I didn’t know that but thanks to Guitar Players Center website I found out about it, I really didn’t know when Joe Satriani’s birthday is.

And honestly I didn’t know he is 52 yo, man, how time flies!!!

So, a short and warm Happy birthday to you, Joe! and I think I speak for everybody when I say you don’t show your age and I wish you create beautiful pieces of extraterrestrial music at least for the next 52 years to come!

Happy birthday, Joe!

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It is vital to have the right technique when playing the guitar, there is no doubt about it. The question is what can you actually do with that technique? Or what is the best thing to do with that technique? Shred?

From my personal observation, I can tell you that the lately I am more and more interested in artists who achieved a high level of technical skills BUT DO A LOT TO AVOID OVERUSING the techniques they master. And here I think about Joe Satriani and, the reason of this particular post, John Petrucci.

It is great to master the guitar like nobody else, but think of showing those skills everywhere, everyday, on all your songs. Think Malmsteen, for example. Doesn’t get boring for the audience after a while? OK, I know, people know you for something and comes to your shows for that particular something, so you need to give the people what the came for, right? Bread and games, or how was the ancient Roman habit(more familiar to European readers) for keeping people under control?

But I do love a great artist who is a master of his instrument who comes up on stage and shows that he is looking for something more than showing skills and techniques, showing he’s looking for soul, for expression, to touch the hearts of audience, even if this means breaking new grounds, which the audience may not be quite used to do in the context of that particular artist.

Actually, I think that the true power of expression can only appear after you have conquered everything you can regarding your skills, when you know every note on the guitar neck and every possibility of expression, then, and only then, you can choose those notes that make the most of your song.

That’s where the soul begins…where virtuosity ends…

What do you think?

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I was thinking these last days about a particular topic: guitar players that studied music with keyboard players. Here I think about two guys. Two, because nobody else comes to my mind at this point. I am thinking of Frank Gambale and Joe Satriani.

Frank Gambale is quite famous for his strange way (I would call it) of playing riffs. I know, he plays fusion jazz or whatever you want to call that music and to a metal head or at least to a rock addict or even to a blues guitar player, it may seem strange, because in all the above enumerated styles, patters are more obvious, while in fusion/jazz, well, not quite.

Do I make any sense so far? Judging by my standards, Frank Gambale, which I like, by the way, plays strange. At least to my ears and this is exactly what makes his music interesting.

I asked myself at one point why and how could he think of those patterns and lick. The answer came from himself: he studied music by listening to keyboard players! He said it, not me! This is a very interesting way of learning to play the guitar, don’t you think? When you study guitar music to play it on guitar, patterns are more likely to match your finger possibilities, you can easily stretch your fingers to reach those notes, because the original song is played that way, but when you try to match keyboard music on your guitar, man, I can only imagine how difficult should be to play the licks, because they are not designed for guitar!! They are designer for 10 fingers reaching notes in particular fixed positions.

I had a class mate who used to play piano since he was a child and I remember him saying about guitar that it is a strange instrument. Why? Because I can not imagine why you can find the same note in more than one place! On piano I always know where that note is, he said! Guitar is a very stupid instrument! Right!

Ok, we could use this to our advantage, right? When you can’t play a note in one position, you can always play it in an other position, there is the same note. It may have a different flavor depending where you play it and how, but it is the same note in the end.

Personally I have tried only once to play some piano music on guitar, OK, twice, and actually just a few arpeggios, because I liked how they sounded, but this can not be called playing the guitar by piano music. What can be called like this is Frank Gambale’s music. I can not tell if the way he sounds is only because of his piano music education or because his further education in fusion/jazz, but it does sound strange.

Also, if you have the curiosity to study his picking style, you will see he does it differently, he even has a guitar method oriented towards this, but that is an other story, not related to his piano music background, but does contribute a lot to the way he sounds.

On the other hand, when I listen to Satriani, if I wouldn’t have seen it on Wikipedia, I would have said he always studied guitar by listening to guitar, which is not true.

So, do you know other guitar players that studied music by listening to players of other instruments? Frankly I can not think of anybody else right now? How about you?

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I find via PRWeb that Joe Satriani is going to teach guitar on WorkshopLive.com website.

For the moment I couldn’t find this news on WorkshopLive.com site or on Joe Satriani’s website but sounds like a good idea. Sounds to me like a “give back” thing, a man who received so much from life, trying to return something to his fans. I like that.

Ok, Satriani is well known for his guitar teaching history due to the fact that he has such famous students, no need to count them again here, so this choice may have come natural if you think about it, considering he has experience in teaching guitar.

And with his reputation and fan base, I think WorkshopLive.com has done it this time!

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Speaking of iconic images, everybody is used to see Joe Satriani playing his signature Ibanez electric guitars, right?.

Well, how about this picture with Joe Satriani playing a Gibson Les Paul?

I must confess it came as a surprise to me since I have never thought about this.

Of course, as Jack Pribek(pribek.net) says, professional guitar players have more tricks in the bag, right?

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Since GuitarNoize and Guitar Channel posted about this, it may not be news anymore, but due to the fact that I love Joe Satriani’s work so much, I just couldn’t let it go. So I point here the fact that on April 1st, 2008, Joe Satriani will release his 13th solo album under the funny name of Professor Satchafunkilus. Whatever that means…

I must admit I don’t know what the album will sound like, but after playing instrumental rock so many years, experiencing electronic sounds and later warmer jazzy touches, we could expect almost anything from him. I think the fans will be there no matter what the musical style will be.

And if we count the fact that ZZ Satriani, Joe’s son is playing the sax on this album, well…

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