This guy is a real "professor" of guitar lore and playing styles -- in addition to being a gifted player. Thanks, mate. A cut above the usual KZfaq guitar plodders.

When Blue Powder was released on a floppy 45rpm vinyl that was free in a guitar magazine I learnt it by ear and doing that taught me a whole heap of subtle techniques.

What separates you from other KZfaqrs is that you go beyond the notes. I was talking on another KZfaq channel I think it was levi clay whom I love where someone wanted a marshall Harrison tab. True he's fast but to bend strings and shake em is what TRUE ROCK GUITAR is about. Dude your intonation is spot on even when overbending. You are basically the modern guitarist ARCHETYPE being that you have a firm grasp on many different styles and applying fundamental yet essential principle to them. Please start a BAND so I can purchase you music

Great lesson Dave!!! The funniest thing is Vai makes it look so easy and he looks like he's really having fun. Just an awesome player 🎸

Great lesson Dave, I have been playing guitar for about 40 years now and your videos always have something to offer which is awesome. 👍🏻✌🏻

love your passion for showing others your talents

That stacked 5th pattern appears in loads of places through Vai’s history. Awesome lesson, 🙏

It always bugs me when Vai haters say he doesn't play with "feel". I call b.s. Thanks for this great look at some of Vai's small, yet powerful methods to generate just some of his "feel".

I think it's crazy that you said you didn't jump right over to Steve Vai becuase it felt like betrayal to Eddie! I felt the same way! At the time Eddie was king and when David Lee Roth released his first solo album I felt like he was forming a super group to oversize VH. So when I listened to Steve the first time I was like Holy crap David L. Found someone who was playing crazier stuff than Eddie and I almost didn't want to listen...because I had this faithfulness to Eddie! But I too slowly discovered Steve's playing and fell in love with it. Great video!

saw SV perform the inviolate tour and OMG was that incredible . i have seen a LOT of the top touring guitar gods but nothing could have prepared me for that . incredible .

Can I just thank you for playing so many styles with so many players with completely different tones and doing it on an old digital combo amp that is usually on the same setting instead of having a bunch of heads behind you that you aren’t really using but instead running through some $3500 space station modeling unit? You showed me that there are no excuses. I don’t need a million dollars to play very signature sounding Vai licks now because this gave me the confidence. You are the real deal, brother

This guy is one of the best on KZfaq, full stop.

More Vito Bratta!!! 🙂

love that jem in the thumbnail

i love his work on feed my frankenstein!

Awesome. Always look forward to your videos.

Fwiw I believe that "note for an hour" tip is reproduced in his Vaideology book; somewhat more accessible today.

great job, thanks !!

great licks!

Really AWESOME! Thanks!

Listen to a live Parisienne Walkways solo by Gary Moore if you want to hear the longest sustained note ever😊

Another awesome lesson Dave. Thank you !

Dave your teachings are Awesome man and I really Thank You for taking the time to share your passion with other Guitar enthusiasts like myself! You Rock 👊🏻👊🏻

The Skyscraper album is incredible and one of my favorites! I didn't know about the stage locations that allow for more sustain, but that makes sense now that you mention it. Very interesting video! Love the blurry Vai slides !!

Another great and inspiring lesson, Dave! Thank you. You rock!

great video as usual man! ...when people say Vai has no feel...well, those people are musically vacant

Heya dude! I’m not that old but Im amazed by how many young kids wear wear DOORS or Zeppelin or Hendrix tshirts from Target, without ever hearing a single song from those bands! …Or how about dudes complaining about how playing hurts their fingers. My fingers were splitting from dry Chicago winters and I would not DARE complain about it online. …When the high e goes in cut, splitting your finger further, does not feel good! 😂 Thanks, Dave. Merry Christmas, to you and yours, from Chicago, bro!

There's very few good Teachers on youtube and you are definitely one of them.

Your channel is my favorite. I can already play well I just like hearing your informative knowledge.

Inspiring video! Thank you

Your lessons are one of the best!

Great era from SV ... kudos for this video!

Wishing you a Happy New Year David. Thx for your great content. Always a pleasure to see your lessons.

Very cool man I still enjoy the videos. I hope you had a great Christmas.

Thanks, again, for a great tutorial. I've always loved Steve on Zappa's Moggio from The Man From Utopia, amongst very many other things he played.

Steve Vai really knows his theory inside and out. I think that's the edge he had over Eddie. Both are awesome, but where Eddie would have to flesh it out or "look for it", Steve would just go for it knowing where every sound on the neck exists. The pro being that you gain precision. The con being that you lose the spontaneity Eddie had.

Man that last lick is nuts. Really cool stuff. I've said it a hundred times this is the best guitar channel on KZfaq hands down

Great job again. I have one of the original Lock Ness green Jems.

Thanks so much for this video. You really know how to get the flavours and stylings just right. That last lick/ riff is a monster and it’s not all that’s fast. Bloody awesome.

I remember the Guitar Player Martian Love Secrets columns when I was in high school as well. I too tried to meditate on a single note and also did not get to an hour lol. I'm new to your channel and really enjoy your lessons. The perfect mix of playing, theory, and story telling in my humble opinion.

Pure gold!

Besides finger vibrato, a good trick if you have a trem is to use the bar (like your finger vibrato example) to reinforce feedback. Trem springs in the guitar may also mechanically ring like a reverb tank in an amp and support the note as well as effect settings like delay and reverb that will regenerate it. Steve's ultimate solution to various stages where there is no sweet spot is the sustainer. Also, that slip and slide intervallic note was used by Guthrie Govan in the beginning of "Through the Flower". I love your channel and always look forward to new videos! Thanks!

love your work dave

Package your stuff on a DVD and I would buy. Quickly becoming my fave, Happy Holidays

Awesome as always, Dave! I remember The Alien Love Secrets article and wishing I hadn't misplaced the magazine. Luckily, Vai had them all on his website! Those were the first lessons I put in my personal teaching manual! That was around the year 2000 or 2001

Love it ❤️

Yes,,,,,,,,he also incorporated the sustainiac,,,,and E-Bow........he had all the toys back then,,,I saw him with Zappa,,,1981.....his Playing was stellar,,,with a strat!!!...but with tools on his amp side,,,,,when he grabbed an Ibanez,,it took off,,,,,his,,,( now we run,live),,,is one of his most hot rodded sustained notes on vid,,,,watch it please....,,,,,,thank you for this lesson,,,...........land o' lakes,wi.....( now where's my guitar ?)..🎼🎼🎶🎶

Like his crazy bend in hot dog and a shake.

Great stuff!! Just what I wanted after picking up the Ibanez Pia recently

Great video!!!

Best example of a held note in an guitar solo is in Spinal Taps Christmas with the Devil. Great tune too..

Skyscraper is an amazing album! Those two brought out the best in each other. Thank you so much for these deep dives! If you ever did The Chords of Skyscraper, I’d be first in line for practice!

Adrian Belew is the most expressive animal sound maker I've heard.

One thing you should try and learn when hitting that single note is picking so that you create a sort of ghost wolf harmonic note while still retaining the original note. I think Dimebag used to flirt with that edge where the note turns into artificial harmonic, but not quite yet. And then picking a note and touching the natural harmonic octave. It's useful for faking feedback. And you can also change that into tapping the harmonic like Van Halen did, that's a cool sound on its own. But definitely practice the overbends like Gilmour likes them, just to have that something extra special in your sleeve. But just hitting that note and playing around with the pick angle is in my opinion one of the most important things to do as a beginner and why not as an experienced player as well. You have so ingrained technique at that point that you sometimes forget what you're naturally doing. Like slanting the pick to a tight angle for sharp attack and raspy tone, or making it in line with the string for bluesy and chunky tone. Or in a different angle for sweep movement. You'll find some tricks you forgot or stopped doing, or do without thinking. The bendy tapping lick is that stuff I really enjoy by Vai and that I always get totally confused about when I hear something like it and try to understand what's going on. Or other unorthodox bends that get doubled by a regular note, or sound like they're doubled. For example towards the end in Ratt's Shame Shame Shame. That single song alone has some other cool bends and licks worth a whole lesson pretty much. DeMartini's style is just really cool and sometimes confusing.

That last lick is absolutely weird. Great stuff

nice job I like your guitar sound

This is where a little higher action comes in handy, you need room for the string to sing.

I put Eat Em And Smile up there with Van Halen 1. Awesome job Dave.

you are impressive and talented !!!!!

That signature lick 'slip n slide' type thing Steve does (11:37) reminds me of the start of his solo to the song Western Vacation ,a solo which I think this is so melodic and really gives the song a load of extra character-one of my favs.

Great stuff. Agreed on the ‘trifecta’. PS Am I the only one who always holds out hope you appear with the guitar from the thumbnail?

Playing with feel - Shawn lane next

I had the same influences plus Al Di Meola and then John McGlaughlin. I was 17 when I got into the last two. I liked the music but felt like I was into something deeply uncool... Al Di Meola Casino is still a very special album to me. lol Glad I persisted. Luv and Peace.

Not a Vai fan, really, but this was in interesting vid. Shows his innovative approach. Very musical, too. Especially got a lot out of the hammer on / slide riff thing that went up the neck. It's one of those things that many guitarists could probably adapt into their playing somewhere. Great tone out of your rig, too, by the way. Peace.

Reminds me of Hendrix "Machine Gun"

I bought the Guitar Player Magazine issue that included The Attitude Song in it on a "sound page", when I was 15. It came with the tabs, but I just wasnt ready at that point to pick it off. Honestly Vai disappeared for me for a long time after Dream Theater debut themselves and I started following John Petrucci and then Paul Gilbert after he started his solo career.. But here lately Ive been revisiting Vai as 51 yr old guitar player, and Im kinda pissed at myself for not including him as much as I should've. I likely would have been waaaaay better than the point Im at now.

What strat model do you use? Always have enjoyed it Or if anyone else in the comments know please tell me thx

Alien love secrets.

His Blue Powder solo on the Whitesnake tour, Vai held a not [no sustainor], for like a minute or two. I heard it in my face at Jones Beach Theater NY. it was mindblowing. But Sykes played his riffs better.

How long does Gary Moore hold that note on "Parisienne Walkways" Live ?

I"m pretty sure Vai used a Sustainiac pickup at times.

What year did Fernandes guitars release their sustainer kit?

Cool lesson, when did Steve start using the Fernandes sustainer pickup? Did he have one in the late eighties? I think I remember in the Whitesnake performance at Monsters of rock he sustained a note then let his guitar rise up on wires whilst the note continued, always the showman! Edit: it sounds like the note is looped plus the guitar strap is on the strings as it rises!

Sustainiac as well...

di they have sustaniac pickups in those days

Have anyone the link to the bootleg for that show? Thanks

Brewski.🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟💪🎸

I don't know if anyone else mentioned this, but his thumb is like Gene Simmons tongue over the fret board!

I can hear the Sustain pedal kicking in as Vai is holding the note. Hey, that's what effects are for!

Via incorporated a sustainer on his guitar.

luckily theres a sustainiaic now for that lol

when i here the 5th thing it reminds me of lydian. and the whole lydian chromatic concept.

Vai also uses a sustainer pick up in his guitars to give him that long sustain

There's another great example of that bend-then-tap move in the main theme of David Torn's "spell breaks with the weather": kzfaq.info/get/bejne/d9eWqcij3bqWloU.html

Don't forget 'bark like a fish' and spank like my baby (!)

Mike lyntz from Riot would be nice to have episode band Riot

Vai,Iam sure you know ,as do many others uses a sustainer pick up[Satriani,Moore,etc.] so this is always impressive ,but its also not "skill".

Gary Moore did it better and longer than Vai’s 12 seconds

I your speak too much

Your a cool guy but you talk too too much. Just play with minimal dialog

And bla and bla and blablabla…