Steve Vai has a theory book coming out called Vaideology

viz

fastonebaz said:

@MagicPigDetective ;
I recommend  the double live CD "Alive in an Ultra World" and the double CD Steve Vai "Anthology"

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Alive-Ultra-World-Steve-Vai/dp/B00005KHEY
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Infinite-Steve-Vai-Anthology/dp/B0000TGA6E

From those you'll cover all his best work (IMO) there are some beautiful pieces

Tender Surrender, Feathers, Die to Live, Frank, Rescue Me or Bury Me, Windows to the Soul and my all time favourite, Whispering a Prayer.

Awesome stuff (that's not a song, just a fact)

Anthology is certainly a good place to start; the albums themselves track an incredibly varied, though Vai-veined career:

Zappa material: if you don’t like Zappa much, Vai’s additions won’t improve it for you. Same with PIL.

The 2 DLR albums: very quirky, unusual, stylish playing with DLR’s cabaret vocal style. 

Alcatrazz and Whitesnake: solid 80s rock, made even better by Vai’s additions.

Flexable + flex leftovers - experimental stage

P&W - lauded as his best

Firegarden - amazing double album, half of the songs have him singing

Alien Love Secrets - short, rocky, unembellished

Vai (with Devin) - takes time to enjoy and VERY noisy but absolutely incredible

UltraZone - quite processed, quite good

Real illusions - pretty damned amazing

Story of light - Pretty good. 

bingefeller

viz said:

fastonebaz said:

@MagicPigDetective ;
I recommend  the double live CD "Alive in an Ultra World" and the double CD Steve Vai "Anthology"

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Alive-Ultra-World-Steve-Vai/dp/B00005KHEY
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Infinite-Steve-Vai-Anthology/dp/B0000TGA6E

From those you'll cover all his best work (IMO) there are some beautiful pieces

Tender Surrender, Feathers, Die to Live, Frank, Rescue Me or Bury Me, Windows to the Soul and my all time favourite, Whispering a Prayer.

Awesome stuff (that's not a song, just a fact)

Anthology is certainly a good place to start; the albums themselves track an incredibly varied, though Vai-veined career:

Zappa material: if you don’t like Zappa much, Vai’s additions won’t improve it for you. Same with PIL.

The 2 DLR albums: very quirky, unusual, stylish playing with DLR’s cabaret vocal style. 

Alcatrazz and Whitesnake: solid 80s rock, made even better by Vai’s additions.

Flexable + flex leftovers - experimental stage

P&W - lauded as his best

Firegarden - amazing double album, half of the songs have him singing

Alien Love Secrets - short, rocky, unembellished

Vai (with Devin) - takes time to enjoy and VERY noisy but absolutely incredible

UltraZone - quite processed, quite good

Real illusions - pretty damned amazing

Story of light - Pretty good. 

Nice rundown of Vai's albums. 

I think Alien Love Secrets, and Sex & Religion (the "Vai" album) have some of his best ever playing.  As you say S&R is pretty noisy and it gets experimental at times, but it is incredible.  The solo to Rescue Me or Bury Me is especially good.  I read an interview with Steve Vai around that time and he said that the solo on that is his Jeff Beck impression.  If I can dig it out I will post it here. 

Alien Love Secrets, for me, has his best tone.  His playing is so smooth and fluid on that one too.  I have several bootleg recordings of that era and he was nailing those songs live and he sounded great with a smaller band.  On that he was using a Bogner, I forget the model, but it's now owned (or at least was owned) by a guy called John Ou, who used to post on Harmony Central and HRI. 

fendergibson

I’ll be buying this book, Vai is one of my faves.

Slightly jealous of anyone only just discovering his work, apart from Passion and Warfare, do check out Ultra Zone, Real Illusions and Story of Light. All are amazing. Tbh, ALL his albums are superb.

fendergibson

Still think Boston Rain Melody is one of the most perfect songs in history 

bingefeller

fendergibson said:

Still think Boston Rain Melody is one of the most perfect songs in history 

yesss!  His tone in the solo is superb, and the first two notes of the solo are just fantastic. 

newi123

MagicPigD6etective said:

viz said:

MagicPigDetective said:

bingefeller said:

MagicPigDetective said:

I'm wondering if you need to already be able to play a gazillion notes per second to get anything out of this book?

No.    Vai isn't really that kind of a shredder, he's more about the writing - just listen to some of his orchestral arrangements.  

Holy bejesus, this afternoon I've given Passion and Warfare my first ever listen, it's stunningly good, musically not just technically. For the Love of God is drawdopping. Book ordered.

Wow, you lucky chap! I have listened to it over 2000 times probably!

Edit - that’s a vast understatement - Iistened to it about 700 times in 1990-91 alone. It’s probably 4000 times in total. 

Man that’s a lot! Which other of his albums would you recommend? 

I like flex-able (and leftovers) - 80s home recording and home released. Its great!

Alnico

I got this about a year ago, it's music and TAB for guitar covering the 'Passion & Warfare' album song by song.

https://i.imgur.com/jualskh.jpg?1

https://i.imgur.com/goP49cR.jpg?1

https://i.imgur.com/uf2MY4l.jpg?1

That's a Hal Leonard book too and I'm pretty sure he's said in interviews that he worked very closely on the books he did with them.
It's great anyway and I still can't play any of it properly but it's nice to see *how* to play it should I ever actually find the magic button.

I've also got his 30 hour workout book which is really useful and I've learned a lot from. I think they both came together from Amazon.

MelodicLydian

Pretty much all of Steve's music has had an official transcription book and it always feels like Christmas for me when these books are published (not just Steve's) because I don't often have the time to try and transcribe stuff myself and I really enjoy following the score along to the music then trying out bits myself.

There are some errors now and then (eg: the multi-hand, multi-fingered tapping in "Building the Church", some of the sweeps in FTLOG, mixed up strings in 7-string pieces (in the 1st Edition of Passion & Warfare I have at least) but, in general it is usually accurate or very close. 

bingefeller

Here is the S&R interview

MagicPigDetective

Thanks for posting that, Guitar World was a great mag back in the day. Interesting character. Invents new scales, nutter! 

I've now listened to Alien Love Secrets and Fire Garden. What can I say, superb.

AlexC

Because Bert Weedon’s Play In A Day just isn’t good enough for you lot, is it! Oh no... there you all go. Showing off again.

DulcetJones

I'm pretty sure everyone involved in this thread already knows this but , just in case, Vai was in the movie "Crossroads".  A bit of a cheezy flick but he reportedly played all the guitars on the soundtrack and has a short  scene playing near the end.

viz

Awesome interview, thanks!

fendergibson

MagicPigDetective said:

Thanks for posting that, Guitar World was a great mag back in the day. Interesting character. Invents new scales, nutter! 

I've now listened to Alien Love Secrets and Fire Garden. What can I say, superb.

Great ! Now have a gander at The Blood and Tears and The Ultrazone, first 2 songs off The Ultrazone album, then maybe K’m Pee-Du-We and Freak Show Excess both off Real Illusions; Reflections 

Also, another brilliant album - The Story of Light, absolutely superb 

wibble

On a related note, I've been watching the latest videos released by Marty O'Donnell on youtube of his work. Gamers will know him as the composer behind Bungie's Halo series and Destiny.

One of his behind the scenes/studio videos was of his session for Halo 2 with Nile Rodgers and Steve Vai. Fascinating and awesome stuff. Nile Rodgers can be seen rocking out on Steve's JEM. Anyway, worth a watch imho

fendergibson

wibble said:

On a related note, I've been watching the latest videos released by Marty O'Donnell on youtube of his work. Gamers will know him as the composer behind Bungie's Halo series and Destiny.

One of his behind the scenes/studio videos was of his session for Halo 2 with Nile Rodgers and Steve Vai. Fascinating and awesome stuff. Nile Rodgers can be seen rocking out on Steve's JEM. Anyway, worth a watch imho

That was great ! Thanks for sharing - think Nile was suitably impressed - two legends right there

bingefeller

Cool video, @Wibble! ; Looks like Steve is plugging into that Marshall, I bet he's boosting the front end with a DS-1.  

MelodicLydian

bingefeller said:

Cool video, @Wibble! ; Looks like Steve is plugging into that Marshall, I bet he's boosting the front end with a DS-1.  

He tends to use a Tube Screamer to boost the gain channel and then the DS-1 on a clean channel depending on the sound he is after. In more recent years using Carvin Legacy amps but he has used Bogner and Marshall over the years.

He explains the boost in this hilarious video back when he released the Jemini dual pedal for both of these sounds in one box:

Alnico

Thanks loads for posting that Guitar World magazine interview !

beed84

This thread is an excuse to post this mother of a song: