John Petrucci

John Petrucci

John Petrucci performing live. John Petrucci (born July 12, 1967) is the guitarist and a founding member of the progressive metal group Dream Theater. He is a popular musician in the progressive metal genre and utilizes a mixture of styles when playing, such as shredding and flamenco. John first played guitar at age 8 when he noticed his sister (who was taking organ lessons at the time) was allowed to stay up past her bed time to practice. He soon dropped it when his plan failed. At age 12, he began playing again when he was invited into the band of his friend Kevin Moore, who would later become the keyboardist of Dream Theater. John began to practice in earnest. He was a largely self-taught guitarist who developed his skills through attempts to equal the chops of his idols, who included Steve Morse, Steve Howe, Steve Vai, Al Di Meola, Yngwie Malmsteen, Alex Lifeson, and Allan Holdsworth. He has jokingly referred to his guitar idols as "the Steves and the Als". John attended Berklee College of Music in Massachusetts with childhood friend John Myung (bass), where they met future bandmate Mike Portnoy (drums). These three in addition to another childhood friend of Petrucci and Myung, Kevin Moore (Keyboards), formed the band Majesty, which would later become Dream Theater. While Dream Theater is what John is most commonly associated with, he was also a part of the band Liquid Tension Experiment and has appeared as a guest on several records by other artists such as the Age of Impact album by the Explorer's Club. John also came out with a guitar instructional video, "Rock Discipline", which covers alternate picking, warmup exercises, sweep picking, chords, legato, and other techniques for developing one's guitar playing. In 2001 he was chosen by Joe Satriani and Steve Vai to tour with them on the popular G3 guitar tour, which exposed him to a massive number of new fans and inspired him to

record a solo album. Suspended Animation was released on March 1, 2005, and made available for order from his web site. He also appeared on the 2005 G3 tour. Petrucci also wrote and recorded two instrumental soundtrack songs for a Sega Saturn game titled Necronomicon. Each track is roughly two minutes long and they are simply titled "Prologue" and "Epilogue".

Gear

John's previous signature model, by Ibanez.

John Petrucci's signature MusicMan model. Petrucci is also notable as one of relatively few users of the seven-string guitar. While he uses a conventional six-string guitar in the majority of his compositions, he has used the seven-string in songs like "A Change of Seasons", "The Glass Prison", "New Millennium", "Jaws of Life", "Just Let Me Breathe" and "This Dying Soul", and for the albums Awake and Scenes from a Memory. Recently he has favoured six-string extended scale and drop-tuned guitars over his seven-strings. Petrucci currently endorses Ernie Ball/MusicMan guitars and has two signature guitars on the market, a six- and a seven-string. Two new models are on their way, and will be presented on the NAMM show in January 2006. In addition to Ernie Ball/MusicMan guitars, he endorses Mesa Boogie amplifiers, and is currently using the Road King and Lone Star. He had previously used their Mark II C+ amp and their Triaxis preamp, among others.

Rock Discipline REH Video 2 hours Dream Theater guitarist John Petrucci has long been admired by the guitarplaying community for his almost unearthly technique. Petrucci is not only respected for his technical prowess however; he has been voted "Best Guitarist" in Guitar Magazine, and "Break Through Guitarist of the Year" in Guitar for the Practicing Musician. Such remarkable accomplishments made Petrucci a logical choice to host the Warner Brothers instructional video release "Rock Discipline". The two hour video opens with Petrucci outlining numerous warm-up exercises he uses prior to gigs or practice sessions. These exercises are designed to strengthen your fretting hand, your picking hand, or both. These warm-ups alone are worth the price of the video; all of them start at a reasonably simple level, yet develop into virtually impossible exercises as variations are applied. That Petrucci plays each at quick tempos without flinching is testamount to his incredible technique.

These warm up exercises could provide hundreds of hours of practice for the motivated guitarist, but these exercises truly are the tip of the iceberg in the video. Next comes some of Petrucci's favorite speed building exercises. Many of these are simply scale fragments that the guitarist plays repeatedly, or builds into an exercise. These speed builders are good, but not as focused as the warm up exercises. Some of the patterns are extremely long, and often don't follow any sort of coherent musical structure, so they may be difficult to memorize. Petrucci's extensive use of effects while playing some of these exercises is also somewhat puzzling and distracting. While there is some documentation on chord construction and soloing ideas on "Rock Discipline", it is technique that is clearly the focus here. Petrucci, throughout the course of the video, outlines exercises to help guitarists work on "inside the string" picking, legato playing, sweep picking, arpeggiating chords, string skipping, fretting hand stretching, and much more. The guitarist also takes time to reflect on how he was introduced to the guitar, his thoughts on soloing and songwriting, and his musical influences. Dream Theater fans will also be very happy to find generous clips of Petrucci playing with the band. Also included in the video is a segment that explains Petrucci's guitars and gear in detail, including set-up information. "Rock Discipline" clearly isn't intended for beginner guitarists; even the warm-up exercises at the beginning of the video require stretches that novices will find overwhelming. That said, "Rock Discipline" is a superior resource for

accomplished guitarists looking to increase their technical facility on the instrument.