New Greg Howe, Alessandro Benvenuti and Joel Hoekstra interviews

[sbadham]

Hi Dudes,

The new issue of www.essentialguitarist.com is now online featuring in depth interviews with Greg Howe and Joel Hoekstra and a guitar lesson and interview with Italian fusion master Alessandro Benvenuti.

If your fingers haven't had enough there is also some great licks from Holdsworths Roadgames.

Talking to Greg was a blast...funny, funny guy!

Cheers Si

www.essentialguitarist.com

[phantom]

thanks simon!!!

been waiting long for this one!
- and i hope that signature esp is coming for real..
- and the instructional vids..
- ...and the vids on his page...

great job simon, alot of info!

already excited... sven :-)

[sbadham]

Glad you enjoyed it Sven.

I can't wait for those vids either, Greg's going to be exposing alot of his style and techniques. About time too...I get a major headache tabbing his stuff :confused: .

Wouldn't hold your breath on the ESP Sig. Greg mentioned outside the interview he has lots of ideas. It might not be a quick process...he's working on it though.

Cheers Si.

www.essentialguitarist.com

[phantom]

simon,
when you transcribe that over the top stuff, how do you make sure to have the right fingerings?
do you also slow it down? you are quiet familiar with gregs stuff, is it still hard to transcribe, i mean did he change the way his lines are constructed? compared to a fairly easy tabbed out yngwie solo were the lines and licks have their usual places since years, tabbing out the newer greg stuff
must be really a pain in the a**.....

[sbadham]

Tabbing out his new stuff was a nightmare initially, but Greg (as with most players) is very stylistic. He has lots of signatures i.e. double barring, wide interval tapping, finger picking, wide *** hammer on's from nowhere and 4 note p.s picking....the list goes on.

Greg still uses all these ideas today, but they are so integral to his style that he can slip in and out of them without flagging what he is doing. On his early albums it was far more obvious.

The way I come up with decent fingerings is to play the lick to death, then work out the most likely fingering. After that, I find the easiest way to play the lick...sounds daft but it works (also keep in mind the stylistic element).

Rule of thumb: if you can't play it after 30mins (even slowly), the fingering is wrong.

As Greg said... "some guys show me licks they have been working on for months and the fingerings are so outrageous that I can't play them"

Must admit, I have seen some tabs out there that are so unplayable they must have been tabbed on piano (or drums haha).

For slowing stuff down I use Cool Edit Pro, don't know whether there is better S\W out there, but I wouldn't be able to afford it anyway haha.

Cheers Si.

[Asse]

I couldn't get the notes that I've marked with the eclipse to fit rhythmically, until I noticed the dotted note in the circle. It means that the first notes in the groupings after the second grouping are not to be played on the beat. That's very tough stuff. How will I ever be able to play this lick??? :confused: :D

BTW: Very*10^6 cool site! :cool:

[sbadham]

Slow it down in PT until you nail the rhythms….that probably goes without saying for any tough lick.

Greg is quite bluesy at times, and blues licks are quite notorious for falling behind or in front of the beat. Even better would be to play your own rhythmic variation. As long as the last note of the lick lands on the beat - you'll be sorted :D

[sbadham]

Just checked back over that lick, try this...

Play the 5 notes after the first group of '6' as straight 16's. After the second group of '6' play straight 32nd's. That should be easier, sounds more 'correct' to my ears too.

Cheers Si.