John Petrucci interview (excerpts)

Let’s start with the first single off the album – ‘Untethered Angel.’ It’s an absolutely intricate riff. Tell me how you construct a riff like that.

First of all, we should probably let people know before they try this on their guitar, the guitar is tuned down to C, the whole guitar is tuned down two steps. When you create a riff like that, how do you decide whether you are going to use that going to use a particular tuning? Did you just hear the riff in a lower register? I’ll give you a very specific example, about this song. So, that riff, a version of that riff originally came in as John’s riff idea. He was playing it on high G or D string, might’ve been the D string, and it just had a different kind of sound on the bass guitar up that high. It doesn’t really sound like a heavy riff, it almost just sounds like a line, so when I heard the riff I said, ‘John, bear with me for a second, let me grab one of my other guitars.’ So, in this case, I’m speaking to John – I said, ‘You know, I can hear that as more of like a heavy riff rather than an up-high line, so let me just try this.’ I grab the C-tune guitar, and cranked up the Boogie, played it and everyone kind of looked at us like, ‘Alright, this is the way to go.’

So that was immediate?

You kind of picture it in your head, and to me, that’s sort of like weaving a riff, it’s like a heavier thing as opposed to a bass line. It’s a different feel. A couple of things about this, just technique- and theory-wise – if Van Halen taught us anything, it’s that we can use open strings to create arpeggios that would otherwise be more difficult. If something is easy and sounds cool, those are the two criteria. The chord structure behind the actual riff – do you sometimes play with the idea, ‘Okay, I got the main riff, do I need to put an underlying chord structure underneath it?’ – or is it the riff enough? Well, it’s actually a compositional technique that we’ll do in the band where maybe on one of the appearances of this part, everybody will just be playing the single notes. Even Jordan on the keyboard, he’s playing the actual line. That means that the chord progression is up for interpretation and what I mean by that is, for example from C-minor to F-minor, to C-major, and then C7. That could also be a B-flat minor, that chord being played over it. So what we’ll do is that when it makes another appearance, we’ll take advantage of having a keyboard player and he will start to do a chord movement over the top of it, and that’s where it gets really interesting because then you could reharmonize what we’re doing. The line might not change, but the harmony is changing, and I think it’s a really cool technique, it helps to build the song.

So does the theory come first as you’re constructing it or after you sort of get it all together?

I think it comes after for the most part, because it’s mostly, like, when you’re writing, we try to do things by instinct and based on melody and how it feels and sounds to everybody without getting caught up too much on the theory part.

The real question is – where do you stop?

Well, it is a question. It’s a funny thing, but it’s almost like you just know when it’s right, you know when the part should be over, and that’s just a part of being in a band and having this kind of synergy. It’s fun, sometimes you differ in opinion as in, ‘Should it go longer or shorter?’, but for the most part, you get to the point where everybody’s really digging it.

The other thing, at one point, you know, constructing a riff like this – how much of it goes into like, ‘Oh man, there’s so much to it,’ until it becomes muscle memory?

There’s a couple of things. Technique-wise, as far as muscle memory with a part like this, it’s not going by very fast, there are certainly a lot more complicated things to play. But whether you’re playing something like this or something more complex – there’s what I would call a ‘tracking’ thing that you need to do, you’re kind of making certain decisions as far as fingerings, and then with your eyes you’re targeting where your hand should be at a certain point, usually at transitional points. That’s part of the memory, but it starts from having to track. In going from the F minor and up to B-flat minor and then back, there’s a little passing note. You have to kind of make a decision, ‘What finger am I gonna play that passing with?’, you know. And in this case, I decided if I use my pinky for that note, it will, like, set me up for the next section.

How is the right-hand factor? I noticed your alternate picking there as well, is that also important as opposed to just straight flat picking?

I think so. It depends on the tempo of the song. There’s a couple of different things you can do with this type of riff. Certainly, you can do all downstrokes if you want to have that Metallica approach. I don’t know if there’s a benefit because there’s no palm-muting going on, it would be just like a lot of wasted energy. Also, the pick attack is different, it sounds forced, a little bit too bouncy.