Paul Gilbert made his name in the ’80s as one of the fastest shredders around. But in his recent solo albums he’s focusing on melody. In hard rock group Mr.
Big he’s still perfecting the art of the quick-action solo. And while he retains a side hustle as a tutor, he’s still learning new tricks..
. “It was a Stella acoustic. I didn’t know anything about scalings, but it was a bit of a short scale, which was kind of good because I was about nine! I had big hands for a nine-year-old, but still, small hands in general.
So, it was a lucky accident that I ended up with a student guitar. I didn’t even know how to tune it, and I solved that by only using the bottom E string for about two years!” “Figuring out how to tune was a big deal! And then I learned how to downstroke because I only played upstrokes for the first two years, so learning about other fingers was great because I’d only been using my middle finger. “But the advantage of using such primitive tools, only upstrokes and one string, was I got good at that.
As an eleven year-old, I probably had as much authority over those things as I do now, which made me feel confident when I was learning something new.” “I love to listen to other instruments, singers, and piano players, like Oscar Peterson. But I’ve always liked Eric Johnson and Allan Holdsworth.
They’re not new players, but they kind of remind me of each other with a similar feel.” “Oh, just five minutes ago I was figuring out the chord.