This month Charlie Griffiths shows you five licks from a speed metal messiah who has been a Berklee College professor for three decades!
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Joe Stump hails from Queens, New York and spent the 80s shredding with his band Trash Broadway. In 1993 he became a Berklee instructor specialising in metal guitar. He has also released a host of solo records, as well as albums under the Joe Stump’s Reign Of Terror moniker, plus recording with ex Malmsteen singer Michael Vescera. And as if that wasn’t enough, Joe is currently the guitarist for Alcatrazz, picking up the gauntlet originally laid down by Yngwie himself, and later Steve Vai.
Joe’s playing is heavily neo-classically influenced, a style which he traces back to a love of Ritchie Blackmore, JS Bach and Prokofiev, and he was at the forefront of the neo-classical shred guitar movement throughout the 80s. With the folowing five examples we will explore some of the techniques and approaches that Joe has employed over the decades.
Our first example is an open third-string pedal tone lick based in C Harmonic Minor (C-D-Eb-F-G-Ab-B). Learning scales laterally along the strings is just as important as learning scale positions. Ultimately these shapes are a means to an end and you should aim to be always aware of the intervals you are playing in relation to the key.
As well as the more typical Harmonic Minor sounds, Joe explores more exotic scales too. Example 2 is based in Hungarian Minor (1-2-b3-#4-5-b6-7); similar to Harmonic Minor, but with a #4. This scale works over a Minor-Major 7th and the #4 adds a mystical Lydian element, an endlessly fascinating sound to explore.
Joe uses a combination of economy, alternate, and sweep picking, all of which we explore in Examples 2-4. The choice of picking technique depends on the number of notes per string being played. For one-noteper-string things, such as arpeggios, sweep picking is the best choice. This involves using a smooth motion to connect the pick with the notes across various strings. Economy picking is an extension of sweep picking, more useful for three-notes-per-string scales. Ascending a scale would have a repeating pattern of: down-up-down, down-up-down and so on, using a sweep to connect each string change. The concept is to move the pick the shortest distance possible. For two-notes-per-string however, alternate picking is de rigueur and Joe uses this for combining ‘double picked’ notes with interval jumps and string skips. Each note can be played with a ‘down-up’ regardless of which two strings you are jumping between.
Example 5 is based in E Double Harmonic or Byzantine scale, the 5th mode of the Hungarian Minor used in Ex 2. With the intervals 1-b2-3-4-5-b6-7 it’s similar to Phrygian Dominant, but with a Major 7th.
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