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There are many guitar wizards who are insanely good at shredding but Steve Vai is the kind of guitarist who gets a role in the climax of a major motion picture about guitar playing. Steve Vai is the kind of guitarist who, like his character is Crossroads, is so good at guitar that he convincingly portrays a supernatural entity. Slash is awesome but Slash couldn’t pull that off.
Vai was already an impressive guitarist in 1974 when he began being trained by none other than legendary shredder Joe Satriani. Satch employed his wisdom into young Vai as they were both influenced by player like Jeff Beck that were known for their complex playing styles and attention to classical scales. To further this knowledge, Vai went on to make the major un-rockstar move of going to music college. All the same, there is obviously something to be said about a formal education considering that, at age 20 and fresh out of the Berklee College of Music, Steve auditioned for superstar Frank Zappa and WON! This of course led to Vai playing lead in bands like Zappa, Alcatrazz, David Lee Roth, and Whitesnake in the ‘80s. By the time 1990 rolled around, Vai had his signature tone honed to a craft and entered the solo market.
This Vai sound is accomplished by his vast knowledge of music theory. He’s used Ibanez for the majority of his career, and the brand’s unique tone helped to familiarize audiences with his neoclassical sound. The Ibanez JEM models have enjoyed constant exposure in his concerts thanks to the monkey grip cut, Dimarzio single-coil humbuckers, and double-locking tremolos. The latter is what helps him to achieve his mind-boggling bends and massive detunes. He’s got a signature lineup of Ibanez models called the Ibanez Universe and these too have played a large part of his orchestral sound. The True Temperament fretboards allow him to stay in tune on each of the 7 strings and create the complex tone that is necessary for anybody that shreds this fast. This Ibanez Universe model also helped to inspire a slew of 7-strings that were essential to the Nu Metal genre that blew up in the ‘90s. Needless to say, bands that were part of this craze, like Korn and P.O.D., cite Steve Vai as a major influence on their sound and soloing.
Continue to Steve Vai part 2>>
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