Greg Howe- A Profile
(12 Nov 02)
Howe-style
General things about his playing
OK, before we get to the licks and exercises, lemme point out a few things. Greg has a very unique style of playing. It involves many different aspects of playing. He has a great alternate-picking technique, but also commands a flawless legato-technique, and he merges both of these extremes perfectly.
Also, he uses a lot of right-hand tapping. Not as a special lick-thingy, not in the Van Halen style. Nope, he uses it as an extension of the left hand to create extremely fast & smooth runs, where the listener almost can't determine anymore which note is picked and which one is tapped.
This PERFECT incorporation of tapped notes allows fast runs with huge, quite surprising intervals. Greg must have studied the styles of many players, cuz he uses all the popular shred-techniques, such as picking, legato, tapping, sweeping, string-skipping. And he merges them in a mind-boggling way.
He also has some trademark-licks, techniques, approaches, like i.e. "barring" (we'll get to that later), and a certain tapping / hammer-on / pull-off-technique that he's using a lot.
His songwriting has gone a long way. The songs on "Hyperacuity" are far more complex and improvised than the tunes on his debut. Back then, he often had great, memorable themes combined with impressive solos (by the way, the solos often were played over one or two static 7th-chords...), while these days, the songs are full of improvisation and some kind of a "freedom", playing-wise.
Melodically, Greg was one of the few players on the Shrapnel label who didn't play neoclassical stuff. His music was rather pentatonic based, fusion-style. (Other Shrapnel-artists included Jason Becker, Vinnie Moore, Racer X, Tony MacAlpine...)
But when he worked with Vitalij Huprij, he demonstrated that he even was able to play that style of music, and still sounded convincing.
Another thing I like is that he uses the pentatonic scale to a great effect, without playing any old-fashioned, overused blueslicks. He used 3 note per string-pentatonics, string-skipping and huge interval leaps to create some quite innovative melodies and leads. And… the guy grooves, and he still plays with a lot of fire and conviction.
By the way, for a quick introduction to his technical abilities (I am not talking about songwriting, I mean the technical side), check out:
- the solo "Strat-o-varius" which he recorded for the "Guitars On The Edge" Sampler. Tough to find, but worth the effort
-The intro of the second Howe II-album. The album was called "Now Hear This", the solo's title is "Fat Cat"... a mindboggling 22 sec.-tour de force
-The solo of "Direct Injection", the seventh track of "Introspective". Amazing stuff. We'll get to that later...
LICKS !!
Yee-haw! Finally, we get to some licks and exercises.
Here's one of my favorite Howe-techniques. I was immediately intrigued by its sound and possibilities, so I practiced this kind of stuff and use it a LOT these days. Greg himself called it (and he was smiling, dudes, so don't take it TOO seriously) "a cheap way to sound like Holdsworth". Here's how it goes...
Let's take a descending pattern of the A-Miyolydian scale. For now, we start on the G, 15th fret, high E-string (we'll get to the A once the right hand is involved).
K, memorize that pattern. Do you remember the sequences I showed you in my alternate picking articles, where I i.e. played a "3 down, jump 2 back up, 3 down, jump 2 back up etc." sequence. If we'd play the pattern above with that sequence, starting on A, we'd play A G F# E, G F# E D, F# E D C# etc.
OK, here is how Greg (or I) would play this:
You tap the high A (17th fret) with your right hand. Your left hand fingers should already be in place, fretting the next 3 notes of the pattern, G, F# and E.
OK, so you tap the A, pull off to the G (left hand 4th Finger), pull off to the F# (which is fretted by your 3rd finger). Then you re-tap the G with your right hand, pull off to the F# (14th fret), pull off to E (12th fret). Now, re-tap the F# (get the idea?), pull off to E. Hammer on the D at the 15th fret of the B-string with your LEFT hand. Now, tap the E on the 17th fret, B-string, pull off to D, pull off to C# etc.
Do you understand the pattern ?
The finger you use for tapping (in my case, that'd be the middle finger, so I can still hold my pick with the index finger and thumb) is like an extension or extra finger for your left hand.
When you play this pattern and sequence with this approach, you will most likely be able to speed it up more than you could if you'd play it with your left hand only, picking or hammering-pulling. You can seriously speed up that way.
Ok, the example we just went through stops on the D (12th fret, D-string). Of course you can continue this further down the neck or till you reach the low E-string. Here is the pattern on six strings:
And here is the "tap-pull-retap"-sequence I explained above, applied to this 6 string-pattern.
You'll definitely have to get used to this and work on it for a while, but this might open some new doors for you. You can speed up quite a bit, and you can play stuff you couldn't with only the left hand fretting the notes. Try using it with different scales... You can hear this technique in use in many of Greg's songs and solos.
OK. Next step. Do you remember me saying (writing) that Greg uses the pentatonic quite a bit? Then let's see how that sounds. Here is our good old pentatonic pattern, key of G Major:
And here is our tap-pull-retap-Howe-technique used with this pattern. The difference is: There are less notes per string, so this is quite different from a modal scale. You have to change strings more frequently.
Is that a cool sound or what?!
This is the first Howe-style lick I learned back then, after I had finally figured out how he does it. And it was so much fun to use it... big intervals, and speed, too. I was playing it ALL THE TIME (almost got kicked out of my band back then… it's cool as long as it isn't overused, but when I used a similar lick in almost every solo, the guys were like "DUDE ! LOOSEN UP ! PLAY SOMETHING ELSE !")
So, don't overuse it, try to add it to your "vocabulary" and use it when it makes sense. Greg doesn't overuse it either.
Or how about a bluesy version of that? Again, G major pentatonic, this time we're gonna throw in the b5 for a nastier, bluesy sound. Here's part of the pattern:
And here is the run:
Now, if you like this technique / approach, here's your homework: Sit down, work on it, and use it with many different scales, patterns and backgrounds. All above the neck.
|
