Paul Gilbert-Facts
You know the drill... I usually start out my articles with some boring story or a way-too-long-introduction. And I'm not gonna do it in a different way this time, so let's get it over with, mmkay ?!?
Back when I started out, I was a big fan of Eddie Van Halen. He was my inspiration to get a guitar. I didn't even know the VH-debut back then. I owned the "1984"- and the "Van Halen II" records. But I knew that "Van Halen I" was an extremely cool and influential album and featured the mind-boggling "Eruption"-solo. So one day I went to a record-store and bought a tape of VH I. And guess what... I WAS blown away. I loved ( still do ) that record, and it influenced me quite a bit. So much cool stuff on that one.
Than, someone recommended I check out Racer X, a band featuring a young guitar talent named Paul Gilbert. It was a bit tough to get my hands on their debut "Street lethal", but eventually I did. And again... I was absolutely amazed by the guitar playing on that album.
And soon, I knew that PG would be another really important influence of mine. I followed his career, buying his albums with Mr. Big, and in 98 I got "king Of Clubs". I always loved his playing, a combination of unbelievable chops and some really cool bluesy-phrasing and memorable melodies. I also liked his style, his whacky sense of humour, and I admired his determination and discipline. This dude was just getting better, tossing out lots and lots of awesome licks and solos. I later saw him perform with Mr. Big live, attended two of his workshops and saw him perform live at the GIT. And to this day, he amazes me and never ceases to surprise me with his songwriting, the many styles he covers, his playing.
So here's my "tribute-portrait" about PG...
Some sort of biography...
Paul picked up the guitar at about age 5 in 1971, but it took a while until he started to work on it seriously. At home, he listened to a lot of music ( Beatles, 50s and 60s stuff ). He also was influenced by his uncle Jimmy Kidd, a blues-player from the WA-area.
Paul worked on his playing quite a bit, and later attended the GIT. Not only is he still one of their most outstanding students, he also won the "LA Guitar Wars", and he also started to teach at the GIT for a while, at a very young age. ( in 1987 )
During his time as a student, Paul established the metalband Racer X. They set out to be the fastest, loudest and most extreme metal-band around. Not only did they write some really cool metal-tunes, they also showcased Paul's amazing talent as a player (later in combination with fellow shredder Bruce Bouillet).
And they really had a cool sense of humour. Don't take all that "serious" metal-attitude too serious. They simply had fun playing some very fast and loud heavy metal.
The band recorded their debut, "Street Lethal", which started off with the mind-boggling guitar solo "Frenzy", and also featured "Y.R.O.", a metalinstrumental featuring Paul's version of Niccolo Paganini's "Perpetual Motion".
The band played out a lot in the LA-area, and eventually gained some notoriety. They recorded their next album, "Second Heat", which again was heavy, fast and loud. (feat. Scott Travis on drums and Bruce Bouillet on guitar). The songs were based on very cool metal-riffs, and featured extremely fast and wild guitar solos plus some amazing unisono-leads of Paul and Bruce. The band was rehearsing like crazy, and the result of that is documented on the two live-CDs "Extreme Volume 1" and "Extreme Volume 2".
A while later, Paul quit to join a new project of Billy Sheehan. That project was called Mr. Big and featured Gilbert, Sheehan, Pat Torpey on drums and Eric Martin on vocals. The debut was pretty successful and the band played live all over the world, i.e. as an opener for Rush.
The sophomore album "Lean Into It" became their most successful release... it featured the megahit "To Be With You", which was No.1 in several countries.
With Mr. Big, Paul showed that he also was a great "band-guitarist", cutting back on the speed a bit, playing some quite melodic and tasteful leads. Still, live, he really ripped, as documented on the video "Mr. Big Live In San Francisco". His guitar-solo on that one is amazing.
To make a long story short, Paul toured with the band quite a bit, recorded a few more albums with them, and eventually quit to pursuit a solo-career.
In 98, he released his first "real" solo album (not counting the "Tribute To Jimi Hendrix")"King Of Clubs", an album filled with really cool pop- and rock-tunes, full of great melodies. Also featuring "The Jam", an 18minute jam between Paul and Bruce B. There are some really astonishing licks on that one !
To this day, Paul is releasing solo-albums, focussing on great songwriting ( also handling lead-vocals ) in combination with ripping guitar-solos.
He also released several instructional videos, plays a bunch of workshops every year, and obviously enjoys to stay busy like that. He also reunited Racer X and recorded 2 studio- and 1 live-album with them (the third studio album of the reunited Racer X is just about to be finished).
If you want to read more about Paul's career (in case you think that this isn't a really interesting biography of it... I do too, I guess I'm better talking about guitars), check out the web... Paul is a bit more popular than my last "victim", Greg Howe, and there are several websites devoted to him.
Discography, Gear, Sounds
A selected discography
With Racer X
"Street Lethal" © 1986 Shrapnel Records, Inc
"Second Heat" © 1986 Shrapnel Records Inc.
"Live Extreme Volume" © 1988 Shrapnel Records, Inc.
"Live Extreme Volume II" © 1992 Shrapnel Records, Inc.
"Technical Difficulties" © 2000 Racer X
"Superheroes" © 2001 Shrapnel Records Inc.
"Snowball Of Doom" ( live ) © 2002 Racer X
With Mr. Big
"Mr. Big" 1989
"Raw Like Sushi" ( live ) 1990
"Lean Into It" 1991
"Raw Like Sushi II" ( live ) 1992
"Bump Ahead" 1993
"Japandemonium / Raw Like Sushi III" ( live ) 1994
"Hey Man" 1996
Solo
"Tribute To Jimi Hendrix" ( live... out of print )
"King Of CLubs" © 1998 Atlantic Recording Corporation
"Flying Dog" © 1999 Shrapnel Records, Inc.
"Beehive Live" © 1999 Paul Gilbert
"Alligator Farm" © 2000 Shrapnel Records, Inc.
"Raw Blues Power" ( with Jimmy Kidd ) © 2002 Paul Gilbert / Jimi Kidd
"Burning Organ" © 2002 Paul Gilbert
(almost all of this stuff, despite the tribute and the Mr.Big-stuff, can be found at Guitar9
The Mr. Big stuff can be ordered at Amazon )
Guitars:]
Paul is an endorser of Ibanez guitars, and has been for many years now. Several versions of the Ibanez PGM are available. The painted-on f-holes have become some kind of a PG-trademark.
The guitars usually have a HSH-configuration. Paul prefers and endorses DiMarzio pickups, and uses the Tone Zone, Humbucker From Hell and PAF Pro quite a bit. Paul also collects cheap old pawnshop-guitars.
Amps:
In the early years, Paul used many amps modified and / or built by Lee Jackson... modded Marshalls, Metaltronix Amps. He also endorsed and used the legendary ADA MP1 for quite a while.
Ever since the early / mid 90's, Paul's a Laney-endorser and uses both the GH50L head and the VC 30-combo. His cabinet of choice usually is a Laney 2X12".
Effects:
He doesn't use many effects. During the "Bump Ahead"-period, he used a guitar synth for some weird or unusual sounds (also for the piano in "Nothing But Love").
A distortion/overdrive pedal and some weird modified ADA Flanger (which he uses a lot to simulate whammy bar-effects) have been seen on his pedalboard. He also occasionally uses a digital delay and an MXR Phaser.
Tone
Paul has a easily recognizable tone. It's dry, not many effects. He alternates between higain sounds and crunch-sounds. The latter really brings out his extremely accurate technique. Paul picks hard, and due to the EQ-settings on his amp, you can really hear the sound of the pick hitting the string quite well.
He's got one of those "doesn't hide anything" guitar sounds, ballsy, punchy, cool. Head over to the Racer X-board, they recently had some photos of Paul's amps in the studio. On those pics, you could even see the EQ-settings (the whole Racer X site is really cool anyway... www.racerxband.com )
Playing
Mmkay, let's get to the fun-site.
I showed you a bunch of Paul's licks and basic exercises in my "Art Of Picking"- articles (also posted some of them at the forums).
Paul is one of the fastest pickers I ever heard, and his videos should help you to boost your own picking quite a bit, but he can do way more than that. He also has a flawless legato-techique and uses techniques like string-skipping, sweeping, tapping quite a bit. Let's get through some of his basic exercises, licks and even some of his solos...
Fast Picking !
PICKING
Here, once again, is the famous "Paul Gilbert"-lick. I mentioned before that this is one of the best basic picking-exercises I ever came across. I recommend to play this for... let's say 3 months straight, a few hours every day =)
Anyway, in bar 1, we see the basic lick. Use that one in different areas of the neck and on different string-combinations. In bar 2, we see a variation (8 notes instead of 6), which is another chopbuilder and is pretty much as essential as the basic version. The great part about it is that it focusses on going from one string to the other (and back), which is the hardest part about fast picking. In bar No.3, we see the second variation, a straight "ascending a scale"-thingy.
This would be "basic, essential exercise No3"
I can guarantee you that those exercises will help you to work on your picking (especially if you use them on a regular base and with a metronome).
Here are the next two exercises:
Those two are the same as the very first one, but moved to different areas and string-combinations.
Here's a PG-trademark:
This is an E Minor scale, played using the "PG-lick" as a sequence. It's simply that basic lick applied to different string combinations. When you play that one really fast, it'll sound like it's a very complicated run, although it's simply our good ol' 6-note-sequence. Paul uses this kinda run quite a bit.
I'm not gonna comment anymore on how to practise and execute all those licks. (metronome... accuracy... blah . Refer to my "Art Of Picking"- "Smooth It Out"- and "Break It All Down"-articles.
Let's go on...
Our next lick...
is a repeating pattern. It's pretty much a reversed version of our very first lick. You can play this either by picking each note or by hammering pulling most of them (picking only when changing from one string to the other).
Again: use it in different areas and with different string-combinations.
Try playing it legato-style at high-speed, too !
Here is one of my favorite PG-licks.
He played it during his amazing live solo-spot on Racer X's "Extreme Volume". This one is a very neat sequence, which you can again play either by picking each note, or by using a combination of picking and legato.
Paul starts this one out very slow and speeds it up to about light-speed later... Those kinda licks are one of Paul's coolest things... they're GREAT exercises, but also sound cool, especially when Paul (as usual) plays them at high-speed.
Here's the next one, kinda similar to the previous one...
Again, a cool exercise as well as a decent-sounding lick...
And yet another cool picking-sequence... another one for your "book of picking exercises"...
Here's one of my all-time favorites, Paul's "Terror Death Lick". He played that one a lot during his solo-spots on the "Lean Into It" Tour. He also featured it in his "Intense Rock II" video.
This is how it goes:
Move that down the neck (key of E Minor). Focus on where the downstroke falls to get a grip on the whole sequence.
Legato, Raw Blues, Solo excerpts
Legato
OK, more legato-stuff coming up. One repeating pattern of Paul that really blew me away was the one he used in his cool cover-version of "2 Become 1", a Spice Girl song (featured on the "Alligator Farm" album).
Here it is:
He really plays that one at the speed of light. Note that this is similar to some of the stretch-pentatonic licks I once showed you. I guess that's why I like it so much. Paul plays this one so fast and accurate, it pretty much sounds like a sweeped arpeggio.
Another 3NPS-pentatonic lick / repeating pattern:
That one is cool too. Work on the combination of picking and legato (Thorsten Koehne demonstrated that kinda stuff in our "Shred Talk")
Raw Blues
Now, one thing I really liked about Paul was that, although he played a lot of Yngwie-ish harmonic- and natural minor stuff in the early days, he also managed to include some really cool blues-licks in his playing. His phrasing also often is blues-like, too.
Here is some cool repeating pattern with a bluesy sound:
Why don't you make up some licks of your own, using that scale-fragment ?!?
On to the next one:
This one shows that Paul also has some really cool phrasing and some decent rhythmic ideas. That's what I always liked about him, too: he didn't limit himself to playing only 16th notes, sixtuplets and 32nd notes when playing fast, he also used some unusal rhythmic phrases.
Don't think Paul's only about speed. He also plays some great melodies and posesses a very decent style of phrasing stuff, sounding really mature.
Choice-Cuts ( Excerpts from PG-solos )
Back to the pentatonic stuff. I showed you this one in both an article and in the forums... it's from the outro-solo of the Mr. Big Song "Rock N Roll Over".
Pay attention to the picking: only the first note on the upper string in each sixtuplet is picked, then the next two notes are pulled off, and the next three ones are picked.
This requires good r.h./l.h. coordination, and sounds really good. This combination of picking and legato is another trademark of Paul, and an essential part of his sound. Try it!
Now to some unusual stuff. This is a sequence using natural harmonics, similar to his solo in "Alive And Kicking" (from Mr. Big's "Lean Into It")
Use this sequence on all strings...
OK, that was one part of a PG-solo. Let's take a look at some other cool leads of his. The same album ("Lean Into It") featured a high-energy opener called "Daddy Brother, Lover, Little Boy". The second half of the solo features unisono-lines, played by Paul and bassist Billy Sheehan... played with picks attached to electric drills !!! (Don't try this at home, kids !!!)
But the first part of that solo is cool, too. Here is the run that starts off the solo:
Again, a combination of picking and legato
After that, there is one of the coolest solos Paul ever played IMHO. Here is the first part of that:
The cool part is that, in measure 2, the melody starts on an off-beat, which is pretty unusual and sounds really neat, too. We also see some of Paul's trademark picked runs.
Remember "To Be With You"? A huge hitsong. Paul also redid it, recorded a new, heavier version for his "Beehive Live"-album. He also changed the solo. It starts off like this:
Later in the solo, Paul uses another trademark lick, an insane string-skipping lick. Check it out:
Let all those licks inspire you, use them and apply them to your own playing!
Now, when I first heard that string-skipping lick, I was like "Man, I heard him use that before!". It took a while, but then I figured it out. He used something similar at the end of the "Wind Me Up" solo (on the first Mr. Big Album). But here, he added a harmony to it. The upper staff features the original line, the bottom one features the harmony Paul added as an overdub:
String-skipping is something PG uses a lot. I.e. to play arpeggios. Here's one example of that:
In measure 1, we see an arpeggiated Em (E-G-B), utilizing one of Paul's trademark string-skipping sequences. Learn that pattern and use it to play other minor-arps. In measure 2, you can see the shape / sequence for a major chord, in this case it's C Major. We can also move that to a lower string-combination, as displayed in measures 3-4.
And when we apply this stuff to a little etude, this is one possible result. Chords are Em-Bm-C-G
Other cool examples of that by Paul can be found in the "Intense Rock II" and "Terrifying Guitar Trip"-videos...
One last example for string-skipped arps... this is the end of the solo in Mr. Big's "Anything For You"...
The chord-progression would be C Maj.( C-E-G ), D Maj ( D-F#-A, in a different inversion than the C) and another inversion of the Dmaj.
OK, and to conclude this, lemme show you once again the lick that has become maybe THE PG-trademark: the legendary intro of "Green Tinted Sixties Mind".
This uses a combination of hammering on / pulling off, tapping and slides:
Check it out:
You can hear this one on the Mr. Big-CD "Lean Into It". To hear a clip of the intro, go to DiMarzio.com and check out the soundfiles-section...
Conclusion
Don't get me wrong. This article was supposed to be some kind of a lil tribute to Paul, and to give you guys some cool licks and exercise to work on and use. Also, I hope some people got interested in Paul's music and will check out stuff by Racer X, Mr. Big or one of PG's solo records.
I am not saying that all these licks sum up Paul's playing. You cannot limit a player to a bunch of licks. Paul's style is not only about speed. Yes, he is very fast and played some amazing stuff, but he also has a very mature phrasing, plays some very melodic and memorable solos, and on top of that, is a great songwriter (many of the songs from his solo-records were stuck in my head for WEEKS ! Amazing).
He also is a great instructor and performer, AND is very funny ( check out his website )
He might have been copying a lot of Malmsteen- and DiMeola-riffs in the beginning (many of us did), but he has become a unique player with an astonishing amount of talent and chops and a lot of taste, too.
Again... you won't sound like Paul if you can play all these licks, but I hope they'll help you out to improve and work on your technique, and I hope you'll check out some of Paul's music.
THANK YOU, PAUL !