Criss Oliva is one of my all time favorites. I was living in Sarasota, an hour south of Tampa, when this came out. It was really cool to have some killer music coming out of the local area. Criss’s riffs and tone were incredible. Nice Blues Saraceno guitar on the wall, by the way.
Criss was so talented, he wrote so many awesome riffs and solos. One of my favorite bands ever, and he was so underrated. Great job on the lesson, very well done! 🙏🏼👍🏼🎸
Criss Oliva was a great guitarist and really cool guy the few times I talked to him. Saw Savatage many times around the Tampa area before and after they signed with Atlantic.
Criss , John and I all lived over at Cooper's pond on Dale Mabry long ago Criss was the best guitarist I ever played with and I've played with some well known guitarists like Marty Friedman Adrian Smith etc . Criss was the master of the pinch harmonic..
Thank you for the video, it's such a killer riff - no, the whole song is an absolute masterpiece! It's been in my head for years at this point. As someone else pointed out - there are chugs on the 5th string when the notes on the 4th string come in the second part of the riff, but I listened closely and it seems he's altering these 2 versions of the riff. The whole band and the intro solo kick in after the 2 versions of the riff are played once each, so I can't say for sure how exactly they're altered for the rest of the song. There's a tab on UG that IMHO gets the closest about this particular subject. Anyways, that's not really what I came to point out. It's that the chugs themselves on the open strings are in fact downstrokes. I don't want it to come off as scrutiny for my nitpicking, because I do like the video and appreciate you uploading, but I'd like you to check here your picking hand - the pick grip specifically. If you play the video from the beginning and pause the it you can use the keys , and . on the keyboard to watch frame by frame and you can clearly see you're moving the high strings and at 0:05 even the third or second string ring out. Give it a go holding the pick as if you're drinking from a cup or mug of tee with the your fingers clenched instead of holding it as if you're writing with pencil and flailing fingers. Not only picking is clearer, but it's effortless to downstroke which certainly helps with such songs' chugging tempo. I used to pick exactly like you and I played for nearly 15 years with pinky anchoring and flailing middle and ring fingers. However it helped me tremendously and it's quick to adapt for single string playing - getting used to strumming takes more. I really hope this doesn't come as picking on you, hater or anything, I do like the video and overall your playing is great. I came here to see and possibly learn, so I hope you learn as well or at least have it in mind. Have a good day : )
So I just checked the other stuff that's on the channel and you've been doing guitar teaching for quite some time, you must've come across this picking grip/technique lots of times before... I apologize for nitpicking At least someone else who's learning might read it and give it a try, who knows... haha
