When you watch your favorite guitarists play, notice how little their hands and fingers move sometimes. The economy of motion can't be overemphasized.
For anyone who doesn't know his work, Andreas Vollenweider is a harpist who creates very atmospheric, new agey music that's totally beautiful.
I think if anything, what 'The Astonishing' proved is that we're always going to experiment.
If you practice in a focused, concentrated manner and make efficient use of your time, you will progress a lot faster than if you were to use the same time noodling without any specific goals or direction.
The guitar is the ultimate vehicle for expression and composition for me. It's a part of my DNA!
By adding open strings to even the simplest chords, you can create voicings that sound sophisticated, but are really easy (and fun) to play. They're practical, not intimidating, and most certainly don't sound like 'jazz chords.'
I'm such a huge fan of Steve Howe, I worship him.
I often use triadic arpeggio forms within my riffs and solos as a tool to create rich-sounding, poly-chordal sounds.
Using open strings is a great way to add texture and atmosphere to any chord progression.
If I had to pick a favorite band of all time, it would be Rush.
2112' basically set the course for my musical career and how I approached Dream Theater.
I spent a lot of time developing my chops when I was younger. In doing so, I found that one of the hardest things was dealing with what to practice.
It's much better to play the guitar a half hour a day, every day, than not practice for a week and then jam for five hours one day.
Anytime I can use open strings in a chord, or add a ninth, I will.
When I think of a lot of the players I admire, they could always play their parts without hiding behind distortion and sustain.
I see every new album as an opportunity to start over. To either build or improve upon a direction that has been evolving over time or to completely break new ground.
In the neighborhood that I grew up in - in New York on Long Island - there were a lot of musicians. For some reason, that time in history in our town in New York, everybody played. So it was all around me.
I wanted to go to Berklee College of Music because that's where Steve Vai went - I was total tunnel vision.
So many things will happen, for better or worse, in your career, and it's very easy for those things to bog you down or consume you. But when you get a chance to look back, you realize that those were not the things that were really important.
Music doesn't have to sit within the confines of pop structure, you can really make stuff that's more visual.
