Fr7nkunst

Vai’s signature over the Prince sticker on my guitar

On 15 May, I went to Steve Vai’s masterclass in Zoetermeer. Fortunately, I had the privilege of being the first one to ask a question. I prepared a lot of questions before the class. However, when the moment came, it seemed as though I had picked the most inopportune question to ask. Here’s our Q&A session:

Me: It’s truly surreal to have a conversation with you! I’m Frank, and my last name is Zappa (laughters from Vai and the audience). I’m immensely curious about your early experiences with the guitar lessons from Joe Satriani when you were just 12 years old, while he was 16. He was known for being incredibly strict, and I recall an interview where Joe said that, on the first lesson, he requested that you memorize all the notes on the fretboard, but you found that impossible. On the second lesson, Joe asked you to locate the F# on the B string, which, if I’m not mistaken, is the 7th fret (smirked Vai), but you struggled to find it! As a result, Joe concluded the lesson instantly. I was shocked… What motivated you to take lessons from a 16-year-old boy who treated you so strictly? Thank you!

Vai: Thank you for your question, Frank. That’s an interesting story. Back in those days, 16-year-old Joe was a god on Long Island, New York! It was hard to imagine… but he had that Zeppelin riff at his fingertips. Joe was a magician. Everything he played sounded incredible, and his playing was impeccably precise. And that’s why I was eager to learn from him. Moreover, he taught me something more significant. Before I delved into the world of guitar, I wasn’t a good student and struggled in many subjects, except for math and music. Joe, however, discovered my potential and recognized my talent. I couldn’t find the F# that day, so Joe sent me home and withheld my payment until I memorized all the notes. That 15-minute journey from Joe’s house to mine was a turning point in my life. It made me promise never to falter in Joe’s class and absorb everything he had to offer. I stuck to this commitment from the age of twelve until seventeen, which eventually paved the way for my professional career. You know… the impact a teacher has on a young student could be profound, and Joe instilled in me a sense of purpose and dedication that I hadn’t experienced before. Many rock stars arose ephemerally and then fell due to vices, but Joe is always Joe.

Me: I saw Joe last month …

Vai: Isn’t he incredible? He never fails!

Although I didn’t pick the best question, that conversation still weighs a lot. It reminded me of the summer in 2021, when I attempted to pick up the Chinese instrument Guqin again. I took a few lessons before I came to the Netherlands in 2020. I didn’t bring that 1.3-meter-long instrument with me, so I hadn’t practiced for almost a year before August, 2021. I went back to my teacher’s and I demanded that he teach me something more advanced. I wanted to merely have fun and I didn’t practice arduously. I often stumbled on some basic techniques. After several lessons, my teacher was so disappointed that he told me it was not gonna work out, since I couldn’t fully refresh the fundementals taught in 2020. If I compare my teacher to Satriani, then I was the 12-yo Vai who couldn’t find the F#. At that time, I was not mature enough for music. Music is not a game. It’s a Glory that requires dedication to Grace. 

The subsequent questions mainly revolved around guitar techniques and composition, and I kinda regret not asking about that as three people were chosen to jam on stage after proposing these questions. Vai didn’t teach any specific techniques but focused on his approach for improvising and writing.

He first addressed the controversy on music theory education, which I highly agreed with: “If you’re passionate about music theory, you’ll quickly grasp many concepts. If not, it might feel daunting. Imagine, your assignment today is to learn different scales. Would you be willing to do it, or would you procrastinate?” (laughters from the audience) Indeed, most music theories are easier than primary school math and it’s simply a problem of willingness, given that one is not retarded. That I still struggle to read sheet music doesn’t hinder my understanding of music theory. Even Allan Holdsworth, who completely changed guitar playing, couldn’t read sheet music. His approach was to use numbers and mathematical formulae to denote notes, chords, scales, and keys. That’s also how I approach music theories as a noob. I will discuss the noob approach in my next article.

Then moved Vai on to the core content: phrasing. As a fretting-hand freak and an avant artist, Vai spent quite a long time on building melodies and harmonies. According to Vai, the essential was to ‘discover your own voice.’ The world of music is highly idealist. Different people hear differently: it doesn’t mean that two aurally healthy people can measure the same frequency in two different ways. Instead, it refers to the fact that people have distinct desires and anticipations on melodies and harmonies. If I play a C major chord, person A might reply with the IV G; person B would love to follow with a D major chord; person C could even come up with an arpeggio in B flat to flatten the progression. The differences have a lot to do with aesthetic preferences, cultural backgrounds, (music) educational backgrounds, etc. For example, when I was jamming with my friend Vlad, we addressed the same chord progression quite differently, although both of us are strongly influenced by John Frusciante. I favor the dorian, melodic minor, and harmonic minor, since I used to be trained as a classical guitar player (tho  I quickly lost passion on), while Vlad prefers some darker sound like the phrygian, and it might have something to do with his Balkan background, where the minor second appears more frequently in folk music. There’s no right answer but only YOUR answer. 

So how to find your own voice? First, you have to listen carefully to the given music, until you have a full grasp of its color, texture, emotions, etc. Sometimes you only have to listen to your intuitions. There could be strange moments when some grotesque stuff pops out of your (sub)consciousness, and you’d better not let them go. Listen carefully, until you can depict the whole picture. Then you have to vocalize melodies you came up with and subsequently identify the notes on your instrument. However, what a lot of people have been missing is the final step: confidence. The music you came up with could be incredibly bizarre, but you should never judge yourself (you might doubt, ‘Oh, does that sound harsh? Is that not avant enough? Does it sound like Steve Vai? ……), since you are the one and the only. ‘The best thing is to make your own music, to create a piece of music only you know or even only you are able to play, giving no shit to how others think,’ said Vai, ‘see, this is the first chord of Zeus in Chains, sounds weird right? But that’s what I heard (from my mind)… then I have the second chord, it works out right? (Applause) Had I doubted myself, there would have never been Zeus in Chains!’ A mistake that Vai advised to avoid is to noodle over the fretboard or follow your ‘knowledge and experiences’ (i.e. conventional chord progressions like VI-IV-V-I). Listening is always the priority.

Rhythm is another crucial component of phrasing. In Vai’s view, good rhythm should be similar to human language. Vai shared a simple yet intriguing idea. He suggested speaking a word and finding a rhythm within the syllables, somewhat akin to hip-hop. However, Vai spent little time teaching rhythm. I reckon that Vai might be afraid of ‘destroying’ the audience or simply didn’t have enough time on this part. Playing in Frank Zappa’s band for years, Vai must be familiar with intricate time signatures and grooves. Vai is known for being a big fan of Hendrix, so I think the ‘human language’ idea might be inspired by Hendrix’s free, nonchalant way of addressing rhythm. Hendrix loved to play a series of notes without a recognizable time signature but always managed to land on the beat, usually the first beat. Some people refer to this as rhythm, others call it dynamics. Rhythm, time signature, groove, dynamics … These terms are subject to abuse. Here I’d like to distinguish them. 

First, the term rhythm does not make sense to me. The rest of the three, together with sound quality/texture, which could be controlled by equipments such as pedals and pickups, fill the void left by melodies and harmonies (Melodies and harmonies are essentially the same thing. Both of them pertain to the frequency of sound). In other words, if music is a set, it includes the following elements: melody & harmony, time-signature, groove, dynamics, and sound quality. Here I don’t want to discuss sound quality as I am not very into material science and electronics. Time-signature and groove are different. One could be in the correct time-signature but out of the groove, and vice versa. 

Fig.1 correct time-signature, not groovy, not perfect but on the way.    

Fig. 2 correct time-signature and groovy, pro playing!

Fig. 3 incorrect time-signature, not groovy, bullshit.  

Fig. 4 attempting to be groovy but sadly not in the correct time-signature.

I’m honestly weak in both of the two, so I can’t offer any constructive suggestions on improving the two. As far as I know, practicing with a metronome can help a lot. Some people would include groove into dynamics, but I don’t think so. If we compare the groove as a hole on a journey, then dynamics determine where the hole is. Dynamics is about the relationships among the notes: whether to use slides/bend to connect the notes, where to emphasize, where to stutter, ect. In essence, it is a study of phenomenology. A phenomenon implies that there are certain facts. Hence, I said ‘where the hole IS’ instead of ‘where the hole SHOULD BE.’ If there’s a hole ahead, you have to deal with it. You can’t pretend it does not exist or arbitrarily claim that the hole should be somewhere else simply because it’s undesirable to you. An important point that Vai didn’t cover during the masterclass is that melody can affect the dynamics, which he might obtain with the human language approach. Melody creates spaces, spaces determines the ups and downs. It is idiotic and degenerate to regard bullshitting, an abuse of musical freedom, as free-style or improvising. Musical freedom enables musicians to deal with the ups and downs. However, the premise for such freedom is to acknowledge the fact that these ups and downs are there. If there’s a mountain in front of you, you can choose to bypass it or cross it, but you have to accept the existence of the mountain. I feel I might not be the right person to discuss such a highly philosophical thing, so I recommend you to watch this lecture: https://youtu.be/Klw7ntZ3aY8?si=y5pXtM3lL2CKKvdU A year ago Vlad told me John Frusciante was the last one that is and could be the guitar hero in all possible ways. Even as a die-hard Frusciante fan, I wasn’t convinced. However, as I played more and more and realized these musical enigmas, I could feel the weight of that statement. Unlike some stunt-shredders, who are obsessed with hiring a helicopter to cross a dune, Frusciante is the one that humbly accepts the phenomena.