Vai technique in "Crossroads"...

Hello!
I'm trying to tackle "Eugene's Trick Bag" from Crossroads, by ol' stevie... I'm in a dilemma over whether I should use sweep or alternate picking. Any suggestions?

I use alternate picking on that one ´cause I find it to slow for sweeping and I think some of those arps would be hell hard to sweep. Alternate it man and use some pull offs and hammer on´s and slides (not to many do). But it´s pretty hard to play no doubt ´bout it. It´s all 16-notes and my top speed on that one is aprox. 135 bpm, but I practice it almost evry day ´cause it really helps to improve the pickin´ technique.

vai alternate picks it

If you're talking about the first part (arpeggio part) , I use both sweeping & alternate picking , here's how I think it should be done (I play them this way).

1- Am : Sweep all the way up & down , with alternate picking or legato on both Low & High E-strings.

2- E7 : Alternate picking through out ... I play this one with slightly different string arangements than that on the tabs ... I don't play the 7th fret on the high e-string, I play the 12th on b-string instead, so it's 2 notes per string all the way & I don't have to sweep...

3- A7 : Alternate picking in the beginning & in the end , and sweep the 7,6,5 on the D,g,b strings respectively.

4- Dm : I slide from fret 5 to 10 on the Low E-string , and sweep the arp from the 10th position as you would normaly do with a similar minor arp.

5- Gdim7 : Only sweep the 12,10,9 on the D,g,b strings respectively .

6- The last Am arp is done with alternate picking through out for sure.


The rest of the piece is mainly alternate picking with little sweeps here and there.

What´s the speed for this in bpm. Vai´s is damn fast so and I guess that´s around 140-145 bpm, but he dosen´t hold the same tempo throughout wich maby is easyer. I strictly hold the same tempo when playn´ with metronome but when playn´ it frelly, I guess I speed up some easy parts and slow down hard. That´s why I find metronome important.

Absolutly right dude, we have to force ourselves to play the whole piece at the same speed (and very even in case identical note timing) regardless of the hardness of the part ... But that's only when you're practicing.

In some solos like this one in particular , accelerating or deccelarating at some parts makes special contrast which expresses some special feelings when you hear it... Exactly like other dynamics you use to express your feelings like muting,vibrato,fading in/out,etc.

These kinda expressions are only good if a good musician tries to do them expressing himself... But if somebody just overused it or do it to hide his sloppiness at some hard part of the solo , it may not sound good.
Like the vibrato technique, if realy overused with every note it will be very boring and will definately su*k ... Also the rate of vibration , and the depth (wideness) of it makes it a nice one or a crappy one.

wow... That gave me a lot of ideas on how to play it. Thanks!
my personal favorite is alternate, but it takes me a hell of a long time to get faster, BPM-wise... Anybody know any shortcuts (although there aren't any shortcuts and it takes practice, yadda yadda yadda...)?

Originally posted by tekkk
...my personal favorite is alternate, but it takes me a hell of a long time to get faster, BPM-wise...

Believe me, for most arpeggios sweeping is hell easier and AT LEAST twice as fast as your alternate picking... You just need to give yourself a chance (and time) to master it .

Practice each arpeggio on its own , after you master each 2 succesive arps , practice how to link them together without getting sloppy.
And don't forget the oldest advice in music ... Begin practicing very slowly, and rise your tempo gradualy.

Good Luck .

Pickin´ arps especially over all strings demands lots control and it´s damn hard to play fast but somtimes it´s easyer than to sweep ´em. A sweep is much much faster but I would like to see a guy who can sweep slowly and yet tight. That´s where alternate pickin´ with perhaps some modificiation (economy, slide, pulls and hammers) come in picture at least for me. Crossroads is a great example.

Yeah, when I first got into sweeping I couldn't slow down without getting sloppy... That's why I tried to focus on sweeping with low bpm... It helped me a lot.
Now I have total controle over my sweeping technique, I can make it slower or faster at some parts, or play it all even at a given bpm .

Usualy , most techniques are easier when they're slow and get harder as you get faster.
With sweeping, it's easier with moderate speed, and gets harder if you slow down or speed up.

The trick is to practice.

I tried this peice when it came out in a guitar mag. I only want to do the Paganini part, and so far I got up to the part right before it goes into 6/4 time.
Anywho... you have all mentioned it, but its to slow for me to sweep pick, and I have bairly any experience with that anyway. I went with alternate picking bacause thats what I was most familiar with. You should go with what your familiar with too. It will be easier.

I notice that a number of people on this thread have mentioned things being too slow to sweep them. I've noticed a similar thing but assumed it was just some personal excentricity (like spelling eccentric with an x). For me I suspect that this is because some big stretches are hard to maintain for long and some arpeggios are easier faster. Does anyone else find this to be the case or is it possible simply that I haven't worked on my timing when I play arpeggios slowly and am not properly synchronised between right and left? Also I've never heard or seen tab for this piece but people keep saying it kicks ass, could anyone direct me to some tab for it please?

If someone can't slow down his technique then he surely has a problem with accuracy & co-ordination, and probably playing wrong too but making it fast cover up mistakes or non-clear notes in the middle, but an experienced shredder would notice that ... I used to have this problem too , I thought that was the secret of shredding ... But after realizing that I was wrong, it wasn't easy to get rid of this habbit.

I recomend very slow practicing to licks that makes this trouble , and trying it with clean tone also helps discovering mistakes or non-clear notes... This worked very nice for me.


For Crossroads duel tab , go to http://www.olga.net , http://www.mysongbook.com or just search for Steve Vai tab sites , they all got this tab. It's very famous.

I could sweep it, but I just find it more comfortable to alternate pick and stretch and stuff.

Thanks for the advice, I'll check out those sites!