they were created and used
originally, they weren’t referred
to by those names, so those
names were made up at some
point. When you say Ionian to
a guitar player, nine times out
of ten they’re like, “What?” If
you’re saying, “Major scale”
they go, “Oh yeah, I know
that”. So it’s just a question of
convenience to use the term
you know is going to be a
direct hit.
CG Not of This Earth is kind of a
quintessential statement about
pitch axis and interpretation of
the chords harmonically. Was
that a pivotal composition for
care, just play that song I really like”. Which is
person who’s doing it and the students who
way cool, but for us musicians, and especially
want to figure out how to do it like me - or in
us guitar players, these details determine so
this case Guthrie Govan, Alex Skolnick, Eric
much in our life… and they determine how we
Johnson or Steve Vai. But these questions
deliver the goods to our fans. So why wouldn’t
don’t get answered by the press anymore, and
we be obsessed with them and want to talk
that exchange for me I miss–I miss that a lot.
about them? And why wouldn’t we need a safe
It’s slightly cathartic in a good way to finally
place to exchange all the information about it,
get back into an environment where people
where we leave no stone unturned, and no one
are asking me the heavy, important questions
can ever feel embarrassed to ask any technical
about melodic structure, harmonic movement
question? Nor would any G4 star feel put out to
and how it is applied on the instrument and
be asked or to reveal such a thing cause that’s
what kind of gear I use to get it done… without
exactly what we’re there for? We’re there to
framing it in a commercial way. Which is kind
reveal everything and the students are there to
of like the way the press often does things
ask everything as well. These are the things that
now, because the celebrity has become the
make the G4 Experience so uniquely different.
important thing, not actually the essence of the
In a way, explaining it gives you the reason I did
music.
and teaching for so many years, and being able
to apply it in a way that was tangible musically?
JS Absolutely, it starts off bam-bam-bam,
it says it right there in the first three chords.
The main shocking message from the chord
progression hits you right at the top with
nobody else in there. The arrangement is also
very stark because I felt that there is so much
music that is very often weak and cloaked in
ridiculous amounts of arrangement. Something
happens when you strip away the idea that
you’re seeking commercial acceptance, and
you say to yourself, “What would I do, if I was
somebody else who wasn’t looking for that hit
song, how would I go about writing something?”
it. Once you say it out loud, you go of course,
why wouldn’t we all want a place like that?
you in terms of being able to
express the theory that you’d been studying
CG Why do you prefer to call the I and vi-
This thought process was important after I
Modes Major and
CG Does the G4 Experience fulfill a need in you
Minor
to teach?
and Aeolian?
JS If you go back twenty five years, thirty years,
JS I was taught
being interviewed by a guitar magazine meant
in
fielding very serious questions about music and
those names were
non gear-related technique. Today, you never
postulated
get that question about the unusual harmonic
Swiss
movement in a chord progression - never.
hundreds
This leaves a bit of a disconnect between the
years ago. When
22
vs.
Ionian
school
that
by
a
theorist
May June 2016
of
started writing the body
of music that became
I made sure that I never
applied some of those
weaknesses I accrued
during periods of being a
well-behaved professional
musician, which is to get
in line with everybody else
and do what is expected.
CollectibleGuitar.com
that album. I made sure
that I never applied some
of those weaknesses I
accrued during periods
of being a well-behaved
professional
musician,
which is to get in line
with everybody else and
do what is expected.