ALLAN HOLDSWORTH MEET & GREET 140912 NYC

PART 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfC7nFjoI5o

Here is the transcript with all bold and italic formatting removed:

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Host/Interviewer: ...go your own way and leave a trail, you know? So it's kind of like that for me. Don't you think, though, that—I mean, I know you don't like that word for yourself—like Coltrane, that's kind of a form of genius?

Allan Holdsworth: No, I'm no genius! I'm dumb as hell.

Host/Interviewer: No, okay, well, we'll leave you after it. But it's a form of genius for someone to not have a reference, to take something somewhere else that no one else has really taken it to. And those guys did that, where it just comes from some innate something within them. But I think your playing comes really deep from within you, that no one can emulate.

Allan Holdsworth: Probably something I ate or something...

Host/Interviewer: All right, I'll stop complimenting. So there was no kind of "aha moment" where you go, "Okay, now I'm onto something"?

Allan Holdsworth: No, there's never been an aha moment. I'm still waiting! You know, one cool thing about being really old, which I am, is that the only cool thing about being old is that I woke up today.

Host/Interviewer: That's inspirational!

Allan Holdsworth: Well, it is. I can go buy a beer!

Host/Interviewer: I don't want to dominate the questions. Anybody in the audience want to ask something?

Audience Member 1: I'd like to follow up on what you brought up. So you're suggesting this idea that creative, groundbreaking work by someone... but his practice routine was, like, Slonimsky—the scales, many hundreds of thousands of hours exploring scales, technique, etc. So how much of it is craft? Did you put in the work? Did Coltrane put in the work?

Allan Holdsworth: Probably. I mean, I don't think you get anything for nothing, you know? I just figured out a way to work on my own and study things on my own. Then I realized I wasn't sure about the guitar with the way notation was formatted. How, when you get to an altered dominant chord, it's got five different names, and my dad said, "Yes, because you don't play the piano, and you can never play all the notes. You're only playing four notes at a time." Which is true—most guitar chords only contain four notes, which don't even really spell out a full chord.

So that's when I decided I was going to look at the whole thing differently. I quit looking at anything from the root up, which is what guitar players usually do. I figured out a way to write down all the scales. I wanted to figure out every possible scale without buying books, so I did. I cataloged them all and I have them all. Obviously, I can't remember hardly any of them because there are thousands of them! But it was a unique experience to work on it, and I did work on it, you know? I'm lazy now because I'm old, but I wasn't so lazy when I was younger.

Host/Interviewer: When you were younger, how many hours per day do you think you practiced?

Allan Holdsworth: Well, I played every day. I never had a strict practice routine. I'd have three main areas:

1. Working on something I didn't know. 2. Trying to figure out chords and scales. 3. Just improvising and noodling.

Those were the only three things I did, but I did it every day. Sometimes I'd spend more time noodling, and other times I spent a lot of time working on stuff I didn't know, trying to figure out how to play certain scales in certain positions.

Host/Interviewer: Were you playing in cover bands, doing cover music back then?

Allan Holdsworth: Sure! I played in a top 40 band for years. It was cool! It was a little bit better than a barber shop.

Host/Interviewer: You also liked bicycling—like 80 miles a day or something, right?

Allan Holdsworth: Yeah, in the old days. But I quit that once I got fat. So if you get a bike, ride it!

Host/Interviewer: Well, that leads into the chords thing. How do you approach voicings? Because lots of people—myself included—can't play some of the chords you actually play. They're so extended.

Allan Holdsworth: Actually, my only teacher was my dad, and he played piano. So when he played chords, they would always be voiced differently than on the guitar. Even though later on he became a pretty good guitar player—he could play beautiful chords on guitar. He didn't have a lot of chops, but it didn't matter; he had a lot of harmonic chops, which is actually better.

A lot of the chords he showed me were close-voiced, so I just grew up with that. That was normal for me, so I never learned the standard short, bunched-up chords. They were always a bit more extended. It was just an accident; my dad wasn't primarily a guitarist, but he was able to open up a whole new world for me on guitar. But I was ignorant to the fact that I was doing anything different than anybody else. I thought everybody did this!

Host/Interviewer: So you never looked back and said, "I'm not hearing anybody else doing what I do now"?

Allan Holdsworth: Really, no. Because I always heard the guys I thought were really amazing. So no, I just kept going, kept looking, kept fishing. You've got to dig!

Host/Interviewer: How did the tone evolution come about—the ever-evolving chase for tone?

Allan Holdsworth: That's a never-ending story! I just wanted to play long notes. I started like everybody else with distortion, but the problem is that it's kind of ugly. Distortion is often really ugly. So it's been a big battle for me to find a way to make distortion sound less ugly and try to make it prettier. It's kind of hard, though; you need a lot of makeup!

It's not so much about gear, but just your way of thinking about it. Though gear helps—you look for stuff you like, trying to get a sound that isn't so gnarly. To some people, it might be too dark, but it's never done. I haven't gotten there yet; I'm still working on it. As long as I keep waking up, I'll keep working on it!

Host/Interviewer: If you have a question, raise your hand. We'll start with the gentleman right here.

Audience Member 2: Going back to the chords: if I remember correctly, you played violin on your I.O.U. record, and I think you mentioned in an interview around '82 that you were tuning in fifths sometimes. Was any of your recorded guitar output tuned in fifths, or was it all standard tuning and you just did the fifths tuning at home privately to explore voicings?

Allan Holdsworth: The only time I tuned anything in fifths besides the violin was with the SynthAxe, because it was easy to do. Fifths tuning is a bit gnarly for chords and somewhat limiting, but on the SynthAxe, I could tune it in straight fourths—which is my favorite! If I were starting to learn guitar today, I would tune in straight fourths without a doubt.

The B string is a pain, and it's unnecessary unless you're going around bashing out power chords, which you don't need anyway. If I learned again, I'd use straight fourths. But I spent so many years trying to beat the B string that I can't un-beat it now! There's a song title in there. Otherwise, every voicing on any set of strings is exactly the same—until you hit that B string!

Audience Member 2: So are any of the SynthAxe tunes on the records in fifths?

Allan Holdsworth: Yes, they are! But I also figured out how to play them in fourths, too. That was one of my pet projects: to see if I could play the same thing in fifths as in fourths. Most of the time you can, except the SynthAxe has an extended range, so some low notes weren't available.

For example, I wrote "Looking Glass" in fifths, and "Non-Brewed Condiment" was written in fifths, but you can play them on regular guitar. The solo on "Non-Brewed Condiment" when I used the SynthAxe was in fifths because I was trying to play a fake violin. Otherwise, no, on the regular guitar I just use standard tuning. As much as I'd like to change it, I always end up dropping back. I've tried other tunings, but they fail miserably for me!

Audience Member 3: Back to the search for tone: you mentioned distortion is a sort of necessary evil to get the sustain you're looking for. What is your signal chain—from guitar to what, to what, for your lead sound?

Allan Holdsworth: First, you have to find an amplifier whose base sound you like. There are a lot of really nasty amplifiers out there, but once you find one you like, you work with that.

With a little bit of an electronics background, I used to build my own load boxes to manipulate the sound. They took the power amp section of a tube amp and turned it into a line-level signal so I could EQ it, then feed it into a giant power amp out to speaker cabinets. That way I could run it quiet. The original amp might look like it's cranked to 11, but the actual volume was very low.

My pickups are very low output—like original '59 humbuckers, custom-made for me by Seymour Duncan. They have low output and weak magnets, so they don't pull on the strings. When using thin strings, a powerful magnet stops the strings from vibrating properly. So I prefer a lower-power magnet and then boost the signal further down the chain. That's also why I like single-pickup guitars.

Audience Member 3: Is that power-soak to power-amp setup what you use live, or do you do something simpler?

Allan Holdsworth: Not so much live anymore. Because of how we travel now with restrictions on gear, I've been using pedal setups just to make things easier. It's not how I'd ideally prefer it, but it's what the travel economy has dictated. I generally don't use the exact same setup live as I do in the studio.

Live, my signal splits: clean sound is easy (direct to PA is great), but the lead sound goes to a dirty setup. I end up running two separate stereo sets—four speakers total—for stereo clean and stereo rhythm/lead.

Audience Member 4: Thank you and salute you for the beauty and integrity of your music! Two questions:

1. If you taught an ensemble of young aspiring musicians in the art of improvisation, what would you tell them?

Allan Holdsworth: I don't know anything! That's the weird thing—you see people who are teachers, and I think, "How can you teach anything if you don't know anything?" I don't know anything about music; I'm still trying to figure it out. It goes so far beyond me. Who am I to know anything? If I tried to teach, I'd have to give a refund!

Like Frank Zappa said when asked if he had advice for young musicians: "Yeah, take out a Herbalife franchise!"

Audience Member 4: 2. What do you look for when improvising with other musicians, and what do you try to give them musically?

Allan Holdsworth: Number one: try to screw up as little as possible!

I've been fortunate to work with some of the greatest players in the world. When you work with someone great, there's an organic connection that happens that I can't put into words. The first time I played with Gary Husband, he was 19 and I was 27. It felt like we were connected by a wire—how did he know where I was going?

Jimmy Johnson is the same way. He'll play something and you wonder, "How did he instinctively know there was going to be a hole there?" You get on stage, start playing, and see what happens. It's like Las Vegas—you don't know, you're probably going to lose!

Audience Member 5: I've spent 20 years chasing tone with amps and pedals. Digital modelers used to sound fake, but I recently bought an Axe-Fx II and it's getting me really close. Do you see yourself using digital direct devices/emulators in the future to simplify your rig?

Allan Holdsworth: Absolutely! That's a wonderful unit. It takes away all the clutter on stage and lets you plug straight into the PA.

At the end of the day, gear is just a tool. In 20 years, someone might find a 50-watt Marshall and a 4x12 cab in their garage and think it's amazing, but gear won't stop you from creating great music. The guitar is just my connection to the world of music; it could easily be a trumpet or a wrench. If you can create music with whatever you have, that's all you need.

Though I still have a soft spot for old 2-inch analog tape machines! But saving myself from hauling heavy gear around by using a single cabinet or modeler direct to the house sounds great. I'll look into it.

Audience Member 6: On one of your instructional DVDs, you talk about the importance of visualizing when practicing. How did you realize visualization was an essential element of your practice routine?

Allan Holdsworth: Visualizing was really important to me because I'm a person who can almost "see" the music visually.

When my dad passed away, I decided to look at music differently and developed my own formulas. I cataloged every single possible combination of scale intervals in one, two, and three octaves. I didn't worry about standard scale names—I named them myself.

I'd pick a starting note (like D) and mathematically generate every permutation of 5-note, 6-note, 7-note, and 8-note scales. I ended up with a huge pile of papers. Any combination that had more than four semitones in a row, I discarded.

Because of that process, looking at the fretboard for me is like looking at an abacus. I visually see the physical intervals and distances between notes on the neck rather than letter names. When I look at the guitar, that visual map of available notes is what I see.

PART 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1RLstwAnds

[00:00] Intervallic permutation recognition, that's what I call it. It's just like a way of looking at the distance between particular intervals. So it's very visual.

[00:10] I don't know if that helps you at all. Yeah, yeah, no, it's great. And very mathematical. Well, yeah, the formula is mathematical, absolutely. But then when you come to play it, you have to let go of all that. And then you have to figure out how you're going to use it. So then you have to play, then you have to try to figure out how to make music, you know.

[00:31] I screw up all the time, you know, obviously. But, uh, so when you're knee-deep in the solo, are you seeing anything? Like, you sing the guitar, or like there's nothing? I just hear the harmony and I hear some of it's by, you know, some of it's by listening, some of it's visual, and then you just kind of merge, merge the two.

[00:51] You have to use whatever resource you have, and so I use them all. Whatever I've got at the time is— I need them all, otherwise I'll be I once read a great quote by Pat Metheny. He said when he was first learning how to improvise, he used to think about doing the laundry every time a solo came up.

[01:07] It would distract him from actually thinking about what he had to play over the chords. It's good to not. If you get too— I made the mistake many, many years ago of trying to— I thought it was a good thing at the time, and I realized it wasn't. Well, I tried to think ahead. So I'd be playing something and I'd be thinking like 2 or 3 chords ahead.

[01:30] And then while I was here, at this point in time I'd go, what's that chord? Because I couldn't remember it at that space in time when I got there, I couldn't remember it. So I stopped doing that and I just started going in the moment. Sort of just like, yeah, not thinking what's going to happen down the road.

[01:48] And I just stay like in the minute. And usually it's saved me. It was better. I thought it was good for me to try thinking ahead, but it didn't work. Not for me.

[02:02] So that's actually a really interesting insight about— and I've read a lot of interviews when you talk about how you worked out the mathematical formulas, and then of course there's a question then how do you apply it in a musical way, and you talk about how you if you're quote unquote just trying to juggle the notes in an original way.

[02:23] But I was actually interested in a different aspect that I think I noticed in some of your improvised solos where it seems like you're actually not really following the changes and more employing these devices that you know, may not necessarily address the changes per se, but are used very musical in the course of the improvisation.

[02:53] Oh, you're talking about a line. A line. It's just a way to get from point A to point B or whatever. And the thing is, I do always think about the changes. You know, I try as hard as I can. You know, I'm not really that great at it, but the thing is I always think about that, but at the same time I think about making connections and trying to make musical connections that won't make— that won't kind of— they'll kind of be— that they'll fall over each other until you get to where you're going.

[03:25] It's just like, though, that's the beauty of improvising, because the thing is, one of the things I noticed about some other guys that I know is that, with no names, is that like they have like this bunch of things and they, like what you classify guitar players call them, as licks. And then they string licks together so there's lick A, lick B, or whatever, and they go like, oh, I've used this and this is a way to get to that.

[03:48] And I think if you're using a lick you're really not improvising at all. So I always think about trying to improvise without, you know, without falling back on something that you've already played before. I mean, we all do, obviously, and stylistically that's going to happen anyway because I can only do what I can do.

[04:08] I can't, I can't be any better than where I am today, you know. I can't do any more. But at the same time, uh, I could— to get from point A to point B, you could be real static about it, or you can just try to juggle it. And then, and that's one of the things that I was always fascinated with when I first started Pat Martino was that he had a, he had a like really, really beautiful way of like kind of, kind of going from one place to another, which was not very obvious, and it was beautiful, you know.

[04:42] So he was an— I never copied anything that he did, but I was inspired by that, and it made me look into how to get from one chord to another without actually being, you know, without just going like And so I don't know if that answers your question or not. It half answers, because I think in your case it's not memorized lines in the sense of note for note and you kind of— No, they're not memorized.

[05:09] If they were memorized, it wouldn't be an improvisation, would it? But there are instances where you can tell that it's the same finger pattern, maybe a to different notes. Well, that's true too. I mean, that's true of any instrument. If you look at the piano, you could say, well, you'd see, oh, that guy did this, or it's just— so you can't get away from that.

[05:31] I mean, if you look at the— even if you look at the musical— if you— even if you look at notes written down, well, Nicholas Slonimsky's book or whatever, no matter how complicated it is, you'll see something. Then you might see it again, you know. It's like, I don't know how you get away from that.

[05:45] It's just like trying to— it's just trying to use everything and drag it back in and try to put it out in a way that works in that particular moment in time. And it may not, you know. It's just— I mean, that's the beauty of improvisation for me, is it's like you've always got to be ready to fall on your butt, you know.

[06:08] I mean, Gary Husband said something to me one time, and I was complaining because I'm always complaining. And he goes, oh, I sucked. So, and he goes like, well, man, you can't expect to kind of keep digging all that shit and not get some of it on your face. You know, so I mean, that's true.

[06:24] There's some truth in that. If you play it safe all the time, then you'll never make a mistake and everything will be smooth jazz. Just joking. If I can follow up with that. Regarding your show here and the song Dodgy Boat, and I hate to ask you about one specific song, but to me, you know, when I try to turn people on to your music, that's usually a song— oh, okay.

[06:51] That's usually a song that I'll go for because it's really kind of accessible, you know, in my opinion. Well, I didn't write that, that's why. Oh, you didn't really? Okay. So you were— that explains everything, you see. It's accessible, I didn't write it. Was that an improv, or was that something someone put in front of you and said, here, No, it was written— the tune was written by Steve Hunt.

[07:12] Yeah, yeah, the really tremendous— that is to me one of your finest guitar solos. I threw my back out trying to figure out the second half of it. I don't know if it's in your head, but that to me, for anybody else here, that is, you know, to me just one of the best songs ever written.

[07:28] And the fact your name's on it is great too. Oh, I thank you. But it's just— just— no, but I didn't write it. It's cool. Steve's great. You're on it. That's all I care about.

[07:39] So, um, I'm curious, how's your approach different to soloing in the studio versus, uh, you know, in the live situation? Well, it's actually, it's actually the same. Only if I, if I screw up, I can fix it. That's the only difference.

[07:57] So just to follow up on that, um, One could argue that your studio albums and the official live recordings that you've released have a different character to them. And some people would say that they like the live albums better. At any rate, are you planning on releasing more live recordings in the future? Yeah, but my focus right now is finishing a, you know, I have kind of been out of circulation with albums here because I've been moving around a lot.

[08:28] In my personal life. But the thing is, so I actually have like 3 albums that are unfinished, right? And what I want to do is finish the very last one because that's the— that's where, where it is now. So I want to finish that. So that's my focus right now. So I'm more concerned with that than anything else at this point in time.

[08:48] I don't even know if that's because I can't see because of the light. So if I'm not looking at you, I'm sorry. I can't see. But yeah, it's just like I want to finish that, and if we do a live album later on, then sure, no problem. But I'd still like to do this studio record first because it's been like 14 years since I did a studio record.

[09:11] So I'm kind of getting really anxious and I might not wake up, you know. So there's always that as an issue, you know, 14 years to get hold of it.

[09:22] Yeah. Another question here. Just once again, just raise your hands and I'll definitely make my way towards you. I'm glad you're all enthusiastic. So I'll get to this gentleman here, then you in the front will get some answers. Thanks, man. After I'm done asking this question, if you could answer the second question, which is why deep when you're talking about the scale stuff.

[09:42] But what I wanted to ask you was, you know, you played a lot of the '70s fusion stuff. Yes, sir. Which, as you remember, on a lot of records was a lot of Got spooks, and then everybody would suddenly do the big unison. You know, kind of thing. There's some of that on the Brucer records. It's all over the place.

[10:04] And off the top of my head, I mean, like other than the first lick of Road Games, your music doesn't have any of that in it. And even from like the IOU record, there was none of that. So well, I try to stay away from it. Is it is it because is it because of the stuff you were trying to do with chords?

[10:19] Your your take on chords that inspired required the tunes to not be based on that stuff? Yeah, it was. And 16th note grooves or whatever? Yeah, it was. I just, it just seemed like everything else, you know. Every time I did a fusion record, it was stick it up, dig it up, back, dig it up, back, stick it up, shove it up, wrap it up, turn it back.

[10:39] I didn't want to do that. I just wanted to, I kind of wanted to get away from it. Just like somebody, like when I was, when I first started growing up, I played, I was playing in the blues band. And then, no, I played the blues for years really, and then I spent the rest of my life trying to avoid it.

[10:58] So, so yeah, I did. I deliberately avoided it. There's very few tunes that I've written that have like kind of serious heads in them. There's a couple, but most of them, no, it wasn't about that for me. It was mostly about trying to write a really nice vehicle for improvisations and nice harmonies and nice chords.

[11:16] And it was more about that than just, you know, because essentially anybody can learn how to play like a Tricky Dick line. You know, if you sit down there long enough you can learn it.

[11:28] But then what? It doesn't mean you're going to be able to play a good solo. It doesn't mean anything. So it was kind of, there was something about that kind of fusion thing that kind of left me feeling like empty. So I stayed away from it. I tried to.

[11:46] I think you said something a minute ago about D being a really good starting pitch for a root when you were picking out the scale. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I can explain that in a minute.

[11:57] I won't forget. We'll get back to that one. Gentleman here in front. I think we'll get to the fourth. Yeah. Okay, so I'm hugely inspired by you as a composer, and what I notice about you is like a lot of— I was listening to Strauss's 4 last songs with a friend one time, and then I listened to some of your music after that, and I kind of noticed, you know, like the similarities in a way between like the 2 things.

[12:33] Sort of like how, like, how they move harmonically between the two. And what I was wondering is, did you, did you take— did you like, did you ever try to play along with that stuff and like figure it out? Or did you kind of just like listen to it so much that it kind of went into you by osmosis in a way?

[12:53] Yeah, probably more that way. I never analyzed anything. I never really analyzed anything. Except for what it is that I'm working on, like personally, you know, any— then I work on that.

[13:07] Like I'm really trying to figure out something. If there's something I want to know, then I'll try to figure it out. But if it's something someone else did, then no, I just kind of take it how it's presented to me and how I hear it. And even though you mentioned that composer, I was probably most influenced by Ravel and Debussy were my biggest, you know, then of course Bartók was kind of, and Stravinsky.

[13:32] So those 4 guys were probably the people that have kind of got into my head somehow sideways, you know. And I didn't ever analyze anything, it was just like I just found it to be extremely beautiful.

[13:50] I guess it somehow finds its way into your heart somehow, and then it comes out in your music, I guess. Yeah. And also, when you were— this is a little bit, I guess, unrelated, kind of back to scales. When you were really compiling all those scales together, did you try to like sing what you would play and stuff too?

[14:10] Or like really try to internalize the sound of what you were playing exactly, just so you could hear it and have kind of Not when I was cataloging it, no. Not when I was cataloging it, because then it was more like a— it was a science experiment, you know. But later on, then obviously half of those went into the pile, pile Z, which would never be used.

[14:32] And then when I got to the other ones, I got to be able to recognize them, you know, just by the intervals, the distance between the intervals and the sound. And then I Just hear a scale and then you can pull out all of these chords from the scale. So I kind of almost did it backwards. Instead of trying to find out what scale goes with what chord, it was kind of backwards for me.

[14:54] I was like, how many chords can I find in this one scale? I don't know if that helps. Oh, it actually does. Thank you. I have one question as I make my way over. Let's say that hypothetically or maybe you do have an iPod. What would be on Holdsworth's iPod today? What are some of the things that you listen to?

[15:23] Nothing I've ever done. Yeah, that's a good question. You know, to be honest, as I've gotten older, I don't listen to music that much anymore. I listen to, like, you know, because I'm obviously surrounded by musicians, I work with them all the time, so they're always playing music and I just go with them. I just like, somebody goes, oh, check out this guy, check out that guy, and then I just listen to it.

[15:51] But typically when I'm on my own, I don't listen to music much. We had a question over here. But that was just now, not then, you know. I mean, like, my dad did the same thing, you know. As my dad got older, he kept— he was always listening to music, and then as he got older, he kind of— I don't know, I don't know why, he just kind of stopped.

[16:14] Sure. In the few instances, uh, acoustic guitar, uh, on record, I think most people in this room have thoroughly enjoyed it. Any ideas to revisit that, or do anything with acoustic Yeah, I do. I'd like to, I'd like to get a— there's a guy in San Diego who makes these McIlvory replicas. I'd like to get hold of one of those.

[16:40] But not to do the Django thing, it's just that— at all. I just love the way those guitars sound and they're so, you know, definitively distinctive sounding guitars. I'd like to get one and try to do something other than Django on it, you know. But yeah, I would. But typically I don't, because I don't play it much.

[17:04] Like when we go on the road I never take one, so if I need a few more beer tokens or whatever I end up selling my acoustic guitar or an amplifier. So that's why I don't have one right now.

[17:21] So yes, I would like to do something. Alan, one of the most interesting things for me about your music is your compositions. And there are 2 things in particular that are fascinating to me. One is that when you're repeating a melody, there are often instances where the melody comes back in a different key.

[17:44] Than it started in, and the other is the blowing changes not being the same as the chord changes for the melody. And I was just wondering where that inspiration came from and how you started messing around with that. Well, it came from, like, I guess, like, kind of listening to classical music, and I was always fascinated with the— I've always been fascinated with modulation and modulating something, you know, keep something, you know, keep the thing like moving.

[18:12] So, you know, it's a pain in the butt to play over because it's moving all the time. But the thing that I like about it is one of the key things is trying to find a way to make it sound like it didn't change, but then it did. When you try to analyze it, you go like, oh, wait a minute, that's not in the same key, it's here.

[18:31] So, but it's just trying to make it so You don't hear that. So it's like a seamless transition, even though it kind of morphs back to where it started from. I mean, one example for me was sometimes it takes me a long time to finish a piece of music, and sometimes it's really quick. Like, I remember on— I think it's on One Guitar— I wrote a tune called Sphere of Innocence.

[18:54] I don't know what album it's on, but I wrote the the tune really in a very short space of time, except I couldn't get it to go back to the— I couldn't get it to modulate. And it took, even though the basic tune was written in like a few hours, it took me 6 months to finish it, to get to where you couldn't hear it.

[19:20] You couldn't hear the key change when it went back. Because I was always fascinated with modulation. I guess that Comes from listening to a lot of classical music, but it's always fascinated me that I really love that about music. So like if somebody listens to your tune, they'll go, oh yeah, I know that melody.

[19:37] And then if you try to actually play it later, you go like, wait a minute, it's not in the same key. It's changed like maybe 2 or 3 times without really noticing it. It's like a little magic puzzle. I like that. And then the tunes like Looking Glass, where the chord changes for the soloing are different than the head.

[20:00] Yeah. Is that— how do you go about approaching that? Well, what I usually do is I'll take a section of the head. It will usually be related, almost always. It'll be— I'll take a certain section of it. In that tune, for example, a lot of the solo changes are from the middle part of the head. And then I'll just kind of modify it and morph it until it gets back to square one, and then we go back into the head.

[20:26] And that head's interesting because it's in 2 different keys and there's 2 different endings in each key. But so it's just like a, yeah, it's just like a little modulation morph. I like those.

[20:40] And there's only a few tunes that I wrote where The head and the changes are the same. You know, I have done that actually, like Funnels was one example. Trying to think of another one. I can't think of one right now. Podwad. Podwad, yeah. There's a few of them where it's like a traditional tune where the head and the changes are exactly the same.

[21:04] Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Yeah. I'd just be interested, how do you go about picking a group? Because I noticed you play with different bass players, different drummers. Is there any approach to that where you decide I want to play with this person?

[21:32] Yeah, usually, it's usually like I'll— I hear somebody playing and I go, I really like that guy. And it's just as simple as that. And I go, you want to play drums or you want to play keyboards? They go, okay.

[21:44] And then fine if they don't, then I go, oh, sorry. But that's usually the way it works. But when you did, say when you did Metal Fatigue and you had a vocalist, did you decide, I don't want to have a vocalist anymore, I'm just going to do drums? Straight ahead jazz.

[22:04] Well, he wasn't straight ahead instrumental. Instrumental, yeah. Yeah, I just decided, I mean, he was— I love Paul. I met Paul Williams, the singer in that band, when I was with Tempest in 1972. So we played together in that band, and that's how I met him. But I always loved his singing. I thought it was great.

[22:25] It was a very powerful kind of blues. Voice. I, I really liked him. And then, uh, uh, I came— I was living in this, uh, in the US for a while, and then went back to England, and I was living in this apartment then. And then I was looking across the street, I'm going like, wait a minute, that's Paul Williams!

[22:43] And he was living in the apartment opposite. So I, I just asked him, oh, I can get this band together with Gary Lisbon and Paul Carmichael, do you want to sing Yeah, so, so that's how that happened. But then to answer your question, after the, after the, uh, Mel Fatigue album, I just decided that I didn't want to— I wanted to break away from the vocal thing.

[23:06] Not because I didn't love him, he was a wonderful guy and a great singer as far as I'm concerned, but I just didn't want to do any vocals anymore. I didn't like it. I didn't trade him in, you know, it was just like I just kind of decided to drop the vocals.

[23:24] I just wanted to do something else. And right at that time, I just kind of discovered the synth, which was a mystery to me at that time. I got better at it later on. I mean, Tabacrom and I was struggling with it for a while, but by the time we got to Silent Secrets, I kind of figured it out a little bit.

[23:42] But that's why it was— no, it wasn't I just decided I didn't want to use the vocals anymore. Decided or just it didn't fit and it wasn't what you wanted to do? No, I just— it was not what I wanted. I wanted to move in a different direction without the vocals.

[24:01] One more question over here and I'll get back to the mic. Hi, Alan, it's good to see you. Hey, oh, there you are. How are you? I'm very good, thanks. A quick question. A lot of times, mostly on your records, we hear you playing over what a lot of people would refer to as non-functional harmony. But you have this one record, it's called None Too Soon, where we actually get to hear you play over, you know, I guess functional harmony, you know, 2-5-1 progressions.

[24:31] I was wondering, when you were developing that record, what was your strategy for for, for kind of coping with like the, you know, kind of, you know, How Deep Is the Ocean standards? And, you know, I mean, you did mention your, you know, intervallic permutations and all that. Well, I just treated it like it was Gordon's idea, actually, the piano player on that record, Gordon Beck, who sadly is no longer with us.

[24:54] But, uh, he was a really great friend of mine, and it was his idea. He goes, oh, you know, you're playing all this esoteric bullshit, why don't you just like try to play some play with some tunes that people know. It didn't make any difference, it still sucked. But the thing was, in answer to your question, I just viewed it the same way.

[25:16] I just took each one of those tunes as if it was an original piece of music. Because I didn't, you know, even though I grew up listening to that music, I was never actually actively involved in playing like standards or stuff. So what I would do is I would just take like How Deep in the Ocean, I'd go, what are the chords?

[25:32] These are the chords and these are the scales and I just play on it. But I didn't have a formula for it. There was no formula for it. I just played it as if it was some guy had just written an original tune. So for me it wasn't How Deep Is the Ocean, it was just some original tune that I'd never heard before.

[25:50] Great. Wonderful. Thank you. I'll come right back to you. Sorry, get some fresh faces over here. Talk to your beard. Intermission. I wanted to ask, how do you communicate your compositions with your band if it's always interchanging? We're gonna get to that. I actually— that's a good thing. Usually I just play it for them.

[26:23] Playing the music and then that's it. And just like the old days. I never write anything out. I write stuff out for myself just so I can remember my own stuff. I never write out any chords or anything. I make my own charts but they're usually just for the scales and stuff. But usually all the chord stuff I memorize.

[26:47] But usually I just play the tune to them. I go, this is how it goes. They usually just learn it in phrases. That's a good segue into the chord chart. I'm going to just talk about that a second. Good. Whoa. You do that in the man yard loop?

[27:08] So that's what my charts look like.

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PART 3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8OiP7lEBdI

[00:00] It doesn't matter. I can't answer any question about those. I mean, I can— I know what it means, but it's kind of— it just came from just like kind of studying on my own and not learning anything that was traditional in any way. Because when my father passed away, which was a long time ago, I just started kind of working on stuff on my own.

[00:23] So I ended up just devising my own trying to figure out my own methods and my own ways to figure out things. So I figured out a way to write scales and a way to memorize them and a way to, you know, so when I look at one of those charts it makes perfect sense to me. What's X?

[00:45] Well, the X is easy. It came from a, you know, like if you take like a simple, the basic, how it started was X stands for experiment, actually, because it was just an experiment. Like, if somebody makes an experimental firearm, the serial number goes X something. So it was just an experiment.

[01:05] So I just started looking at all the intervals, and I think, okay, well, let me look at just a basic C major scale. So I just take C major and go like, hey, where's, where's the bottom of that scale for you, like, on a harmonic compass. And they're like, is it F Lydian like George Russell? Is it— then all the notes, they don't, they don't kind of line up.

[01:27] And then when I got to D, it was like, oh yeah, now all the— do you have that other one? I'm sorry. Yeah, actually, I think that's all right. But then I realized that when I, when I got to D, that it was perfectly symmetrical. It was like looking at this little compass.

[01:43] So it was just like, people could see, like, you probably can't see this, but it was just like it's perfectly symmetrical. You start on C, it's kind of wonky. Any other way you go, like F, F Lydian, it's kind of not symmetrical. But when I got to D, I went, oh yeah, it's perfect, it's symmetrical.

[01:57] All the interval distances, it's perfectly symmetrical. So I go, I can remember that. So I just used that as a base. So I took the X to mean X just applied to any key I wanted it to. And then I just started cataloging the scales.

[02:13] And so that's what, that's what that means basically. There's a lot of other symbols too that don't really mean much to anybody else, but, and it really doesn't matter because it's what comes out in the end. What's on paper is not really— it's not like, like some guys playing like giant steps backwards. It's not like they hand the audience a chart and say, oh, he fucked up.

[02:40] It's the way I can remember it. But you told me a fascinating thing which I never really thought of, is that, I mean, you don't see like C major and A minor related. Like you think of the second— No, no, A minor is not related to C major in my opinion. I mean modern classical music, modern music.

[02:58] Yeah, they don't even contain the same notes. So explain that a little bit to them, I think. Well, it's easy. If you play like a regular A minor scale, which is like a G major scale, then it's not the same notes as the C major scale.

[03:15] The only one that has the same notes, the second chord is D minor, so it's exactly the same notes. But it's just how I came to learn it, you know. It's like, it's just my own opinion. It's not— I'm not passing it off. So in those though, then, right, you were telling me that the, uh, So like F would be— or say C, X, you're really thinking about that as like a B-flat, right?

[03:38] Yeah, it's B-flat. Well, for you it would be B-flat, yeah. But that's not the root, that's just a way of identifying the distance between all of those. So there's no top and no bottom, it's just like a big circle.

[03:51] I mean, that's how I see it. I think that's pretty mind-blowing for most of us. Something for me. Can we get a beer up here? Yes, we can.

[04:06] Oh, they did it. It's a miracle. Oh my God, service. Delicious. Alan, uh, I guess I have a sort of a A general question. I mean, from all the questions that everybody's asked today, it sort of covers, you know, really almost the whole gamut of what's involved with guitar playing. You're obviously a great player.

[04:36] You're an unbelievable composer. I think nobody in this room is not blown away by everything that you've managed to put together over the years, and we're certainly all inspired by it. Have you— and I know you've— I think everybody in this room also knows that you've done a number of DVDs or videos, instructional and otherwise, over the years.

[04:59] To pick up your comment, I think we all would be incredibly interested in a further explanation of his theories, such as they may be. Do you have any plans to do anything like that in the future? Maybe working with some guitar teacher to sort of help you articulate what he's saying?

[05:21] Yeah, I mean, I know I would love it, and I think every guitar player who exists in the United States and in the world would probably buy that thing and just really benefit from it incredibly. So if you're looking for a suggestion about a project to do— well, I have to interject a second. We're— Alan's going to be part of a pledge music campaign soon that we're going to roll out.

[05:45] And one of the ideas that Alan had was actually, you know, maybe over months release a chapter at a time about his concepts of music, which I think would be, you know, privy to only the Pledge music people. And I think that's a fantastic idea. Humans will understand, or is this going to be— you know, for me it was just like, if I was to try to sit down and do that, it would be too time-consuming for me.

[06:09] It would take— you know, I'm trying to finish 3 records I haven't finished for 10 years. Like, I don't have time to sit down and do like a book thing or anything, but if I could do it in bits, you know, because it's easier to do something in like pieces. So I could start with the beginning or whatever, and like you were suggesting, work with somebody who could translate it into— you know, there's a guy at Berkeley that I talked to about doing that too.

[06:39] Was interested in trying to take like what my concepts or whatever and try to translate in a way that makes it so it's readily, easily understandable. And then it's not as crazy as it looks actually. But is it Tim Miller? No, no, it's not. It's a, it's a one of the big cheese guys at the Berkeley.

[07:01] It's not Tim. Tim's great, by the way. Yeah. Let's get to your question. I'll come back to you. Alan, going back to what you said about the standard tuning of a guitar and how the B string always drove you nuts.

[07:17] Well, it doesn't drive me nuts now, but it used to. But it used to. I come from a bass-playing world. I started out life as a bass player, so everything was in a world of perfect fourths. And when I got into guitar playing, that B string always annoyed me. Sure. But as you did, I struggled with it, but I figured out patterns that worked and I worked around it.

[07:35] Recently when the 8-string guitars came out, I noticed that everybody was using a standard 6-string tuning on the top 6 and they just have 2 bass strings. And sometimes they just tune that to a 5th and just have a bar chord on the bottom. What I'd done is I took a standard drop B-flat tuning and put that in the middle of the guitar so I have a 4th an F below, a 4th below, and a 4th above.

[07:59] But my standard style tuning is in the middle of an 8-string, and that seemed to work for me. Now I can get chords that seem, you know, physically impossible. My question is, do I— do you see yourself as using extended range guitars in the future? Because I'd really love to see an 8-string version of something headless, because everything Carbon's making right now is gigantic and has a huge headstock.

[08:23] Do you see yourself using extended ranges? Because you talk about using different tunings. That's, that's an instrument where you could really experiment with lots of different tunings. Well, I've used extended range guitars before, actually quite a lot. I had like 3 like baritone guitars, like huge guitars, like, and I always took a 25.5-inch scale to be the norm.

[08:47] So then the builder, a guy called Bill DeLapp, who built these guitars for me, we just, instead of trying to add strings, he'd just add frets. So the headless version of the biggest one I had was probably about this tall. And it only went down to A, but the first fret was like this big, but boy did that thing sound amazing.

[09:11] But I used it on a couple of albums. I think I used it on Sphere of Influence. I think I used it a lot, mostly on One in the Cliff Tower, I think.

[09:22] But so it's an extended range, but I didn't have more strings. No, I can't deal with 6 strings. I don't think I'm ever going to get past 6, personally. But I love the way it sounded better to me than adding another string of the same scale length, because when the strings get lower, they start sounding like kind of dumpy.

[09:43] You know, they don't have the same— whereas when you go this way, I can still use like a really skinny string and it would just like sing like crazy. And that's the other thing on the A string, the frets. You know, they're huge for playing bar chords on the bottom. They're 29 scale, so— Right. I think this was 32.

[10:02] That's 32-inch scale. It was like as big as a regular bass, but it only had 6 strings on it, so it was cool. But it sounded amazing. I had 3 of them and they all had names, this kind of thing. Boris was the little one.

[10:18] Your Nan was the big one. Anyway, never mind. Forget that. No, they were great. They were great. Unfortunately, I don't have them anymore. I just kind of quit. I just decided I wanted to go back to just trying to figure out how to play the banjo.

[10:38] I was praying for an 8-string Haldsworth. I guess it's not going to happen. Carvin's not going to build it. We have a question over here. What does it feel like to tour?

[10:53] Really tiring. Probably not for you though. You probably love it. You probably dig it. It's, it's, uh, it's not what it seems, you know. It's like, uh, when you go on the road, it's like nice. You get— people think, you know, it's like a little mini vacation, but it's actually not. It's kind of usually a lot of work.

[11:11] You never get to see anything. You just go, you get to the hotel, then you go to soundcheck, you do the gig, you go to the hotel, you get in the bus drive away. So you don't really see too much, uh, but sometimes people think it's like kind of like an endless vacation. I wish it was because I think it was— oh, I shouldn't mention any names, but one of my buddies, his wife said to him, oh, you have a recreational occupation.

[11:37] So he goes, come on the road, we'll throw you in the back of the truck. Actually, she did come out for a few days and she went home. It's not much fun, actually. The playing is fun. The music's great. I mean, you get to play and that's nice. But, you know, I enjoyed it more when I was younger.

[11:59] And you're obviously a young man, so you'd probably dig it. I don't dig it so much anymore. Can I get a question? It's a multidimensional question. Because one of my favorite tunes is Non-Gruyère Condiment, and it contains the melody. It's— I think it's the only one that contains a melody that reflects your vocabulary when similar.

[12:29] The melody of the song has the same vocabulary of when you improvise. And also the harmony, I noticed that you play these amazing voicings, but the bass It's playing a different— I mean, you're not playing the bass on your chords.

[12:53] So my questions would be like, did you write the chords first and then play a melody that would go with the chords, or you just wrote the melody first and then you harmonize it?

[13:09] And the bass note of the chords, is that like you just imagine it, or you kind of like first play the bass line and then harmonize it? Those 3 questions. Okay, so the bass line, that's actually a 5th below the bottom of my chord in each instance. And then the, uh, I wrote the chords first. I came up with the chord sequence, and then I wrote the melody on top of it.

[13:34] I just kind of kept playing the chord, then I kind of recorded that, and I just tried to figure out a melody that fit with it, you know. So, and that's what happened. I have to say that when I— I cannot drive listening to that song because my face frowns with excitement.

[13:55] I don't know if that answers the question. Hi, um, I know earlier you talked about Charlie Christian, right front up here. Um, oh, there you go. Yeah, I'm sorry, the light, I can't see. No, it's cool, man. Um, and you mentioned, uh, Pat Martino. Yes. And, uh, recently, again, last question, Tim Miller. I was wondering if you could talk about, you know, maybe other guitar players, contemporaries of yours that have influenced you and your playing.

[14:24] Well, actually, I've been influenced by anybody that I've ever heard. I can go down the street and hear a top 40 band and be influenced by the guitar player or anybody in the band. I get influenced by everyone, sometimes in a good way and sometimes not, but either way it's still— something happens, you know.

[14:42] Even from the beginning, you know, with Charlie Christian, Django Reinhardt, Jimmy Rainey, Wes Montgomery, all the guys up to Craig Gambale, John McLaughlin, the names of the list, it goes on and on and on, you know. Alex Makacek, Tim Miller, all these guys, they're all amazing. They all do something different, and I'm inspired by all of them.

[15:05] I listen to it, you know, and it's great, and I just go, oh, whoa, how do you do that? And then I just carry on, you know. It's just like, I don't just listen to the guitar. I think one of the best things that I did, for me, in my own opinion, is that I didn't really listen to a lot of guitar players.

[15:24] I mean, I did, because that's the only way I mentioned them, but they weren't the focus of my listening. I mentioned them because they were all really tremendous guitar players and unbelievable musicians. But a lot of the time I listened to other instruments.

[15:42] Michael Brecker would kill me, man. That guy is just ridiculous. And yeah, I don't know, I still haven't got over that. I still can't believe it, he's not here.

[15:56] But yes, I listen to a lot. I'm influenced by everything I do, you know. It's not just guitar players. I catch a lot from other people who play other instruments.

[16:09] How about out of genre, like Joe Satriani or Steve Vai, people who hold you in high regard? They're amazing. They're great. They're tremendous. And they think the same of you. I mean, you're an influence to them. That's fantastic.

[16:24] Yeah, well, that's very kind of them to do that. I'm fans of theirs too, you know, all the Eric Johnson, all these guys, tremendous players. Cool, thank you. Sure.

[16:45] John McCloughlin has a great quote about Alan. He says, if I knew what he was doing, I'd steal everything. No, he's something else, John McCloughlin. I had a question about rhythm. Is it over here?

[17:06] Oh, there you are. Yeah. Um, how about rhythm? Did that come naturally to you? I mean, if you don't listen to, uh, you know, if I listen to your heads and the whole rhythm section, it's very complex. Is that, um, something which came naturally to you, or is it something you had to work on? And, or any, any any aspects of rhythm that you ever— maybe part of it?

[17:27] Yeah, that's a really great question actually, because I have a similar thing with time as that. Because, uh, as far as I'm concerned, everything's in one, a subdivision of one, and how small is the one?

[17:44] Uh, so, you know, I, I go through this all the time. Like, I was just playing with Virgil, you know, these like meticulous about kind of counting stuff and making it all like kind of figuring it all out, you know. And most of the drummers I play with too, you know.

[17:59] But for me, everything is in the phrase. It's a phrase. It's just like if I write a tune and there's a certain phrase, then when it gets to the Then when it gets to the end of the phrase, I'm like, oh no, it's— most of the time when I write a piece of music, it's not in time at all.

[18:15] There is no time. It's kind of like just in the back, just floats. And then I go like, okay, if I want to play this with the guys, what am I going to do with it? And I go like, okay, I'll have to figure out how to put it into time. So then what I'll do is I will try and group it in phrases.

[18:29] I'll go like, ah, that bar's too long, this one's too short. Doesn't sound right. It's not flowing the way I want it. What I'll do is typically is I'll have a count that's twice as fast as the tempo of the tune. So it's one, two, three, four. Like dididididididididid. Each one of those is a one for me.

[18:48] So then when I get to the end of the phrase, typically where that chord lands is a new one for me. But for the drummer, it's not a new one. So when he writes his own chart because I can't write the charts for the drums. People actually go, oh, well, that's an odd bar, you know, it's a 7/8 bar or whatever, 9/8 bar or whatever.

[19:06] And they'll write it down and they'll tell you. But for me, they're just phrases. It's just like, yeah, 4/4 is kind of ugly, you know. It's like Frank Zappa said, you don't talk in 4/4, it's like a phrase. So it's just like, you just kind of have a phrase, you get to the end of the phrase and you go like, okay, well, that sounds good.

[19:29] That's too long. By how long? Well, by one. But how small is the one? You know, so I never count anything in terms of like traditional counting. Everything for me is— I count it in one. It's just like a big series of ones.

[19:50] And this code falls here, and this one falls here. You know, so I'm really dumb. I'm kind of— I don't— everything I do is like not right. So there you go. I mean, to me that's the downfall of progressive music and a lot of the fusion stuff is it's kind of like, okay, now we have to write a song in 7, we have to do something in 9.

[20:15] It's like they hit you over the head with— and your music doesn't have that element in it at all. There's also lots of odd bars in there, but I don't know. You don't feel that they're moving in that way. No, I know. It's predictable. So I get to the end of a phrase, and that's one for me.

[20:28] And I go, I get to the end of another one, it's one. It's easy. It's a beautiful thing. We have another question up front. Uh-oh. Hi, Alan. Oh, there you are. OK. You worked with Austin Peralta for a short time before he unfortunately died. What was he like to work with? And did you— he became a pretty big deal in the electronic scene with Thundercat and stuff.

[20:55] And was there ever talk of you kind of like doing some projects with him? Yeah, absolutely there was. It's kind of hard for me to talk about it.

[21:20] Sorry. He was just this lovely little kid, 21. Amazing piano player. Wonderful guy. This great little kid. Had no ego, nothing. Just an amazing piano player. I loved the guy and I didn't really know him that well. I only got to hang out with him for a week or so of my life. But I really liked the guy.

[21:53] Amazing musician. It's really sad. Sorry. And no, he actually played on a track on my new album. And what I was going to do is I was going to— that particular track, I was going to pull it off when he played his solo and reorchestrate it and just like kind of not have him just be a solo on the record but have it be, you know, make something special about it just for him.

[22:24] Just kind of rearrange the harmony a little bit. And so pull him off of that one too and make his a special piece just for him. So, uh, yeah, I'm sorry if I hit a nerve.

[22:37] No, he was— geez, we, you know, he had his 21st birthday when we were in India. I love the guy. Great. Sorry. Thank you. Now we've hit the front. Missed— anyone in the back that I probably missed, or anyone in the Middle have any questions?

[23:05] Rick, time for it there. Do we need to take a— hey, how's it going? Um, if you had pursued an alternative career, can you conjecture as to what that would have been? Yeah, it would probably be electronics because I like electronics. Electronics all pull on me. One of them. I think they're both related.

[23:32] No, electronics, I think. It was always fascinating. I love all that squiggly stuff and trying to figure out how to get this to go here and this to go there. It's really like plumbing. It really is. But you were an avid cyclist though, right? You toyed with the idea of being a pro cyclist. Yeah, no, I used to cycle a lot.

[23:52] And I raced a lot when I was young, when I was skinny, and then I quit riding and I got fat. There you go. And I bought a bike just recently, so we'll see what happens. You told me for a long time you used to ride like 80 miles a day or something, right? Some crazy— Yeah, I did.

[24:07] When I was in England, I rode 80 miles a day, almost every day. Thank you. You're welcome. Sorry, so it's electrician— no, not an electrician, electronic engineer or plumber.

[24:22] Anybody else? Question here. Hi, uh, I have a question about your legato technique, and specifically once you mentioned that you don't like how pull-offs sound on guitar and you, uh, came up with your own way to do this. So can you elaborate a bit? Yeah, so it's like, so instead of pulling off you just kind of lift your finger.

[24:50] It's almost like each one's a new hammer. So instead of, because there's a, I can't think of his name. And it was just like when he deflected the string sideways it kind of meows. It's like meow, meow, meow. I didn't like that sound. So I quit doing that. So I just would like lift it off. And then below you tap that one.

[25:12] So it's like, it's like a hammer-on in reverse. Also, what's amazing to me, Alan, is that most guitar— almost every guitar player has string noise when one takes solos. There's, there's no string noise. Yeah, you don't hear any noise at all. Well, I, I try really hard to make it, you know, I've always been a fanatic with when it comes the noise of any cabinet.

[25:38] But, uh, you know, even with my gear, you know, like the amps and stuff, I hate if it makes any noise. So, but I mean, you don't hear any when you're playing. You don't hear any movement between the fingers moving, which is— well, I just worked on it. Very impossible, actually. I don't think you— I just tried to make it quiet.

[26:00] I just keep trying. Nardini, we should have a question for you. How about the world of touring? And we'll let Alan off the hook for a minute. Yeah, the world of touring is, you know, as Alan said, it's not easy, you know, because as Alan said, like, everybody thinks it's nice to go from one place to other place, from other country to other country, but it's kind of tiring, you know, especially, you know, if you are doing the long tours and One of the things that, uh, kind of when I came out, it came like to Alan's life in booking tours.

[26:33] Like, one thing that I understand for Alan, that, you know, we cannot like do those kind of crazy tours. Like, you know, like especially in Europe, like, you know, people are booking you like one day you are playing in, uh, Portugal and next day in Russia, then go to Greece, then go to Ireland. That's impossible, you know, because then, you know, you don't have time to sleep and relax and and, and enjoy.

[26:55] And then, you know, then we, we were— we started working on this kind of schedules, that itinerary, maybe compromising some better gigs just in order to make it nice in terms of itinerary, that there are no long drives between the cities. But still, even though there are short drives between

"Discussion on Music Theory and Guitar Tuning" · 27:12 · transcribed at TranscriptX.ai

PART 4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULYxyyxwuhw

[00:02] How do you find life on the road these days? Uh, bumpy. What's that? Arduous and tiring. Yeah. You find the— we haven't— I loved it right here, so he just got done. Oh yeah? Right, yeah. I got done with the tour with my band and it's stressful for sure, especially if you're a band leader, but it's all worth it at the end.

[00:26] I think you guys book yourselves. That's why you do it in the first place, right? Yeah. With the right music and right people, how can you fail? Sorry? You can't fail with the right music and right people. It's always a good time, actually. That's true. I actually have one question for Alan over here, if you don't mind.

[00:47] Unrelated question. You talked before when there was a question about tone about basically finding the amps, an amp that you like. And some of my favorite tones were, I guess, early '90s, Wardencliff Tower, Hardhat Area, Secrets. Can you briefly outline which amps were mostly used maybe on those albums? Yeah, actually, that's a really— I have a really great memory for every amp I've ever used on any song on any record.

[01:19] So which track in particular? It's like, which part? City Lights was a Boogie Mark III. Speed of Innocence. Dodgy Boat, you said it was a .50 caliber in Guitar World 1989. No, it was printed in there. Yeah, no, it was not, because I remember probably— yeah, I actually struggled with that because I started using that amp and I'm going like, I don't like it.

[01:49] But then I'd already started the solo, so I can finish it with another amp. So that's why I know that's what it was. So I don't know who I told, but that was not right. It was a Mark III.

[02:01] The one with all the knobs that pull out and everything. It's crazy. That was the last time I ever used it. And were there other boogies that were used during that period? Yeah, no, my favorite one was the Young Boogie, they called it. It was the dual rectifier.

[02:20] Yeah, I had a couple of those. I thought they were amazing. I still do. I think they're a great amplifier. The Mesa/Boogie Dual Rectifier, the original one, you know, because some of the new ones don't even have a rectifier tube. So that was the whole point of having a rectifier tube, was you need a rectifier for each pair of output tubes.

[02:41] So there was 2 in those. That's why it's called a Dual Rectifier, I guess. But some of the new ones don't even have rectifier tubes in them at all. That was a really good amp. I used that on a lot of that stuff.

[02:56] So what makes you decide to not— to move on from that amp? Just traveling. It was like I couldn't take him on the road, so it got complicated for me to take him on the road, you know, because you have to case him up, pull all the tubes out, you know, pack it all up and ship it.

[03:12] You know, that's his idea. So the Dual Rack in the Axe II is really, really good. Yeah, no, that's, that's a good way to go. Anybody else? I think we're getting towards the, uh, the basket moment, the pumpkin basket. Yeah, yeah, we have a few more minutes. Yeah, maybe one more question. One more question.

[03:33] We're good. Well, I'll ask one. I got that one. Um, back to Dodgy Boat. Sorry. Um, the main solo, your main solo in that, was, was that One take or edited? And if it was edited, please don't answer.

[03:51] No, I— what I do is I do actually multiple solos, and then I pick one. Okay, but still, it's one take, it's not edited together. That's what it's— what most of the time it is, but sometimes I'll, you know, if there's something I didn't like, I'll take it out. Okay. But, uh, why— what I like to do is just do more than one solo.

[04:11] I'll do like hundreds of them. And then, well, they don't like any of them anyway, so I just have to figure out. The best worst one. Yeah, the best worst one. Alan, I have a question. You mentioned the Synthax, and I think probably everybody in this room is familiar with the work you've done on it.

[04:32] Have you explored anything sort of to try to replace that technology, like maybe Star Labs MIDI controller or something like that? Yeah, I have a— I have one of his, uh, Javi Starr's a friend of mine, good friend of mine, and he made this one that looks like a— it's not like a guitar, it's more like a keyboard.

[04:49] Yeah, it's like a 2-dimensional keyboard. Yeah, and it has 2 necks on it. You play it flat like a pedal steel. So I have one of those. I've been trying to figure it out, but it's actually not that— not that hard because you know where the notes are. And the beautiful thing about it is you can play more than one note on the— on a hypothetical string, so you can play a bunch of chords on one string.

[05:09] It's really great, you know. So you got— so it's like a 3-dimensional keyboard. It's like the 3-dimensional chess from Star Trek. How do you find his controller? They're like buttons, right? They're buttons, but I never could play the guitar. I can play the guitar, but I ever— I just got hold of a couple of the— my second favorite one from the Syntex was, uh, the Yamaha G100, you know, the one that works on the Sonar.

[05:36] Yeah, that thing is great. So I have a couple of those now. When my Syntex kind of dies eventually, which it will, but it might live longer than me, who knows. But, um, I love that. It's great. And it's kind of small, and the frets are just like a regular guitar. It looks like a Steinberger, you know, it's kind of a headless little thing.

[05:55] And, uh, it tracks really great. It's, uh, I like it. And so that's my backup right now. But the thing about the Syntex that was killer was that the beauty of it really was the keys, having that set of keys on top, you know, the strings and the keys. That was pure genius. Whoever thought the guy, the original Syntex guy, He was a keyboard player himself, so each one of the strings, each one of the buttons corresponded to an open string.

[06:34] So you play a chord, you can take your hand off, get the next chord and grab it. So it's seamless like that. So you can play more seamlessly than a regular guitar player. You can join chords together, which is really a great, beautiful thing about that instrument.

[06:51] I'll miss it when it's gone. Still there, but I've got one working one. Sorry, you're going to use it on your new records? Yeah, I've used it on everything somewhere. It's always on, it always sneaks in there somewhere.

[07:08] Hi, Alan, I just had a question about back in the '70s you played with UK, Bill Bruford, Did you enjoy playing in that type of jazz rock experience? I really enjoyed like working— I really enjoyed working on the record, you know, because I, uh, yeah, I enjoyed that. Yeah, I enjoyed that, but then when it got to be the live thing, I didn't dig it so much because, um, just because all the guys are great guys.

[07:39] I love all of them. They're all really great guys, so there was no problem with that. It wasn't anything personal. It was just that, you know, Eddie used to like everything to be just like the record, and he wanted everybody to play the same solo every night. And we're like, I can't do that because I don't know what I did last night, you know.

[07:56] I, it was just like an improvisation for me, so I can't remember them. And that's supposedly what I thought improvising meant. Well, it still does, but he liked it differently, and he, he, on his own, yeah, his own choice, he chose to play the same, pretty much the same solo every night. So no, I didn't have as much fun live, but I enjoyed working with the band, and I enjoyed the making the records.

[08:23] Same with Bill. Only Bill was great because Bill wouldn't, you know, he didn't dictate to me that I had to do anything that was like that at all. I could play whatever I wanted, solo-wise I mean. So that was nice. But I mean, I would have probably still stayed with Bill a lot longer except for the fact that I got this hankering to play with Gary Husband and start my own band with Gary.

[08:47] So I ended up leaving Bill to do that. But, um, yeah, no, I, I enjoyed it. It was good. When was the last time you listened to that UK album?

[08:57] I don't know, about 20 years ago. Wow, a long time ago. How was it working with Dave Stewart? Oh, Dave's great. I love Dave. He's a really sweet guy. Hey, you know, one of the things that we always talk about, like, you know, when people get things wrong, which And we haven't kind of discussed that in this.

[09:16] I'm surprised actually, but it never came out, the funny story aspect of things. But, uh, we had a trip, you know, everybody makes mistakes on posters, but there's one poster, I think we were in Spain, and it was the only time I've seen every single guy in the band's name wrong. It was really great. It was Bill Burford.

[09:41] Stuart Dave, Jess Berlin, and Alan Holdsworth with 2 L's in Holdsworth. So they managed to screw up every single guy's name in the band. It was funny. Usually there's one, you know, you usually catch one guy gets it wrong. But that's the most common mistake. The whole band was wrong. The most common mistake that people spell your name with only one L, you know, that's the most common mistake, even, you know.

[10:09] But that's okay, they put the 2 L's in my last name. I think we're good. I think everybody asked all they want to ask. All right, we needed a drum roll for this. Okay, so this is the guitar raffle.

[10:30] I'm just going to pick from the pumpkin basket. Oh yeah. I get to do that. Although you made me feel guilty. The right guy doesn't win. I should state that not everybody— people were able to do this and not be here, so the winner could possibly not be here.

[10:50] That's where you pick again. All of our tickets are in your name. No, they bought their tickets. So we don't know which one of us will have to flip an urn. I went and bought the tickets.

[11:03] Charles Sheeler? I was actually heading there to bring the check. Yeah, my boyfriend. Is it really? But he's not there. No, we have to see ID. Who is it? Oh, that's too bad he's not here. I mean, you got the ticket for me because I'm a fan, believe it or not.

[11:26] Oh, that's awesome. Well, okay, so you'll be taking this home. And does he want it, uh, Alan will autograph it, or does he want it autographed? Okay, we can do that then. Damn it. Awesome. All right, next.

[11:50] You want to talk a little bit about the pedal you put us down so people know? Yeah, actually this pedal is like kind of neat because it's kind of a half— it's like 2 pedals in one because I used to use these guys' pedals for a while and they made this one for me. And actually it's 2 pedals in one.

[12:08] It's like one half of it is a boost pedal and the other half of it is just like a regular kind of distortion pedal and they're cascadeable. So you can pass one onto the other. You can use them individually or separate. So it's like basically like 2 pedals in one, like a little distortion pedal or just a clean boost pedal, and you can stack them either way.

[12:30] So great pedal. All right, can you choose somebody? Let me choose. Close my eyes. All right then. Oh, that's a good name. I like that. Benedict Zelinskis. All right, we'll give it to you after.

[13:02] Okay, okay, thanks. All right, now we have, uh, Alan is a Cubase user. This is Cubase 7. Full version. Okay, I don't know if you guys use Cubase, but great program. One of my favorites.

[13:17] A lot of people are here. That's really good. Oh, let's pick up somebody. They're going to think we rigged it or something. Alfredo Konesberg. All right. All right, awesome. Well, there you go. Everybody's here. That's good. Okay, so then the reading tickets, right? Yeah, that's the tricky part. We have to, you know, if you pick up somebody that is not in, you know, right, right.

[13:46] Disclaimers, we have to keep going until we get somebody in the area. Unless those people want to buy first class ticket from Indonesia, Japan, or Brazil, you know. All right. All right, so this is 2 tickets for next Monday night, right? Monday night, 8 PM. 8 PM, yeah. They stick together.

[14:08] I don't want to look. Same geezer, Manfred O'Connorsburg. Holy smokes! How about that? Can you play lottery ticket for me? Like, that's crazy. Excellent. All right.

[14:30] Okay, so that's, uh, that's pretty much it. We have, uh, sets of LaBella strings for everybody. Alan will sign photos. We have photos for everyone. Um, maybe you should take like a little kind of thing with us. Yeah, we could take a 10-minute break if everybody's cool and then come back and just do like a meet and greet at the end.

[14:47] All right, if that's good. Yep. Thank you everybody, this was great. Thank you so much.

This transcript was generated by TranscriptX.ai from a 14:51 recording.

PART 5

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwWLF0vJ4zo

Allan Holdsworth: ...so, Alan, tell us some stuff to check out on the road. I need lots of road stories!

Allan Holdsworth: Actually, I have so many stories, I really do. You know, it's funny how things come to people, but one of the funniest things that happened to me was when I was playing with Soft Machine in—god, 1972? That's how old I am! And we did a gig in Dublin, and we were trying to get a soundcheck in a little bit early. But pub hours—I mean, back then, pubs were open until 10:00 or 10:30, and they were pretty strict.

Anyway, we went to the pub, trying to get inside to check the gear. It was above the pub, and they were cleaning the glasses. All the pubs close at 10, or whatever the closing time traditionally was. We couldn't get a beer, and we were waiting outside, talking to the guys, going: "Can we get a pint? Please?" I expected my captain to be Irish, clipping along, hi-hi, no: "Sorry, missus, we can only serve..."

So what are we gonna do? We missed it! We were desperate. So finally, we started to leave, and someone asked: "What time do you open?" "5:30." And as we started walking away, the guy shouted: "Hey! Can I get you a drink while you're waiting?"

Another thing that comes up is developing stories when playing overseas, like in Japan, where people are very critical, but audiences are incredible with their precision. You know, when they're doing this kind of schedule... and anyway, you want to get on.

Now, we switch the clock over. For me, it was a really, really cool little club—it's gone now. But the guys would come down, and the Japanese audiences are extremely polite and quiet. We were ready to go on stage, and somebody in the front row shouts out: "How are we on time? Are we on time? How are we on time?" And he goes: "That's precision!"

Have you ever played in a band and been driving and running out of gas or having van trouble? Let me tell you another road story. Back in the old days in the 80s, you're driving, trying to get somewhere to play a gig. We had a little van we traveled in, and we're driving up there. The speed limit is 55, and I'm going over the speed limit—I was speeding, and I was driving. I got pulled over by a CHP officer.

He pulled me over, and he looked back, walked up, and so I pulled off the highway. He didn't really give me any instructions; he just said: "Okay, I'm going to take off, and I'm going to chase somebody else down, and the next time you see my show-tag lights, you're gonna stop!" So I'm like, "Okay!"

Later on, sure enough, there's the show, and we pulled over. It's the same dude! He followed us about two days later, and he's like: "Oh, you again!"

---

Allan Holdsworth: Anyway, to wrap it up—are we good? So the next thing is, we're going to sign some things over here. There are guitar strings, a bunch of chord notation stuff available, and some CDs for sale exclusively. That's it! Thank you all for coming out, I really appreciate it. We had a great time, and hopefully we can do it again.

I'm really not good at this kind of thing, you know. I would be happy to just play a show, walk off, and hang out in the back room. I feel really bad because I don't always know what to say. But I want to thank you all so much for coming out.

Audience Member: I just want to thank you for the beauty and integrity of your music.

Allan Holdsworth: Well, thank you, man! But I don't really think about it like that. All I want to do is try to figure out how to play guitar without sucking too much! I'm still trying.