Joe Satriani

Joe Satriani

Joe "Satch" Satriani (born on July 15, 1956, in Westbury, New York, USA) is an American instrumental rock guitarist and teacher.

Joe Satriani was inspired to play guitar at age 14 after hearing that Jimi Hendrix had died. Satriani reportedly heard the news during a football training session where he immediately confronted his coach and announced that he was quitting to become a guitarist.

Satriani is also credited on many other albums, including guitar duties on Alice Cooper's Hey Stoopid (1991), Spinal Tap's Break Like the Wind (1992), Blue ﾖyster Cult's Imaginos (1988), band members Stu Hamm and Gregg Bissonette's solo albums, and many others including countless guitar heroes-style albums. Interestingly, he was credited for singing background vocals on the 1986 debut album by Crowded House. In 2003, he played lead guitar in The Yardbirds' CD release Birdland. In 2006 he guested on several tracks for Deep Purple's vocalist Ian Gillan's solo CD/DVD dual disc Gillan's Inn.

Satriani is widely recognized as a highly technically proficient rock guitarist. He has mastered many performance techniques on the instrument, including two-handed tapping, sweep picking, volume swells, harmonics, and extreme whammy bar effects. On Big Bad Moon, Satriani uses his harmonica as a slide. One of his trademark compositional traits is the use of Pitch Axis Theory which he applies with a variety of modes. Satriani approaches scales and soloing differently.

Instead of practicing his scales in positions he practices his scales one string at a time. He calls this technique 鼠inear scales・ He moves into positions on extremely technical passages. Satriani falls into the category of guitar virtuosos who primarily achieve speed through hammer-ons and pull-offs (like Randy Rhoads or Allan Holdsworth), as opposed to guitarists who include lines with very rapid alternate picking of every note in their playing (like Al Di Meola, Yngwie Malmsteen or Michael Angelo Batio).

Satriani (like Steve Vai, Yngwie Malmsteen and other guitarists who incorporate speed and technical precision in their playing) has been criticized by those who prefer simpler compositional styles.[citation needed] Some of his contemporaries have been known to take pot-shots at the earnest Satriani. For example, Gary Moore once said that he found Satriani's music "cerebral", saying, "it leaves me cold". Although his more flamboyant student, Steve Vai, has garnered more attention, most writers and musicians respect Satriani's musicianship as well as his modest and personable demeanor.

Satriani uses a variety of gear. Many of his guitars are made by Ibanez, including the JS1000, JS1200, and JS2000. These guitars typically feature the DiMarzio PAF Joe or PAF Pro in the neck pickup position and a DiMarzio Fred or Mo' Joe in the bridge. The JS line of guitars is his signature line, and they feature the Edge Pro, which is Ibanez's exclusive tremolo system. The mirrored silver guitar he used on the Live in San Francisco DVD is called Chrome Boy for obvious reasons.

Satriani's work frequently makes references to various science fiction stories and/or ideas. "Surfing With the Alien", "Back to Shalla-Bal" and "The Power Cosmic 2000" are references to the comic book Silver Surfer while "Ice 9" refers to the secret government ice weapon in Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle. "Borg Sex" is a reference to Star Trek, which features a homogenous race known as the Borg. Additionally, his albums and songs often have other-worldly titles, such as Not of this Earth, Is There Love in Space?, and Engines of Creation.

On the album Super Colossal the song titled "Crowd Chant" was originally called "Party On The Enterprise". "Party On The Enterprise" sampled sounds from the starship Enterprise from the Star Trek TV show. But, as Satriani explained in a podcast,legal issues couldn't get resolved and he wasn't able to get permission to use the samples. Satriani then removed the sounds from the song and called it "Crowd Chant."