Forget Buckethead. Never mind Satriani, Vai, Eric Johnson & Paul Gilbert, or even Brent Mason - THIS was the single most intense (guitar playing) challenge I've ever encountered.
The name Allan Holdsworth may lack the widespread appeal of a Clapton, Hendrix or Slash but those of you interested in the higher technical end of guitar playing will recognise as being synonymous with an absolutely ferocious level of musicianship and technique, with a harmonic vocabulary so advanced as to practically seem like magic.
And I, foolish mortal that I am, decided I was going to spend a month learning and analysing his licks to see what I could learn, perhaps absorb some of his style and incorporate it into my own.....
Hubris. That's what this was. Pure, unalloyed, hubris. BUT - I think it's important to share this, because when you're learning any sort of skill, it's not going to be 100% smooth sailing all the way. You're going to hit obstacles, you're going to - bluntly - fail. And that's what happened here. Just because I've been playing 30 years (!?!) doesn't mean I know everything, not by a long shot.
But to quote a small green wise individual, "the greatest teacher, failure is" - so even an experience like this is a chance to learn - more on that later! For now, as is customary, let us look at a (very) brief potted history..
Born in Bradford on Augist 6 1946 and raised, by his maternal grandparents - grandfather Sam was a jazz pianist - Allan received his first guitar at.... 17?????
Right, that's it, I assumed he'd started aged no more than 3... so I have no excuse!
Sigh.
Having now received a guitar, young Allan was tutored by grandfather Sam and began a career around the Yorkshire club circuit in the mid 1960s, making his recorded debut with 'Igginbottom in 1969 on the album 'Igginbottom's Wrench, which I present here for your perusal..
https://youtu.be/zgzIPSF6rbY?si=yov9_8J7ChkazjJu
This is fascinating, as you can hear Allan's atonal jazz approach and the proto version of his incredible legato technique already present, before it became honed to such phenomenal effect later on.
He continued a successful - if somewhat niche -solo career through the 70s with bands like UK and Soft Machine, but got a fairly major career boost in 1985 after releasing the album I.O.U when none other than Eddie Van Halen brought it to the arttention of Warner Bros, and Holdsworth left his native Yorkshire for South California.. unfortunately the collaboration with Warner didn't last, but Holdsworth was able to sign to the Enigma record label and released his next album, "Metal Fatigue" - he would continue a successful - albeit, once again, niche - solo career to his eventual death in 2017.
So with a very brief overview of his life and times, what about the playing?
Well, as with Brian May, looking at licks in isolation is going to miss the point a bit, so let's begin with a couple of his signature approaches, particularly with scales.
Holdsworth would describe his approach as trying to move beyond conventional scale fingerings, instead viewing a scale across the whole fretboard and finding different "pathways" through it. So for exxample, if we were to look at a C major scale (C D E F G A B) we would start on the E as that's the lowest accessible note - frequently Holdsworth would take a 4 note per string approach, so that would mean in this case:
E F G A along the E string
B C D E along the A sring
F G A B along the D string
C D E F along the G string
G A B C along the B string
D E F G along the high E string followed by a position shift and then A B C D with a bend to the high E.
Some of you are looking at that and thinking "that's E Phrygian - YOU FOOL", and you're both right and wrong, as it really depends where you resolve to and the context - for instance, over an Em and resolving to an E absolutely will create an E Phrygian vibe, whereas over a C will just mean you're in C major and resolving to the chords 3rd.
It's possible to use a sequencing approach (3s demonstrated in the video and tabbed here):
but Holdswoth doesn't really do that, preferring to use legato - hammer ons, pull-offs and slides particularly - to flow around the neck. So I'd advise practicing this approach "finding your way" through the notes rather than trying to stick rigidly to a set fingering pattern.
Holdsworth applied a similarly holistic approach to chords, looking at the notes of a particular chord and then mapping out every possible combination. He seems to have had a particular antipathy for the major 7 chord, so let's take a look at a C major 7 - R 3 5 7, C E G B.
If we build this chord from a C, we get the potential combinations of:
C E G B C E B G C G B E C G E B C B E G C B G E
leading to the fingerings below:
Now do this for every note in the chord - start from the E, then the G, then the B.
Then do this for EVERY CHORD.
Now you understand why it's possible to look upon an Allan Holdsworth transcription and simply go mad with fear.
The final two examples are taken from "Proto Cosmos" - that's it, all I was able to manage all monoth was two minutes of a single track - and the first is the ind of thing that could work quite nicely over a blues in E or B, featuring a nice mix of a six note box B Mixolydian for the legato flurries before resolving to the D - b7 over the E, b3 over the B. Shunt everything up a semitone and you could even stick that over the top of "Mustang Sally"!
Finally we'll take a look at a typically Holdsworthian "outside lick" - although something like this is so insanely harmonically dense as to basically be impossible to analyse, I think it's worth pointing out the use of the b3 (D) to begin with, the symmetrical shifting finger patterns in the second bar, and the final resolution to the F# (5th), illustrating a prime principle of - start and end with a chord tone and end with a chord tone, and you can get away with damn near anything in between!
So, to sum up, this has been a slog this month. Not to detract from the enthralling brilliance of Holdsworth's playing - the fact is, I simply dropped myself into the deep end far too soon. So, the plan is to look at some of the players Holdsworth namechecked as influences (including jazz legend Charlie Christian), and then start with transcribing "Igginbottom's Wrench", and from there try and follow his progress chronologically.. I think that's the best way forward!
Next month, we'll be looking at the fiery blues playing of another gone-too-soon blues legend, the incredible Jeff Healey! Stay tuned, don't forget to #LikeShareSubscribe to the YouTube channel ;-)
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