I’ve been touring with Steve Vai for a European and U.S. foray this summer and fall, and there’s a lick from the virtuoso’s opus “Freak Show Excess” [Real Illusions: Reflections, 2004, Epic] that’s been giving me agita. The lightbulb went on, and the BP editors agreed that my musical karma would make a fine Master Class column. So, with all due humility, after a year of talking the talk, I’ll now attempt to walk the walk.
With Steve, the notes are only part of the story. The rest is what really makes it work: the fingerings in both hands, and the exact inflections of each and every note. There is only one correct way to play this example. Those aren’t my words—they’re Steve’s, and as I learned in rehearsals, he means it. But that’s not just stubborn hard-assery. It really does work best his way, even if you’ve never experimented with the techniques shown here. With the invaluable help of Steve’s right-hand bandmate, guitarist Dave Weiner (who first showed me this bit note-by-note, all extras included), let’s dive into the musical mind of Steve Vai—who final-proofed this musical example himself—and see what the deep waters feel like.
Bar 1 is a harbinger of what’s to come. Note how the two A’s in beat one are played differently—one fretted and one open. You get the first A by striking the fretted D before it on the A string and then releasing your left hand to “pull off” the open A. If you haven’t played a lot of pull-offs, practice one for a while so you get comfortable with how a pull-off feels. You’ll need it just to get through the first bar, as it happens again one string up with the two D’s on beat two.
Then you have the hammer-ons. Still in bar 1, play the second A by first striking the open E string and then hammering on the 5th fret with your fretting hand. So, the first four notes contain both a pull-off and a hammer-on just to play two A’s. Try playing those first four notes slowly, and most important, evenly. It should flow. Once it does, move on to the rest of bar 1, as well as bars 2 and 3, because they’re just variations of the technique established in bar 1.
All of this sets up the climbs in the first and second endings, which employ these techniques in extremis. The first ending actually isn’t as bad as it looks; play beats one and two in 4th position, with your middle finger hammering on the E string’s low A, the pinkie pulling off of the 7th-fret E to get the subsequent open A, and everything flowing from there. The new trick is near the end, where you pull off the high E to release the open G and then immediately strike the D and G strings to get the bar’s last two notes. Try practicing the last four notes of this bar, as they’re a preview of . . .
The second ending. This is as bad as it looks. It’s essentially the first ending up to the end of beat three, and then all hell breaks loose. The pulled-off open G is followed by a struck open D (a combination move worth practicing; it eventually happens again), a hammered-on 9th-fret B, and a 12th-fret high G; you then need to get your fretting hand to 11th position for an open A, a hammered-on 12th-fret A, a fingered 11th-fret C#, and a high 14th-fret A … which leads to another pulled-off-open-G-and-struck-open-D move. Then you just play the high 5ths until the madness finally ends up on the G string’s 21st fret.
So, how am I doing with it, you ask? When I don’t tense up my left hand, everything rolls and flows surprisingly well. I practiced the open-G-pulloff-to-open-D-to-whatever-comes-next move a lot—especially at the position switch before the A major arpeggio—and worked it very slowly for an hour before speeding up. At the time of this writing, I could play it at tempo around four out of five times correctly. However, Steve said to me when we were going over it in rehearsal, “You realize, Bryan, it has to be perfect.” I’m big into positive thinking, so it’s going to be perfect. Oh yes, it will be.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go practice . . . .
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