Wild Stringdom: Images & Words...And Guitars

Presenting the first installment of John Petrucci’s new Guitar World column.

Hi everyone! First off, it’s great to be back as a columnist for Guitar World. I’d also like to thank all the readers and fans for their support, especially those who have written to the magazine expressing interest in seeing more columns.

Since my last column a few years back, I’ve been keeping myself very busy. We recently released Metropolis, Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory, and have been touring the world to support it. (More on this later.) I’ve also recorded a couple of albums with my side project Liquid Tension Experiment (featuring Tony Levin on bass, Mike Portnoy on drums and Jordan Rudess on keyboards), as well as doing other projects (for a full discography, you can go to my website www.johnpetrucci.com).

I’m very excited to be involved in designing my new signature guitar for Ernie Ball/Music Man. I know some of you will be interested in this guitar, so I’m going to give you a sneak preview right now.

When designing this guitar, I added some new features, but I also retained the ones I like and am used to. I love having a classic two-humbucker configuration, so I kept that. You see, I don’t like having a center pickup, because it always gets in the way when I pick. I never liked pickup mounting rings either, and don’t have them on this guitar. That’s because when I play, I keep my pinkie on the bridge pickup, using it as a “guide,” and I can’t do that comfortably if there are pickup mounting rings. I also have the pickups wired so that the center position of the toggle switch engages the two inside coils of the humbuckers. This sound is particularly cool because it produces a nice clean tone with the midrange scooped out.

Now for the new features: I’ve put in a Fishman piezo pickup system in the bridge, which produces an acoustic guitar-emulating sound. There’s an extra knob on the guitar that selects between the regular pickups and the piezos. This system also has a stereo output with two output jacks (one for the regular magnetic pickups and one for the piezos). You can run both outputs separately or blend them together (as I do on “The Spirit Carries On,” from Metropolis). When recording an acoustic sound, I usually go direct into the board using the piezo output, and it sounds amazing.

Here’s how I’ve been using the Fishman system live: I run the acoustic pickup output directly into the board and the electric pickup output into my rig, which has a volume pedal. When I use the acoustic sound during the verses, I keep the volume pedal off. Then if I need to add a fill, I give the volume pedal some gas, which allows a smooth distorted electric signal (from the regular pickups) to fly in seamlessly for the fill. When the fill’s over, I ease off the volume pedal, and my delay for the electric signal trails over. Then I’m back to the pure acoustic sound again. The cool thing about this setup is that it eliminates having to have an acoustic guitar on a stand and then going back and forth between it and an electric.

Another design change is in the bridge itself. I’ve always used a Floyd Rose-style bridge, but on this guitar I have a Music Man floating bridge without the locking nut, but with locking tuners. One important change we’re implementing in this bridge is making all the edges very smooth and rounded, especially the saddles. This will help eliminate friction, thus keeping the guitar more in tune and preventing string breakage. We’ve also come up with a great, simple way to adjust the truss rod—you simply turn a little wheel that’s completely accessible. No more gouging the wood on your guitar with a screwdriver.

I’m still working on the neck shape, but the body is very contoured—comfortable and balanced. There will also be very cool inlays on the guitar neck. If you remember, my Ibanez had a wild Picasso-like graphic on the body. On this guitar, the graphics will be featured more on the fingerboard.

A look at Metropolis, Pt.2: Scenes from a Memory

Metropolis, Pt. 2 is a very special album to Dream Theater and to me. We’re very excited about it because this is the first time we kept the production duties within the band. Drummer Mike Portnoy and I produced it, and though it was challenging to do, it was extremely rewarding. We got to do our new record on our terms.

When we started recording this album, we tried to write something that was from start to finish a conceptually cohesive idea. Our goal was for the whole record to flow thematically, yet retain all the elements that our music is known for. In other words, we wanted to highlight the songwriting, but the crazy instrumental stuff had to be in there too.

We also wanted to tie in musical and lyrical themes from our previous album, Images and Words. Here’s why: As this album is titled Metropolis: Part 2, it’s actually a continuation of our song “Metropolis-Part 1 ‘The Miracle and the Sleeper’” from Images and Words. We treated this album as sort of a sequel to the original “Metropolis.” As such, we naturally wanted to include musical references, and even direct quotes, from the original. We’d experiment with lifting riffs from “Metropolis-Part 1” and playing them verbatim, but more often we’d change the orchestration, the feel or the time signature of the riff. For example, I might try grabbing a vocal melody from “Metropolis-Part 1” and arrange it on the guitar.

We tried to structure Metropolis Pt.2 so that it feels like a complete statement, not just a bunch of songs. In fact, we built it as if it were a single song, complete with a thematic beginning, middle and ending, and with all the emotional peaks and valleys that a song has. To take this concept even further, if you listen to the way the original “Metropolis” was structured; it had an introduction; a vocal section, a long instrumental section and then another vocal section. This new album does the same thing: it has an introduction followed by vocal songs; then it has a really long instrumental song followed by more vocal songs. So, formwise, the whole album models itself after the original “Metropolis-Part 1.”

Even as we were referring back to the original “Metropolis-Part 1” to restate certain themes and lines, the main thing we wanted to do was maintain continuity throughout the record. By that I mean, if you heard a riff or a chord progression in the beginning of the album, you might hear it again later on in the album. This is kind of like the Who’s Tommy, where recurring themes pop up throughout the record.

Over the next few months, I’ll be dissecting our new album for you. I’ll try to give you insight not just on guitar technique (though there will be plenty of that) but also on songwriting and production. I’ll also explain my thought process behind a lot of the guitar parts. Next month, I’ll compare some similar parts from Images and Words and Metropolis: Part 2, and also show you specific examples of thematic continuity that appear throughout Metropolis: Part 2. See you then.