois, Paul began playing at just six years old, citing The Beatles as a major influence on him initially. This would be soon followed by Led Zeppelin introducing him to the iconic sound of a screaming distorted string bend! Guitar lessons followed but these didn't include string bends, being largely focused around sight reading and nursery rhymes (yep, been there!) – but a musical uncle showed him the way with this technique, and a further teacher introduced the young Paul to this technique, introducing him to Black Sabbath along the way.
As with many guitarists of his (and others) generation, one Eddie Van Halen's debut in 1978 would prove seminal, and learning “Eruption” with his teacher was a huge influence on Paul's technical development, to the point where by the age of 15 he was touring with his then band Tau Zero, had been featured in Guitar Player magazine (along wth a youg Swede named Yngwie Malmsteen) and felt confident enough to contact Mark Varney of the infamous Shrapnel Records to ask for a gig with Ozzy Osbourne! Now THAT would have been something.. Needless to say that never happened, but Varney was impressed enough to keep the youngster on his radar – side note, I did send a copy of Two Pint Solos to Shrapnel but I can only assume it must have been too commercial for them... 😢- and this would eventually lead to Paul's relocation to LA and his famous tenure at the Guitar Institute of Technology. Enrolled at 17, by 19 he had graduated and been hired as an instructor!
Whilst teaching at GIT, Gilbert formed Racer X and acquired unsung hero Bruce Bouillet who demonstrated an uncanny ability to harmonise Paul's signature wide interval string skipping sequences – tracks from this era include Scarified and Technical Difficulties (and we'll be taking a couple of looks at the latter), and when this band split having effectively hit a career brick wall as no major label was ineterested, Gilbert formed Mr Big with bassist Billy Sheehan who had recently left David Lee Roth's solo band. They achieved notable success with singles “Green Tinted Sixties Mind” (BRILLIANT riff, demonstrated here) and “To Be With You” before splitting in 1996. Since then, Gilbert has pursued a solo career interspersed with Racer X & Mr Big reunions, carving out a nihe as a phenomenal shredder and building on his teaching experience with his online guitar school.
With the history lesson thus concluded, let's take a look at some licks! Although famed for his frankly staggering technical expertise, Gilbert's sense of melody, harmony and above all fun is apparent through every recording and despite the obvious technical challenges I've really enjoyed this month's assignment! We'll begin with this excerpt from the outro of the 2011 re-recording of Racer X's “Technical Difficulties”:
- in this
example, Paul takes the E natural minor scale and maps 3 note
per-string fingerings all across the fretboard using the “stacked
six” pattern previously discussed when we looked at Sophie Lloyd.
Students of mine will recognise the “scale fragment” approach
taken here, interlocking 6 note fingerings mapped across the neck.
Check out my book “Progressive Guitar Training” for more ideas on
how to incorporate these ideas into your playing.
Arpeggios
play a major part in Paul's playing, but unlike Yngwie a few months
back, sweep picking doesn't seem to be a major part of his playing,
instead preferring to stick to alternate picking and generating the
wide intervals through string skipping. Here I've tabbed out the
basic major pattern, and shown how Paul will extend this using tapped
and slid notes – and as a bonus, tweaked it to deal with minor
arpeggios. All about value here.
Staying with arpeggios, this is
another section from the 2011 “Technical Difficulties”, showing
more of a conventional approach to arpeggios, following the chord
sequence with the triad along with added 2nd and 4th
intervals at blistering speed using alternate picking and pull offs.
This is similar to licks played by Jimmy Page in "Dazed & Confused" and Iron Maiden's Dave Murray, or
even the end of Hotel California... just on steroids.
Finally, let's wrap things up with some
good ol' fashioned WIDDLE! Much of Paul's faster playing is based
around repetitive scale fragments with legato, similar to Shawn Lane
– this last example makes use of the E natural minor using a six
note fragment based on the B Phrygian mode and illustrates how these
fragments can be looped and repeated to create a blistering barrage
of notes!
Right, after that lot I'm going to apply an ice pack to my fingers and chill with some Pink Floyd.. keep an eye on the YouTube channel (remember the holy trinity of Like, Share & Subscribe...) for the demo video in a few days time before we move back to the Texas Tornado himself, Stevie Ray Vaughan!
