Play Guitar Like Joe Satriani (Blues)

In this lesson, we look at the ultimate instrumental rock guitar king, Joe Satriani. One of the most successful guitarists of all time, Satriani has continued to push the boundaries of what is achievable on the guitar. Not only well known for his own playing Satriani has taught some of the worlds most famous players, including Steve Vai, Kirk Hammett and Andy Timmons. Today we look at his bluesier side!



Joe Satriani Guitar Example 1 – Power Chords

Power chords form the foundation for most rock guitar rhythm playing. This example shows how adding in hammer-ons and slides can make a simple progression in B minor far more exciting.

Joe Satriani Guitar Example 2 – Dorian Blues Lick

This B minor lick has a slightly ‘outside’ feel. That is created by adding in the note of G#, which is the natural 6th of B. This creates the sound of B Dorian, which has a very modern rock sound. Take your time to get the hammer-ons, pull-offs and slides in time with a metronome before trying this lick at full speed.

Joe Satriani Guitar Example 3 – B Minor Pentatonic Blues Lick

The double stop bend has always been a favourite of Satriani’s. I personally use my third finger to pull down the ninth frets demonstrated in bar one. It does take time to develop the strength needed to make this sound clean and on purpose and not an accident. This lick uses position one the ‘E’ shape, position two the ‘D’ shape and position four the ‘A’ shape of the B minor pentatonic.

Recommended listening

For classic Joe Satriani style guitar licks, I recommend buying the album “The Essential Joe Satriani.” My favourite track on that album being “Satch Boogie.”

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Guitar Lesson Video Transcription

Hey guys, Simon here once again for Fundamental Changes. Today we’re looking at the blues-ier side of Joe Satriani. We’re going to get to a few examples of that just after this.

[guitar playing]

Example 1 today is around sort of a chord as we normally do. This one, not particularly blues-y. I promise you the other 2 are quite blues-y. Around B minor here, we’ve got the power chords, and what we’re doing today iswe’re incorporating some hammer-ons and some slides to these power chords, to make them a little bit more fun. Satriani does this quite a lot.

We’ve got a B power chord, 2nd and 4th frets on the A and the D string here, and we’re hammering from the – you’re going to bar through 2 and 2 on those strings, and then hammer to the 4th, little slides up here, little run, and then we end with some double stops, 5th and 7th frets, and a little bit of vibrato there, just quite a fun little exercise to make your power chord sequence sound a little bit more enjoyable.Then you can record the other 2 examples over the top off this one too.

Let’s get to Example 2.

[guitar playing]

Example 2, as you saw there, is up around the B minor pentatonic, but you’re adding in the note of the normal 6th, so if you’d had the normal major scale 1-2-3-4-5-6, you’d notice that was the note of G sharp.

Now when you add this note into your minor pentatonic, it’s giving you a Dorian flavor. Again, don’t worry too much if you don’t know what that means. Go over to Joseph’s website and have a look at some of the lessons on modes. We’ll help you on that.

This gives you just a really different flavor to your minor pentatonic type sound, and Satriani gives this angular approach sometimes. I really like to add this lick in. Play this lick over the original Example 1.

[guitar playing]

There was Example 3. This one’s a really classic minor pentatonic-y one, showing how Satriani might approach this using position 1, a little bit of position 2, and a little bit of position 4 up the neck there too, being the E minor shape, D minor shape, and the A minor shape of this B minor.

Quite a fun one to play, fun one to move around into different keys as I always say, those repicked bends at the 12th fret of the top string – the top E string, just nice and gently, as you’re bringing them down to get that pull-off. That can be quite hard to get clean.

As always say, I really hope you got something from these, and I’ll catch you soon for more videos.

Hi everyone, thanks for watching this Satriani- style video. As I always say, hope you’ve got something from it. Please like, comment, share, and subscribe. Pop over to Joseph’s website Fundamental Changes. Go and have a look on Amazon at some of these books, they’re fantastic. You’ll get loads from it, and come and have a look at my channel, SDPguitar, for more free guitar lessons right for you.