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

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

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

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.