DREAM THEATER, JOHN PETRUCCI, WILD STRINGDOM. SHEET MUSIC BOOK with CD & GUITAR TABLATURE .
Guitar World Presents John Petrucci's Wild Stringdom
By John Petrucci
CATEGORY: Guitar Method or Supplement
FORMAT: Book & CD
Guitar World magazine have teamed up to present an exciting new series. In this book John Petrucci details the patterns and techniques that have made Dream Theater the most amazing and important guitar band of our generation. Includes over 130 music examples, transcribed solos, and techniques to help expand vocabulary, creativity, and chord knowledge.
Table of Contents:
Foreword
Chapter 1: Practice Makes Perfect
Time Management
Managing Your Practice Materials
Chapter 2: Warming Up
Right- and Left-Hand Synchronization
Developing Diatonic Sequences
Developing Endurance
Chapter 3: Expanding Your Technique
Intervallic Slides
String Skipping
Diatonic Arpeggios
Sweep Arpeggios
Using Open Strings
Chapter 4: Expanding Your Vocabulary
Creating the Dorian Sound Using Arpeggios
Creating the Dorian Sound Using Pentatonic Scales
Creating the Dorian Sound Using Intervals
Navigating Lines Outside the Key Center
The Lydian-Dominant Scale
The Chromatic Scale
Using Chromatic Passing Tones
Chapter 5: Expanding Your Creativity
Creating Original Licks
Spicing Up Stock Blues Licks
Breathing New Life Into Pentatonic Licks
Chapter 6: Putting It All Together
Chapter 7: Expanding Your Chord Knowledge
Triads
Suspended Chords
Add-Nine Chords
Extended Major Chord Voicings
Movable Chords With Open Strings
Performance Tips
Chapter 8: Situdying Non-Guitar MU!iic
Building Left-Hand Strength Using Violin-Inspired
Chromatic-Scale Workouts
Using Different Meters to Accommodate Your Technique
Chopin's Piano Concerto in A minor, Opus No.2
The A Section
The B Section
The C Section
Foreword
In order for you, as a guitarist, to become a well-rounded musician, you have to master the three major aspects of guitar playing: the technical side, the musical side, and the creative ide.
The technical side comprises the actual physical components you need to have under your belt in order to get around your instrument, such as right- and left-hand technique; synchronization of both hands; the ability to execute scales, arpeggios, and patterns; string-skipping; sweep picking; difficult licks; and memorizing (and playing) complete songs.
Once you've developed some technical facility on the guitar, the musical side (which entails theory, harmony, chord structure, ear training, sight-reading, composition, and being able to hear chord progressions and licks)
comes into playa lot more. This aspect is a lifelong study, but it's what makes you a good musician as opposed to a good guitarist.
The creative side entails expressing yourself as an artist by composing music and/or lyrics. It's often accessed in a totally opposite manner than the other two sides-through free association. Sometimes just allowing yourself to noodle without any structure will enable you to stumble upon great new ideas, culminating in creating your own distinct voice on the instrument.
I've striven to cover all three aspects in this book, which is a compilation of my series of columns in
Guitar World magazine. You can be assured that I've personally used all the concepts and examples found in this book to help make my practicing more productive and efficient, and to develop my technique and personal playing style. They've helped me immensely, and I hope they'll help you too.
Above all, it's important to integrate any new concepts and ideas into your playing as quickly as possible because knowledge and technique by itself won't help you unless you can comfortably use it in day-to-day musical situations. As soon as you learn a new musical idea, try to use it in as many different shapes and forms as you can think of in order to absorb it. As the old saying goes: "Use it or lose'it!" Good luck'
... I learned how to make the most of my practice time early on. Here's what I did: first, I figured out how much time I had for my session. Then, I would parcel out pecific blocks of time for each subject I wanted to cover. For example, if I had allotted only two hours for practice, I would divide that time into eight I5-minute chunks and practice scales for 15 minutes and then move on to arpeggios for 15 minutes. and so on.
Giving yourself small time parcels to learn specific topics makes the broader subjects more manageable and less intimidating. For example, being faced with the prospect of learning all the modes in all the positions can seem to be an insurmountable task. But if you say to yourself, "For the next 15 minutes, all I'm going to learn is the A Dorian scale in the fifth position and nothing else," all of a sudden the task becomes a lot more manageable. And once you master that small bit of information, it gives you positive reinforcement to go on to the next topic, such as learning the A Dorian scale in the seventh position. We all know that practicing can get kind of boring. It's very similar to working out-you know it's good for you and you're getting a lot out of it, but sometimes it's hard to motivate yourself to get started. That's why practicing in IS-minute increments can be psychologically freeing. Instead of being faced with the prospect of sitting in the same seat and staring at a music stand for two hours, you only have to concentrate for 15 minutes at a time. And 15 minutes goes by in a flash! And of course, if that's too long for you, you could divide that 15-minute parcel into three five-minute sections. And c'mon, five minutes is nothing-it will take you almost that long to read this section!
So how do you start a regimen for yourself? It's simple: List your goals and be specific. Instead of saying, "I need to learn some scales and arpeggios and get my chops up," figure out exactly what scales and arpeggios you need to learn. Is there a picking pattern giving you problems? Target it and work it out! The best piece of advice I can give you is this: Always practice what you don't know, not what you do know.
With all of that in mind, let's take a look at Figure 1, a sample schedule depicting the first hour of a practice session. It covers only a couple of subjects you should be practicing, but it should give you enough of an idea of how detailed your daily practice plan should be.
Figure 1:
SAMPLE PRACTICE SCHEDULE
Right- and left-hand synchronization (20 min.)
Wild Stringdom, March 1998 Guitar World
Figure 1 (5 min.)
Figure 2 (5 min.)
Figure 3 (5 min.)
Figure 4 (5 min.)
Scales (20 min.)
G major, third position (5 min.)
G minor pentatonic, third position (5 min.)
G Dorian, third position (5 min.)
G Mixolydian, third position (5 min.)
Arpeggios (20 min.)
Am7, second position (5 min.)
Am7, fifth position (5 min.)
Am7, seventh position (5 min.)
Am7, twelfth position (5 min.)