Well, for me "Oriental Melody" implies "Arabian Night"... The "Orient"starts from the middle east and goes all the way to south east asia. But that's just me and my geography...

I'm agreeing with for adun on this one. i just don't like steve vai. his music isn't really music. the man is a wizard and plays super fast and makes it look easy, but that's it. some of his songs are like one long solo. i just don't like his music. i bought the ultra zone a couple years ago and i think it totally sucks. but that's my opinion. and as i said a while ago...im not really musically diverse.

As a role model for me, i don't really want to think of Joe as man that likes to trip. i can't wait for joe to read all these posts and give his opinion. that is gonna be funny.

Did you know:

Joe's 7-string has a vintage neck profile; oiled mahogany body; & pickups mounted straight onto the body.

WOW!! Just got back from a mini vacation and had some fun in the sun with the Family :-)......plus a little sunburn!!

Glad to hear your ear's are back in top shape there jblaze1! I'm sure JOE's concert will give them a final rinse :-}

JS1: I'm wondering the same thing (Fire String's)!! maybe Psycho Monkey went??....Did ya' dude??

Quantum: Glad to see you got your hand's on "YG" (Aug issue)....Nice pic. of Steve w/ Evo ehh!!!!....The pic's are great and look's like the article on JOE must have been taken @ his home....It look's like a castle, LOL!!!! BTW, I can only read the easy kanji and hiragana/katakana but it's a great mag. lol!!!! BTW, Paul Gilbert is the Dean of Musicians Institute here in Japan!! They couldn't have picked a better teacher :-)..Chop's man extraordinare!!!!!!

Prog X: Let me know when you get "SBM" dude!!!!

Yay!!!!!!!!! My phone works again!!!!!!

My "Secret Jewel Box" has literally just arrived, about five minutes ago. The picks are pink, man! (?) And why is there a mirror on the inside? I guess the little compartment at the top could beused as a make-up box...

ebadros - There aren't really any exercises I can think of for learning Pitch Axis, as it's more of a concept than a technique, but phrasing's a whole different story. Come up with an easy lick that you know you can play perfectly every time. Now slightly change the articulation of it, ie. the way the notes are played. For example, if the last note is bent, make it a slide instead. Now it's phrased differently. Change the duration of some of the notes, change where abouts in the bar the lick starts, and all this sort of thing. It's all really simple stuff, but once you master it you can come up with some really great ideas. Steve Vai's riff from "The Attitude Song" takes phrasing to the extreme, because of Chris Frazier's 4/4 drum beat over the 7/8 main theme. The riff cycles around starting on different beats of the (4/4) bar, until eventually it returns to the beginning of the bar. Excellent idea. "Hill Groove" is another good one for phrasing, but it's more subtle here - when the main melody is moved up the octave, Joe bends to the last note, whereas befor it was just a normal fretted note. Hope this helps.

Clarky - Can your super cool computer program on which you write all your stuff do odd time-signatures, namely 5/4? If so, I have an unjustifiably large favour to ask...

Ovation1 --- Yeah!! Paul Gilbert is the man!! I really like his playing and his attitude! I watched the DVD of him and his 100 guitars... can't imagine changing outfits for every guitar!! hahahahaha....Is he the honorary Dean of MI in Japan? I assume so since he doesn't live in Japan.

Did you notice that YG labelled both of Joe's Chromeboy guitars as JS2000 instead of JS1000?

Sorry for the multiple post but:

PhryDom, Sharon: are you hardly working?? I'm sipping iced tea, and thinking of you poor things!!! ;-D

Gutterboy: already move to those woods

In my opinion, that everyone is intitled to, Satch does not do drugs. The man is TALENTED and he works hard. Is that such a hard thing to beleive simply because most everyone else on MTV are dirty bastards with no talent and are only there because they are sellable to a gullable public?

Don't get me started on that.

jblaze1: I like to name "fizzy" the persons that are awfully talented with no need of....additives!

Yoda - the program I use is a sequencer call Cubase VST 32. It's pretty much an industry standard.

Yes, it can handle any time signature.. better still, you can change time sig and tempo within a song as often as you wish and at any position within a bar....

I've used this stuff many times with my old prog band Siberia... we often used signatures like 9/8, 5/4, 7/8, 17/8, 30/16, and the list goes on.... our music was vary rarely in 4/4 or 12/8....

The thing with some of the more unusual time signaures is that there are so many ways to mess with them.... They can be really great fun to play with but thay can also prove to be a bit of a handful at times too...

Like anything else, the more you mess with them, the more familiar they become and therefore they become less frightening to mess with...

If you're in a band and playing with unusual time sigs, you need a sriously good drummer....

This is because 'the one' is no longer intuative [at least at first] as it is in 4/4 or 12/8... The phrase length and accents are now all different so before attempting to write melodies or improvise you'll need to listen to the groove for a while so that your inner ear can aclimatise.... The next time we get together I can show you all kinds of screwy stuff I did with Siberia and David Cross [which is all very rich in this odd stuff]...

So what is it you would like me to program for you...?????

Hey Quantum: Yeah, they call "Chromeboy" and "Pearly" JS 2000's, lol, maybe there's something we don't know ;-)..BTW, Paul is the honorary Dean! and you must check out #73...that is #73 again!!!! He play's the STAR SPANGLED BANNER on the Iby V and it is INCREDIBLE!!!! He includes the intro to "Green Tinted Sixties Mind" ( I believe ) at the end!!!!!! It is amazing!!!! Riiitttteeee!!!! lol :-)

Master Yoda: Nice explanation there on phrasing!!

Clarky: I see your getting ready to tour again, and are you guy's coming overseas?? BTW, I'll be checking out David Cross music as I haven't heard any before (I think??)

>Joe, what kind of song with acoustic guitar is really adapted for live show? I remember you played for a long time on an acoustic Ibanez... have i wrong? Always with you, alway with me?The feeling?Rubina? a extended Tears in the Rain??? (please)

>To all can you explain the technic used by the band for adapting in live the double guitar melodies as Joe's solo over Joe's rythmic?.. i know there is a doubleganger!! LOL