Man, I am a guitarist of 35 years, a professional music composer and, until recently touring artist. I teach guitar and am still always active in creating and learning. I must say, you are one of THE BEST teachers and proponents of rock, in particular EVH that I have ever seen. I just wanted to give my appreciation, with love from London 🇬🇧 UK ✊️😊
What a bang-up job on EVH. It is so true, Eddie took convention and dumped it in the trash, cause he and his family were flat-broke. Necessity being the mother of invention, he took it all the way...and built a $300 million empire. Such an extraordinary story. I think that patch of sidewalk in Pasadena, CA where Ed and Alex, scratched "Van Halen" into the wet cement as young adolescents, should be designated a historic site. These boys made good.
The solo on Push Comes To Shove is a masterpiece. It's when Eddie went Holdsworthian for a few seconds and then back into Eddie land. It really is beautiful.
Agreed. I always thought I was the only one that felt this way, but reading many comments since his passing about the love for this solo. It's def Eddie's love letter to Holdsworth, has such intense emotion & my all time fav VH solo. Cheers!
and jason evans - this popped up today in my face and of course I knew you'd dig and instrumental version, enjoy my VH family ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-LLsPejkhK-c.html
I never knew why Eddie's solos sounded so unique. It's because lots of notes his licks were not part of the proper scale. It's those clashing notes that give it a flair. Very cool. Thanka.
imho eddie is a genius and allan is an alien from another galaxy. allen knows exactly what he does, no matter how weird the scales and fingerings. great content, thank you.
I think of symmetrical scales as “one string scales”. The “whole step/half step” pattern (say, frets 5,7,8) across all strings I think of like this: E string: Natural Minor A string: Natural Minor D String: Phrygian G string: Blues Scale B string: Dorian e string: Natural Minor
I remember when I first started taking guitar lessons and got a bit into VH, I remember that pattern at 8:20 from "Im the One". I asked my teacher if it was deliberate or it was just him being lazy just taking that 1-2-4 shape up the strings. He said it was deliberate but I didn't believe him really. I was so ingrained into thinking of those diatonic scale shapes, and how those licks 'need' to fit the diatonic scale pattern. I thought it was laziness haha. Now I know its a mix of simplicity and harmonic interest, which is really very smart!
You are one of THE BEST IF NOT THE BEST guitar/music teachers in youtube right now. Don't know why this channel didn't blow up already. Keep up this great teaching channel, you are a gem. This channel is goona be epic!!!!
Well said my brother. I will say this that I have never cried over anyone other than friends or family so far as anyone passing, but after it’s sunk into my head for about 20 minutes and I thought about that smiling face and how many years I have studied and listened and admired his playing it really just broke me down …like I had just lost my best friend… His impact on me and some of my really close friends has been more than words can describe because that’s how he played …thank God for recordings. God bless brother
I don't know all the names exp 3rd 9th Dorian. But I do get the shapes .and you have got to be be hands down one of the best at explaining some of this .even if you don't know the technical names your a huge help.because I know many of these scales bit not the names .and you help apply it even if your not a theory guru.
I've been playing for 25 years, and I never knew where these shapes came from. I was a huge EVH fan when I began to play in my teens, and now I know how and where these "symmetrical scale" ideas popped in my head. I have seen the light! Thank you!
I remember the summer of 2002 I first saw friend of a friend playing some basic blues licks possibly wind crys marry. At the time I was very heavy into skateboarding around this time VH1 had a special on grunge and these were the two things that got me to stop ✋️ and say I have to learn how to play the guitar I had never been so determined in my life. My big thing was I want to play solos any guitar any solo sounds like angles speaking to me. Long story short my dad on holidays took me to guitar center and I got a squire strat and crate amp. And not to go to waste he put me in lessons with this 80s long hair rocker. And he could see my passion for licks and shred guitar. Till this time I was 17 never heard van Halen and he put in cd and let me listen to eruption from that day my life changed it was like magic co.ing out of the cd player. I'm now 36 20 years into playing and thank God I found your Chanel you have put the cherry on the top of the Sunday and gave me the light bulb 💡 moment I have been longing for soooo long to have it all make sense. My dad just got me kramer barracuda this Xmas and I striped it in 🎖 of Ed and will be shredding till the day I die. I'm still working on my blues. I taught myself harmonica and. this has helped. But can sure tell the difference in playing one is more mechanical the. blues really does have to come. from the feelings inside. But I still have many years left and hope to one day play with a band. Thank you so much for this and other lessons you are a fantastic teacher.
I have paused this video to comment here. I find it so hard to wrap my head around the idea that Ed never had a guitar lesson. Certainly I'm not saying he was a liar. I do believe him, but how crazy is it that all of this was just improvised? I mean I don't care who you are, or what kind of music you're into. This dude was unreal in his style. The professional acts at that time were all scratching their heads as we were. I'm so glad that I lived through this. The impact is comparable to seeing a UFO or Bigfoot. I own three Wolfgangs and they are a superb example of who he was in his inventive nature as well. So so glad I lived through this.
EVH was able to take what he learned (by watching) his piano teacher and apply it to the guitar. I watched a video with someone who (first experienced EVH) when he made the comment, sounds like he "Eddie" is playing a piano.. wow I was like omg... my two cents...
It's not that surprising when you take into account his musical background and how many hours a day he experimented on the guitar. Some people learn best by having someone show them and then taking that a step farther while others learn best by simply trial and error. Eddie is one of those people who could apply what he learned musically to any instrument he tried to play. That never worked for me as years of piano playing didn't help me understand anything about guitar but within three months of playing guitar I was a much better player than after years of piano playing. It's just all in how your brain is wired and how much work you're willing to put in.
I've been listening to Push Comes To Shove a lot lately, it might have my favorite EVH solo. That song is just one brilliant guitar part after the other.
You know what would be amazing is if you analyze a particular solo of Eddie's where he's not just doing fast runs but being incredibly melodic like, push comes to shove. You can show how his note choices are being used against the bass riffs and chord changes in the background and why it all works so well. That would be an outstanding video!
David Brewster, I think that's your name "thank you" for the video's you do. I personally met Eddie Van Halen while he was alive way back in the 1990's he explained a bunch of his approach and you are very close to what he said to me. He used chromatic with little bit of a focus on specific scales, but it was usually standard fingering pattern. A very simple approach after meeting him and Glen Cambell, which is why Eddie Van Halen met me he wanted me to introduce him to Gen Campbell. Between meeting Eddie and Glen it made me re-asses what my playing focus and practice should be less memorization and more learning to hear what was there, it shortened my practice and opened my view of playing up. Thanks, Mr. Brewster for reminding me of Eddie.
Excellent breakdown, David!!! I love your point of view on these EVH ideas. Gives me a whole new way of looking at all of them. Thank you for this!!🤘😎👍🎸🎸🎸🔥🔥🔥💣💣💥💥
Great lesson, and it's cool to see Eddie's licks broken down in such a way that they make sense. You do a fantastic job of teaching. I never could play like Eddie but I always loved & appreciated what he did.
After decades of doing tribute bands I finally decided to do a VH tribute and what you are showing here is exactly what I learned! EVH was all about shapes rather than conventional scales. To my ear it all comes out sounding kind of like what a birds singing sounds like or an even weirder reference would be R2D2 😂 the first and last note matters and anything in between is just a wild collage of notes that don’t really make sense but sure are fun to listen to! Ad a dive bomb here and there, harmonics, a little blues and finger tapping and wala, that was EVHs bag of tricks right there. Great job on the video! Btw, I swear I have met you somewhere? Have you ever been to England, Alaska, Japan or phoenix Arizona? The first time I saw one of your videos I was like “ don’t I know this guy ?”
20:36 Great point! I was about nine when I first saw Eddie on the Les Paul Tribute Show in the late 80s and I was kind of overwhelmed by the really high pinched harmonics and other pyrotechnics - to me it was like a machine out of control hahah!
There are a lot of EVH hackers, but this guy is one of the best. Mad props. With the "minor" symmetrical scale - which is shown in A starting at the 11th fret: I've always thought of that as him copying every Clapton lick from the Bluesbreakers record, through Cream: Clapton would constantly go from the minor pentatonic "blues" box to the major pentatonic box, 3 frets lower. If you sooner or later added all those notes up, you sorta get that pattern. OTOH, your explanation fits closer to reason Ted Templeman convinced WB to sign VH: He'd heard the "Coltrane of rock guitar." Coltrane used all kinds of symmetrical ideas on tenor sax, and was influenced himself by Slonimsky, among others.
My fave Ed solo, among many, was the one in "So this is love?" It swings so hard, but some of those phrases sound like a horn player, especially the fast descending one. Then you get those hard to duplicate emotive bends, at the end. Also loved the solo in "Secrets." 1984 has a lot of fusion-esque moments, which i was sad to see he abandoned, when 5150 came out. He always played great, but i felt like 1984 was the last album where, solo-wise, he was still innovating & seeking how far he could take the guitar.
Agree, Sammy was a better musician than DLR but ironically Eddie had a more free reign harmonically with Dave, it was more open, it was anything goes however wild. Sammy brought a very classic commercial songwriting framework but the white hot intensity of the solos on 1984 was never reached again.
This was awesome - I never learned this kind of stuff when I played professionally, just found different shapes that I liked and made them work - its really cool to see I was tapping into something much bigger and didnt even know it! Thanks for explaining it, you did a great job!
BAM! David does it again! Thank you so much. Not only for your insight, but for your inviting, thorough, and calming teaching method. You da man! Appreciate all you do! Thanks man.
Something that i noticed about Ed’s playing during the mid 80s-90s (Hagar era) is that he’d mix multiple symmetrical scales during one phrase. Which is interesting because the mixture of patterns kinda imply actual scales as opposed the symmetrical patterns, which isn’t something evh is known for typically. Anyhow great lesson! I love your content, it’s like visit from Santa when your vids pop up in my notifications!
Fantastic lesson. I've played guitar for 30 years and have been able to learn stuff from Hendrix, Stevie, Trucks, etc etc. Any time I hear Eddie licks I'm immediately stumped, lol and awash with confusion. Even as a little kid I was Isolde's by these sounds. This lesson helped to decipher decades of question mark above my head. Nice!
I heard that Eddie didn't know any scales, he just played what sounded right to him. As the story goes, when Eddie was very young, he won several piano competitions without being able to read music. He watched the instructors hands and listened, and was able replicate what the instructor played. His genius was in his ears and hands.
he watched his older brother and mother play classical pieces and copied them , and his father taught him and Alex a blues Melodic Minor scale matrix to play bass and figure out music with . Eddie always talked like he just popped up outta the ground and could Play, which he infact was a child prodigy who became an outstanding songwriter as an adult
Great lesson. Invaluable insight into Eddie's genius. Even though I've heard them hundreds of times. I so enjoy you breaking down unmistakable VH licks. This would be a chapter in the Rock Guitar Gospel. Well done!
This is a fantastic lesson. Of course part of the reason the scale sounds so great it’s because you’re playing them so fast that the passing notes don’t stick around very long.
Pattern playing always sounds great when the player has incredible technical skill. Pretty sure Eddie didn't understand much music theory, but just blasted his way through these patterns until he figured out what worked and what didn't. But he could never explain it to anyone this way, and never did.
I can only venture a guess and say that Eddie didn’t put too much thought into what notes he was playing or what kind of scale he was using. He probably did what he thought sounded good through years and years of practice and discovery. And I am sure his piano lessons translated directly to his guitar playing but I think it was an ear thing as opposed to composers who actually put notes to paper. Having said that, it’s nice to see you breaking it down to a musical understanding. Like math is a constant no matter where you are from, music and the notes that make it up is as well.
that is a good point, I think many jazzers are the same way, until you get into post bop Jazz Fusion Chick Corea Weather Report Scott Henderson Tribal Tech where they play a 7 note chord and a scale to go with it
Fascinating. I've seen hints of this in some vids where guitarists are showing some of Eddie's solos, but you take it apart in a way that makes it a lot easier to understand. Thank you for posting this video. PS love the looks and sound of that sunburst you've got.
What a fantastic explanation of why those symmetrical scales work! I've been working on them a long time myself and your lesson is incredibly useful. Thanks for catering to us VH fanatics. It's one thing to be able to play like you do but to explain and inspire at the same time is a gift. A sincere thank you.
Great video, David! I used to use these in the 80s, but sort of forgot about it over time. (Ok. Not "sort of", definitely forgot about it.) You've given me some work to do. THANKS!
Thanks very much Dave - superb lesson. When you break it down, the concept so much easier. At the time it sounded like heaven simply because it was Eddie
I've been playing guitar since the late 70s.. had lots and lots of teachers lived in different states.. but you're a good one Dave,,you come across well, and easy going and easy to understand. Not to mention a deep deep catalog of guitar players famous and obscure which makes it a very interesting channel so thanks
You're lightning quick and always thorough in your videos. A Maestro all yourself, a great teacher for the highly advanced player and an inspiration for those yearning to become better. Great stuff man, thankyou.
Wow , very well done . I can see your emotion when speaking about him at the end it's hard to not get emotional because Eddie really was that special .
The one trick or or lick I knew EVH made heavy use of was the 12-15-17 or similar variations... you did a great job of unlocking most of his technique here pretty much as well as anyone I’ve seen. Nicely done sir 👍🏻👍🏻
This was the BEST diesection of Ed's playing. He didn't know theory so he made these patterns up. His piano ear played allot in these horizontal 1 string ideas because the piano is a horizontal instrument. GREAT JOB.
haha " didn't know theory" he definitely understood harmony and chord progression . I think his Dad showed him Melodic Minor based blues improv patterns, so he had a scale matrix he went by to figure everything out . and he understood Blues in major minor and Dominant harmony, so yes he did not know theory but was taught by someone who did his father who was a be bop jazz musician
Can't get those lines to sound like the smooth legato that you are playing - especially lower on the neck where the stretch is longer. That is an exercise in itself. Definitely has that VH flavor.
This is a tricky topic for musicologists to some extent...or at least for me! Symmetrical scales are nominally of course H/W diminished, W/H diminished, Whole Tone, Augmented (two augmented triads a minor third apart) Tritone (the notes from the root triad and then another triad a tritone away) etc. but Eddie of course (wearing that Holdsworth influence on his sleeve) used those symmetrical fingerings or shapes you illustrate. It makes my head hurt to try to interpret each string's relevant scale (or even to relate it back to a root note to make it easier) let alone come up with a naming convention so I tend to just play the shapes and leave the precise labels alone. One that I've also heard Dime and Allan use is the minor second, and then minor third shape - the Cemetery Gates stretch. Great lesson :)
Think of a chord like a Christmas tree. Lets say for arguments sake you use an A5 or E5. Or perhaps a 5th fret barred major triad on the D, G, and B strings. Now lets say you want to use a symmetrical pattern over the chord. A5: You can just burn through a 4-5-7 symmetrical fingering pattern because as long as you have the notes that matter (A, E), the rest is just Christmas ornaments. For instance the F# (4th fret D string, 7th fret on the B string) gives a Dorian type feel. Some of the other notes (the ones that clash) don't matter so much -- and this is the key part -- as long as you do not rest or emphasize them too much. Now, for instance, if you had a progression (we are just talking about one chord, not a progression), then you'd have to map it out and so forth, but if you are playing over a bass in a one guitar band (like Eddie), then you have even less to worry about. E5: You could possibly still use the same 4-5-7 pattern, because the E and B are covered, but the harmonic implications would insinuate a different mode. Off the top of my head, that same F# would instead give (if memory serves) an Aeolian type feel. Same things apply as before. That said, I'd probably use 5-7-9. C major triad (5th fret barre on the D, G and B strings): For this, I'd move that 5-7-9 pattern to 8-10-12 or 15-17-19. The first six notes for 8-10-12 are C-D-E-F-G-A which is Ionian. The first six notes for 15-17-19 would be G-A-B-C-D-E, which would still possibly be Ionian, but could relate to Mixolydian as well depending on harmonic implication (and how you emphasize certain notes).
@@austinfailz I understand that the relationship between modes and chords, my point was more that there are various ways to interpret them and sometimes it behoves one to simply try the shapes and let one's ear be the guide rather than getting into a full harmonic analysis :) Fitting the scale to the chord is probably the way Holdsworth dealt with the topic, I feel that Eddie played until he found something he liked regardless of harmonic relationships. Both equally valid :)
