steve vai whammy bar trick

[ManuelBreu]

Hallo guys!
For a time, I've seen a concert of Steve Vai in Munich. He played the song "the reaper". In the mid of the song. he made a cool whammy bar-trick: he pulled it about 180° from normal and than hit it with his fist. I'v read that this trick is called "mouse trap". But, each time I'm trying this one, I "destroy" a string (or two). How can Vai make sure, that that doesn't happen. I mean: A JEM have a Lo/Pro-Edge-Tremolo; so the guitar isn't tuned right anymore, if one string is missing...

MANU

[ajdowton]

Hey man. Think about it. Steve Vai, being the god that he is, would have his guitar and trem set up so perfectly, that he can do anything. He also probably stretches the strings really well.
I know it's a pain in the butt, but take the time when changing strings on a floyd, and get it right.

[EricV]

hey there...

well, you´re not supposed to hit it THAT hard. Back when I used the wang bar a lot, I used to do that trick occasionally, and never broke a string...
It might look as if he´s beating it with his fist, but he´s only "dipping" it a little bit... a slight hit with the hand will be enough to raise the pitch by, say, a halftone step, which is enough to create that sound.
Satriani sometimes does the same thing, and when he does you can see he isn´t hitting the bar too hard
Eric

[ManuelBreu]

Hallo!
Thanks for the fast reply.
You're right; if one don't hit the whammy bar too hard it's also sounding that way. But, I have the book Rock Guitar Secrets, written by Peter Fischer. He wrote that the strings should touch the neck or bridge pick-up... how the hell should work that?

MANU

PS: I've been at your hp and have download atlantic dawn etc...you're really a great guitarplayer...

[EricV]

Hey, thanks a lot !

Well, what Peter meant... if you pull back on the bar, the strings touch the frets or pickup at some point ( if you pull back too far ), which results in some squeaky kinda weird noise... doesn´twork with all wang bars, but with some.
Nice little effect
Hope this helps
Eric

[forgottenking2]

Eric on that matter I always wanted to ask you, in your song "Dreamer" are you using double hand tapping? It reminded me of one of those Satch double handed etudes kinda like midnight , although the progression you're using is spicier... anyway, great songs... what about the second one? is it not there anymore?

[EricV]

Hi there,

Yes, Dreamer was played in a similar way to "Midnight". I had always liked "Midnight", and when I was like 17 or so, I came up with my own little tapping-etude... "dreamer".
It´s easier to play than "Midnight", and I gotta admit that it sounds kinda similar :)

The progression is Bm-A-G-F# and later, it´s Em-D-C-B
With the left hand, I am hammering on the root and fifth of each chord ( on adjacent strings ), and the third is tapped on with the right hand.
Of course, those arps could be defined in different ways, but that´s the way I thought.
In th ebackground, there are very soft volume-sweels, playing the chords ( not arpeggiated )-

There used to be way more soundfiles on my site ( demos, home-recordings, some live-stuff ), we took them off the site for a while, they should be back soon.
Thanks
Eric

[forgottenking2]

Thanks for the ptb!!!!!!!!!!!!! I just love double handed etudes!! and even though Dreamer kinda sounds like midnight, it has a different vibe to it, it's more dramatic I think... it's kinda like someone walking in the dark in a foggy forest or something... it has an air of mysticism I love it. Great job there... hey, is your cd available in the US?

[EricV]

Thanks again, I really appreciate !
Thanks for mentioning those images you had in your mind when listening to it. Very interesting.
The CD isn´t out yet :) I know it says something about a 2002 release in my author profile, but there has been a lot of postponing, delays, scheduling probs. So I dunno when it´ll be done.
I´ll sure have the webmaster put up some full-length soundfiles onto my site again, soon, and hopefully we´ll get to record some good quality soundfiles at the EVB-gig on Oct.17th. If we do, we´ll put up some recordings onto the site too.
And of course the people at ibreathe will be the first ones to get to know about the release :)
Thanks a lot
Eric

[EricV]

No link s on my site yet, but here are some links to download MP3s of some of my songs... demos, actually...

"Hidden Creek"
http://www.ericvandenberg.com/mp3/creeklo.mp3

"Rocknight Theme ( Make A Noize )"
http://www.ericvandenberg.com/mp3/theme.mp3

"Carpe Noctem"
http://www.ericvandenberg.com/mp3/noctem.mp3

"Riders High"
http://www.ericvandenberg.com/mp3/rider.mp3

"Hold On Tight"
http://www.ericvandenberg.com/mp3/hotlo.mp3

My take on Satch´s "Into The Light", actually only the solo of my version, freely improvised
http://www.ericvandenberg.com/mp3/light.mp3

And a clip from "Canyon Of SPirits"
http://www.ericvandenberg.com/canyonxp.mp3

Hope you´ll like those :)
Eric

[forgottenking2]

GReat songs! I particulary liked Hold on Tight and Canyon of Spirits; The theme on carpe noctem reminds me of a song I wrote a long time ago, and you use a lot of Satch-like phrasing (just like I used to when I first got serious... Seems like we all want to emulate Joe Satriani at osme point in our existance :D) But awesome stuff man I'll be looking forward to the release of your Cd.

[EricV]

Thanks so much ! :)
I really appreciate
Eric

PS: Yeah, Satch has been a big influence for sure :)

[forgottenking2]

Sure, no problem. Hey I also liked your article about "squeezing it out" (ignoring further interpretations for such an statement :p) I was first exposed to that concept by John Petrucci in Rock Discipline (He does that a lot, if you check his "Wild Stringdom" he features that approach in a more direct way) and it completely blew me away, it has really helped me with my practicing habits... When you first start out it's very easy to get overwhelmed by the amount of info out there... specially if you'rre online, there's A LOT of junk mixed in with the jewels... believe me, I wen through lots of sites and lessons and books and stuff before I found the good stuff (IBM is among the last <of course! :D>) so it's good that someone covered that subject, once again Eric Right on!

[EricV]

Thanks again, I am glad you liked the article. The good thing is that the stuff I am talking about in there is either stuff I have experienced myself, or things that works well for most of my students.

One thing I really try to accomplish when I teach is to enable the student to:

- figure out what needs to be worked on
- find exercises or make up etudes to do so

Some of them haven´t bought books or downloaded stuff for a long time.
Thanks a bunch for the feedback on the article and the music
Eric

[Otto]

and even though Dreamer kinda sounds like midnight, it has a different vibe to it, it's more dramatic I think... it's kinda like someone walking in the dark in a foggy forest or something... it has an air of mysticism.

When I hear both songs it's Satriani's Midnight that has the more mysterious vibe to me. Eric V's is more peaceful and innocent while Midnight is kinda scary in some parts (seems like chanting or something at one part.) but a very cool, beautiful song as well.

When I hear dreamer i also imagine it's night time. Very late, the sun will popping out soon. There's this guy, alone, and he's driving his car with the top down. There's no other cars in sight. It's silent and peaceful. He's on a highway and he's rounding a wide curb. There's a huge rocky hill on the inside and to his right there's a cliff. But he's not worried about it. He's driving and thinking (dreaming) about something or someone, but I'm not sure what. He's not worried about it but he's thinking very deeply about it. My guess is a girl.

Reading this probably just wasted everyone's time but I think it's really cool how the actual guitarist who wrote the song will read this. I don't think there's a person alive who wouldn't enjoy this song.
(it would be cool if more people would describe there visual interepretations of this song.)

It's such a great song. You should be really proud of it Eric.
ps. i hope i can get my hands on your cd soon:)

[EricV]

Wow... I´m both flattered and speechless. First of all, thanks so much for your comments. I really am glad you like it.
And it means so much to read about the images in your mind when you listen to it. I think of stuff like that constantly when I listen to other peoples songs, and I sure love to read about what people think of when they listen to mine.
Because that´s what it´s all about when it comes to instrumental music IMHO. There are no lyrics, and a title can help to get an idea about what the song is about, but there´s a limit to that.
Take "Canyon Of Spirits"... that song is for my late grandfather, and it sure is about him in some way to. But I was thinking of indian-style music, a huge canyon, big landscapes. ( I started writing that one when I visited Cherokee / NC ).
And someone who listened to the song made up a little flash-movie he sent me. He inserted a short clip from the song, the beginning of the second "chorus". And in the movie, you see the "camera" moving towards a canyon, and then it comes to the edge and... kinda takes off, like an eagle or something. That was such a cool thing to see, and it fitted perfectly to what I was thinking of when I wrote and recorded the song.

I really like your thoughts on "Dreamer". As I said, "Dreamer" was written back when I was like 17. Back then, I had just broken up with a girl ( there you go... :) ) and I was sitting at home thinking about her.
It was december, dark outside, cold. I was sitting there with my guitar, had it plugged into some old delay unit and a clean amp. And I just came up with that tapping pattern and played it for hours until I eventually came up with that chord progression.
I never recorded it until october 2001... and when I did, it was done in one take. I had been playing that song a lot ever since I wrote it, so it´s wasn´t that hard to record.
For some reason I added a second guitar, playing volume-swells.
Funny, haven´t played it ever since ( only showed it to a student once ), so when Forgottenking asked about it and I made up the ptb-file, I actually had to think hard to figure out what I had played. :) ( I am not at home, but at a friend´s house and have no guitar with me... *sigh* )

Anyway, Otto, thanks so much for sharing those thoughts, it really means a lot !
Warm regards
Eric

[EricV]

OK, here´s another little tapping etude I once came up with for a student ( Guni might remember this one, it was part of some article I wrote for Guitar4U )
This could be considered even more similar to "Midnight" when you look at the B-part. It´s also quite similar to the tapped rhythm-guitar of Satch´s "New Blues"

The pattern can be applied to other chord progressions as well, of course.
Hope you´ll like this one, too ( sounds nice with a clean sound )
Eric

[luke_hull]

eric i think ur just basically the god of this site. love the musc. have u got any blues stuff id like to hear some of that