Joe Satriani is an instrumental guitarist who is known worldwide for being an incredibly talented musician and composer. He is also responsible for teaching many other famous guitarists, such as Kirk Hammett from Metallica. Although I don’t really listen to his music, I have been recommended his album ‘Surfing with the Alien’ to listen to for inspiration in regards to melody writing.
The main song that I took to on this album was the title song itself. This is because it has a real rock feel to it, and what I thought was an easily recognisable melody line over the top. I really like the sound he gets out of his guitar in this song, as the effects almost make the single notes feel as full as power-chords.
I really liked the use of the wah pedal in this as well as the melody line alone as it brings in more life and excitement to the line. While I don’t expect to be able to write as complex melodies at my current stage in music, I am definitely going to take inspiration from his playing.
I looked further into how Satriani produces this sound, and found a really interesting and informative video by ‘Premier Guitar’ that looks into his guitar rig and amp settings:
While the rig that he uses is far beyond anything I could pull off in my own work, this was still a really intriguing interview and well worth the watch. This has also however sparked the thought of possible guitar effects that I can use in my own work, for example delay and reverb as Satriani also likes to use.
In addition to this, I also found an article with this video attached, that had a clear representation of the basic amp settings he uses:
Link to the article: https://www.guitarchalk.com/amp-settings-joe-satriani/
Something I will take on board about Joe Satriani as a performer is his stage presence. I have watched a couple of his performances, and notice that he really feels what he is playing, and portrays that to the audience. This video is a good example of this, and a great perspective of his guitar rig in action:
Overall I really like the unusual sound that Satriani produces. It is in places a strange sound but nonetheless it is unique and memorable.
The thing that makes Satriani’s playing stand out to me, is the way his melodies are constructed and strung out for long lengths of time. After searching around I found this video of the man himself explaining how he goes about constructing a melody:
This video really gives a fantastic and easy to understand perspective on how to build up an effective melody. The basic idea is that you avoid playing the notes of the backing chord to create suspense, and then resolve this back to one of the chord’s notes.
I will mostly likely be listening to Joe Satriani for melodic inspiration rather than for the rhythm sections.