“Inside Picking Was A Big Discovery For Me”

Dream Theater’s John Petrucci on game-changing exercises and creating a solo that “feels like you’re floating”

Words: Amit Sharma

Don’t overthink it

You’d be surprised, out of all the progressive and technical moments in our music, the favourites for the audience are usually the big, simpler riffs that grab your attention. You have to show restraint and not overwrite or overthink your parts. You’ll come up with something good and then that voice will start running in your head – ‘how many times have I done this, is this too typical, am I repeating myself?’ And you have to shut off that voice and carry on. Sometimes you will stumble on something that just has that special thing... if it feels good, keep going!

Embrace the ambiguity of ninths

I’ve used ninth chords in old songs like ‘Pull Me Under’ as well as more recent stuff like ‘Invisible Monster’. I actually stole the chord from [Rush guitarist] Alex Lifeson, who was the first person I remember hearing use that kind of sound. It felt cooler than a powerchord. It didn’t really have a major or minor thing. It’s basically two fifth intervals stacked on top of each other, which always seems to resonate really well on a guitar. You can easily turn a ninth into a minor third, or a major third, so it’s quite ambiguous – which leaves you more options for melody as a songwriter. It’s very different to, say, the flat five chord which I use a lot in ‘The Alien’, which is more doomy and ominous. I guess we can all thank Tony Iommi for that one, right?

Use chromatic exercises to build speed

If there was one alternate picking exercise that helped me most – my desert island exercise, if you will – it would be the classic four-note-per-string chromatic run, which I actually learned out of a magazine. I just drilled that thing and even to this day it’s still a great exercise for me, as well as variations of it. Obviously it has an even amount of notes on each string, so every time you change to the next string it’s always a downstroke. You should be able to practise things that vary, so here’s how you can get around that – you just reverse the picking and start on an up. Honestly, if one exercise helped my picking the most it’s the simple chromatic thing... It definitely works!

Get used to inside picking

That was absolutely a big discovery for me. I was wondering why certain runs were giving me trouble and why certain licks felt more comfortable than others. Once I discovered that ‘pick being trapped’ thing, it made me understand what to work on. If you took that chromatic picking exercise: four frets in a row on the low E-string but adding one note on the A-string, you will encounter some inside picking there on your way back. It’s important to know things like that because you might be able to wail through that exercise but the inside picking from that extra note might slow you down. Or maybe it will feel easier!

Know when to slow down

It’s a great compositional technique to create some release. The Alien has a lot of tension in it, rhythmically and modally. We’re playing in 17/8, which is weird and not a normal signature people can tap their feet to. That creates tension because the listener is trying to wrap their head around the feel of it. And there’s a lot of flat fives there, which creates tension modally – it feels very dark and mysterious. So when the first solo comes in one minute in, it’s like a compositional breath of fresh air. It switches to 12/8 which is really comfortable. It feels like you’re floating because the melody and time signature lifts you up and gives you a sense of conclusion. We play that tension-and-release game a lot in our writing. It helps take the listener on a journey and make the song more interesting. You never know what’s going to happen, so when it does, there’s an emotional effect.

Understand how scales and chords relate to each other

The first time I became aware of harmonic minor was when I heard Yngwie Malmsteen. I was like, “Oh wow, that’s a cool sound!” And then I went back and started listening to other music, identifying it being used in all kinds of different places. I still think in terms of the parent key – so E Phrygian Dominant would lead me back to A harmonic minor – because that’s how I learned all my scales. It was more about how the scale was related to whatever chord I was playing. Not everybody thinks that way, but that’s what works for me. If I’m in E Mixolydian, I will be thinking in A major. And I even take it a step further, where I’m more comfortable with the relative minor of a key... So I actually think of A major like F# minor! In my mind, E Mixolydian is F# minor with an E under it!