Mike is one of the best guitarists in the world, as well as one of the most humble! I got to interview him for Jazz Guitar Magazine earlier this year. What a great guy, and an amazing player!
What a great video! Mike Stern has always been an instantly recognizable voice in jazz guitar. He not only has a great and unmistakable tone, but his own unique vocabulary also. Those lines! It's Mike Stern!! Thank you Troy!
Met Mike Stern at a show he did with Eric Johnson. They were the coolest guys ever, and happy to be musicians. Their warm attitudes were infectious. I'm not a big jazz guy, but I do like Mikes lines and he has great music.
Absolutely. Don't wanna sound like a dick but I'm a player and teacher in LA and I've known - and learned a lot - from Michael over the years. Yeah, greatest cat and player ever.
Louise Attzs For this wrist movement to work it has be, like I pick two note per string patterns the same and you just do not feel string changes, everything just flows together and you can build up a decent amount of speed. Problem occurs when you try and add some drive, because muting is kind of difficult, like I had to reteach myself to mute adjusted for this way of picking.
I am happy for you Troy to be discovering the deepest side of music with jazz improvisation, as you see, there is no lick oriented playing, it all comes from getting to know EVERYTHING, chord, scales, modes, arpeggios, chromatics, harmony, theory and beyond in a such masterful way that it eventually breaks into true total freedom. I think you little by little realized you were in front of one of the greatest guitar players ever. Such a humble guy and a monster guitar player and musician.
...Ok, with "absolute freedom" you're a bit overselling it 😁 Mike is no doubt a genius! But he's a bit more "vocabulary orientated" than some other jazz guitarist. Sadly the guitar is generally not an optimal instrument for reaching that "absolute freedom". I'd say this goal is easiest for saxplayers reachable and then maybe pianoplayers. Saxophon because in theory you can the easiest play any next note without much technical limitation. Piano is already a bit more complicated, because when you're not using the right fingering you get limitations at a certain speed. And guitar is rather hard, because for everything played needs high technical precision. You almost can't afford any uncertainty in your playing, or else it messes up the whole thing... 😬 And that "absolute freedom" kinda implies playing a lot of combinations you haven't played exactly like this before... Theoretically music offers that possibility. Sure, bo one does it. But I would say, "most free improviser" as I personally estimate could be Brad Mehldau, as next maybe Michael Brecker. On guitar, even though very recognizable, maybe Pat Metheny... But it's such an interesting topic 🙂 And the biggest trick is: Learn it in a way, that it sounds highly improvised 😁 Many do it like this. It's very effective but there are some very obvious things, that easily reveal how "free" someone improvises. Once you start listening to an improvisation like that, you almost can't unhear it... 😅
I read in an interview Mike uses a 38 gauge low string, also Metheny uses round wound, i wonder if that takes out some of the friction in the low register
I'm not personally a huge fan of this guy but from 0:25 to 0:30, when he goes into the pentatnoic runs that is exactly how Zakk Wylde picks, same slant, same amount of pick even exposed, same movement, just more aggressive phrasing and of course not a clean tone lol. I've been working on Zakk's pentatnoic picking for about a year and it's great to see the movement of the wrist up close from that angle.
A cupla things I noticed, the first thing is that his mind is moving very quickly alternating between concepts. The synapses are firing at a break neck tempo. The second is just how much pick real estate is between his fingers and the strings.
Wow, Mike is in really great form these days! Many might not know this, but he got in a serious accident not too long ago, but if anything he's playing better than before! I've got little nitpicks, like I would love to hear him play with something other that that constantly chorused tone, and some of those blues licks sound corny with that sound. But he's playing pretty impossible stuff, and it would be fun to pick out some of these ideas and put in some time on them. I especially like the Brecker-y stuff. Quite inspirational.
Now he picks from the elbow, and to my ears it has afected his fluidity and articulation, so that's sad, but i stil enjoy listening to him as much as i did before.
I've tabbed out all of these and there is I believe zero sweeping, aside from strumming and thumb playing. However he does use pull-offs and slides as you can see in the "Diminished Feel" clip. This is for string switching and also for bop-style articulation. Kills two birds with one stone.
Troy Grady I was always told that economy picking is the fastest but you can't get much faster then mike stern. Pat martino uses only alternate picking too. Alternate picking leads to a better more in the pocket time feel in my opinion.
Of course I can sweep across six strings faster than I can alternate pick them - if we're talking absolute extremes. But fastest doesn't really matter if it's jazz and the tempo of the tune is 150bpm. Then you just need eighth notes. And at those tempos, all these techniques work just fine.
True enough with Martino but at times, depending on the phrase, he'll down stroke the first two or three notes then revert to alternate. I've found it very useful, more comfortable when breaking into some riff, aggressive. And a hard habit to break, go figure, if you wanna be dogmatic about it. As Pat said, whatever works.
Do you touch upon the idea of notes at different bpms in any of your videos? It wasn't until recently that I realized "fast" is relative to the bpm and the subdivisions. Sextuplets at 120bpm are pretty fast whereas eighth notes not so much.
lot of comments on here functioning as confessions of inability to distinguish harmonic content. This guy toured with Miles Davis at the same age you dweebs were bussing tables and mowing lawns on your parent's block.
Because he is the first who figured out how to analyze it and teach it methodically, no BS. So YOU can be abel to get the sound you are after. I strongly invite you to learn how to analyze right hand technique from a true objective standpoint and push the work of Troy forewad as it is most useful for studying musicians (build) ! Not to mention that this kind of technological advancement is most useful for progressive music styles like jazz if we use it properly. Dose not mean to stop studying or study less of what we were already working on just add this. This is true science and should be accepted by academia ! He focuses on what he teaches the best no pretension to teach harmony or improvisation etc... It's like asking why did Nikola Tesla not b uild bridges, well he was a physicist ~_~
Looks like mostly just basic alternate picking. What all the fuss about picking for. Picking comes natural to most guitarist over time as they learn to play.
Probably. The lines Mike is playing here are some of the most complicated fingering and string skippy things you're likely to encounter in an improvisational setting. And he's working them out, on the fly, in many of these cases. Sometimes to bust out of my comfort zone I'll work on one or two of these. It's a very stark reminder what a lazy comfort zone three-note-per-string scale playing and the like is for most people.
What makes it impressive is he is improvising at fast tempo but at the same time is very aware of the notes he play. Useful in a jazz context where chord changes are plenty and the harmony can be very rich that you need to play the notes that complement the chords. But yes.. I understand it not being everyone's style. That is for me as well.. but I can see the impressiveness behind it.
Troy Grady Can you honestly say that he is a great Jazz guitarist? An example for a great Jazz guitar player would be Andreas Oberg. Not sure if you heard about him
Personally I think Mike is an amazing jazz guitarist. The wealth of ideas in this montage alone. Who plays those kinds of quartal and sus lines? Mike will alternate pick anything, no fear, and it will be musical.
Too much chromatic notes ha ha. Some I really like and some not much. Sound is not for my taste ? But what I know it is his sound. This is not my music but every music style has some unique that others has not. Why he did not play with real Jazz guitar ? It is Yamaha Pacifica signature Mike Stern model.
Never liked Mike Stern. Don't like his repetitive jazz & blues licks, the chorus on his sound and his horrible bends. Don't know what others hear that I don't? But certainly very interesting from a technical point of view.
but why...? not everybody shouts their mind when not asked. Especially when opinion is based on subjective feeling (seriously, nobody cares) not on professional analysis.
Not everybody, but many do. So you never give out your opinion, ever, unless asked? And how often does that happen on youtube? Oh, and an opinion is by definition subjective. Why are you picking on me exactly? There are tons of people right in this post giving their unrequested opinion (and 100s of millions of others on every social media platform...go tell them). By the way, who asked you to give your opinion on my post?
It gets a lot better than the beginning, which is so annoying that I want to pick up his guitar and smash it over his head. But the rest of it is a lot better. He's too late on the fast picking jazz, and his guitar is not right for that at all. The guitar can't keep up with his speed and the whole thing is late and cumbersome. But the other parts are better where he slows down and the guitar can keep up with him. He runs his guitar really weird with really high action it sounds like, plus he has effects or something. I do not like his playing.
@TheHarmonicPulse beck is a rock guitarist ! stern is a jazz guitarist , stern can play on a jeff's stuff , i wonder if jeff can do tha same on a stern stuff ? i mean many chords, modulation and fast ! but it will be interesting ! to see and hear !
Want to transform your technique? Join our incredible community of guitar learning at Cracking the Code! troygrady.com/join/
Mike is one of the best guitarists in the world, as well as one of the most humble! I got to interview him for Jazz Guitar Magazine earlier this year. What a great guy, and an amazing player!
He is a total sweetheart of a guy!
What a great video! Mike Stern has always been an instantly recognizable voice in jazz guitar. He not only has a great and unmistakable tone, but his own unique vocabulary also. Those lines! It's Mike Stern!! Thank you Troy!
Met Mike Stern at a show he did with Eric Johnson. They were the coolest guys ever, and happy to be musicians. Their warm attitudes were infectious. I'm not a big jazz guy, but I do like Mikes lines and he has great music.
Mike is totally the nicest guy ever!
Absolutely. Don't wanna sound like a dick but I'm a player and teacher in LA and I've known - and learned a lot - from Michael over the years. Yeah, greatest cat and player ever.
I had the very same experience when I met them in Walla Walla. They're both great players and great people!
Agreed. I met Mike after a show in St Louis and he is the nicest guy on the planet. He let me get a picture with him also.
@@paulmichaelsmith3207 You're so humble. All the best to you.
Man, I love me some Mike Stern. I’m so glad you were able to get some footage from him.
The sheer amount of beautiful musical ideas in this video... I am amazed, thanks Troy and Mike.
Mike, probably at the height of his playing career. This video is beautiful.
wOw ! A Mike Stern library of licks ;) THANK YOU !
This is other worldly to cram so many different styles yet know exactly what you are doing. Wow.
I love that Jimmy Smith Chord Tremolo, that is sooo sweet!!
Right hand looks so relaxed 😍
Totally
Louise Attzs
For this wrist movement to work it has be, like I pick two note per string patterns the same and you just do not feel string changes, everything just flows together and you can build up a decent amount of speed. Problem occurs when you try and add some drive, because muting is kind of difficult, like I had to reteach myself to mute adjusted for this way of picking.
Its because the accident
You're incredible.
@@sodepassagem2045 this was before that!
Holy wow!! You got Mike Stern at your pad! So awesome. Thanks for posting his ideas. Tell him I said hi.
That's probably Mikes's pad. It's supposedly pretty messy.
Thank you for this content. Mike’s vocabulary is second to none.
I am happy for you Troy to be discovering the deepest side of music with jazz improvisation, as you see, there is no lick oriented playing, it all comes from getting to know EVERYTHING, chord, scales, modes, arpeggios, chromatics, harmony, theory and beyond in a such masterful way that it eventually breaks into true total freedom. I think you little by little realized you were in front of one of the greatest guitar players ever. Such a humble guy and a monster guitar player and musician.
...Ok, with "absolute freedom" you're a bit overselling it 😁 Mike is no doubt a genius! But he's a bit more "vocabulary orientated" than some other jazz guitarist.
Sadly the guitar is generally not an optimal instrument for reaching that "absolute freedom". I'd say this goal is easiest for saxplayers reachable and then maybe pianoplayers. Saxophon because in theory you can the easiest play any next note without much technical limitation. Piano is already a bit more complicated, because when you're not using the right fingering you get limitations at a certain speed. And guitar is rather hard, because for everything played needs high technical precision. You almost can't afford any uncertainty in your playing, or else it messes up the whole thing... 😬 And that "absolute freedom" kinda implies playing a lot of combinations you haven't played exactly like this before... Theoretically music offers that possibility. Sure, bo one does it. But I would say, "most free improviser" as I personally estimate could be Brad Mehldau, as next maybe Michael Brecker. On guitar, even though very recognizable, maybe Pat Metheny...
But it's such an interesting topic 🙂 And the biggest trick is: Learn it in a way, that it sounds highly improvised 😁 Many do it like this. It's very effective but there are some very obvious things, that easily reveal how "free" someone improvises. Once you start listening to an improvisation like that, you almost can't unhear it... 😅
here goes another year of learning from this lesson! thanks
you should do more of this!!!! incredible and dense lesson
Troy Grady goes in depth with these God musicians like no other
Love Mike Stern´s playing! After the Frank Gambale episode, this is the best.
That Jimmy Smith lick is rad! Any chance you’ll be transcribing these licks?
It seems that Mike is completely healed in his hand!
An absolutely wonderful individual and musician, I love him!
said it was shot before the hand injury
Brilliant!
Extraordinary musician, thanks for the video
LOL!!! The first octave lick/phrase Mike referenced Smoke on the Water - How cool is that???
Love that beaten up, well thrashed, broken in guitar😍✊🏾
How do I purchase all these 33 improvisations TABS please 🙏
Wow awesome Mike! Love the Wes feel😍
MINDBLOWNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!
Mind blown at last "think i'm picking every note " one
I read in an interview Mike uses a 38 gauge low string, also Metheny uses round wound, i wonder if that takes out some of the friction in the low register
I'm not personally a huge fan of this guy but from 0:25 to 0:30, when he goes into the pentatnoic runs that is exactly how Zakk Wylde picks, same slant, same amount of pick even exposed, same movement, just more aggressive phrasing and of course not a clean tone lol. I've been working on Zakk's pentatnoic picking for about a year and it's great to see the movement of the wrist up close from that angle.
"exactly how Zakk Wylde picks" Except that Mike makes music; Zakk makes a lot of noise.
He's amazing!
Wish we had the tabs for this jam! Awesome lines
A cupla things I noticed, the first thing is that his mind is moving very quickly alternating between concepts. The synapses are firing at a break neck tempo.
The second is just how much pick real estate is between his fingers and the strings.
Not sure what you mean in your second paragraph. Would you mind clarifying that for me?
I believe he’s referring to how far back he holds the pick. There’s a lot of it exposed.
Um....a bit over my head...I'll come back in 30 years.
Looking forward to this Troy but is this a recent video shoot? As in post shoulder accident? Thanks in advance.
thanks a million
But can he do it on a real steel drum!?
Anyone know what gauge strings Mike is using?
railcar123
11 13 15 26 32 38 nickel D’Addario.
A 46 E string for richer tone.
Fender medium: before accident.
Planet Waves Classic 1.00: after accident.
Que genio este tipo.
I never noticed until this video but he picks and phrases a little like McLaughlin
BAD ASS!
Great work my man you are well not your way to state of the art teaching method. IMHO (your there already)
Mike is a note machine
great vid
Wow, Mike is in really great form these days! Many might not know this, but he got in a serious accident not too long ago, but if anything he's playing better than before! I've got little nitpicks, like I would love to hear him play with something other that that constantly chorused tone, and some of those blues licks sound corny with that sound. But he's playing pretty impossible stuff, and it would be fun to pick out some of these ideas and put in some time on them. I especially like the Brecker-y stuff. Quite inspirational.
Can someone explain the Micheal breaker lick to me?
I never heard Mike playing without chorus
Wow, before the greys really came in! I just turned 29 and about 30% grey.
Mike Stern is such a monster. Check out his work with the Brecker Brothers Band.
Anto goya that’s my favorite too!
Killer. That last bit especially.
Split screen please...camera for the right hand...and the most important, the camera for the left hand (to frets)
The Master!! I ´m surprised by this sound with a Fender medium pick ? :)
He uses Classic Planet Waves Heavy picks.
FAT TIME IN DA HOUSE!!!!
Siiiiick
these are sax lines so they are just ridiculously hard to play on guitar from a mechanic perspective
Where does the pick go?!?!
2:13 Pick.
2:14 No pick.
❤
this is just enough to make me wonder what I'm doing..... I guess they call 'em heavyweights for a reason.
TAB PLEASE😁❤️
He seems to be a player who prefers alternate picking instead of economy picking.
FUCKING ALIENNNN GOSH
Is this video taken before Mike got his right hand injury? Can anyone confirm please thank you!
yes, way before the accident
Now he picks from the elbow, and to my ears it has afected his fluidity and articulation, so that's sad, but i stil enjoy listening to him as much as i did before.
Does mike use strictly alternate picking?
I've tabbed out all of these and there is I believe zero sweeping, aside from strumming and thumb playing. However he does use pull-offs and slides as you can see in the "Diminished Feel" clip. This is for string switching and also for bop-style articulation. Kills two birds with one stone.
Troy Grady I was always told that economy picking is the fastest but you can't get much faster then mike stern. Pat martino uses only alternate picking too. Alternate picking leads to a better more in the pocket time feel in my opinion.
Of course I can sweep across six strings faster than I can alternate pick them - if we're talking absolute extremes. But fastest doesn't really matter if it's jazz and the tempo of the tune is 150bpm. Then you just need eighth notes. And at those tempos, all these techniques work just fine.
True enough with Martino but at times, depending on the phrase, he'll down stroke the first two or three notes then revert to alternate. I've found it very useful, more comfortable when breaking into some riff, aggressive. And a hard habit to break, go figure, if you wanna be dogmatic about it. As Pat said, whatever works.
Do you touch upon the idea of notes at different bpms in any of your videos? It wasn't until recently that I realized "fast" is relative to the bpm and the subdivisions. Sextuplets at 120bpm are pretty fast whereas eighth notes not so much.
lot of comments on here functioning as confessions of inability to distinguish harmonic content. This guy toured with Miles Davis at the same age you dweebs were bussing tables and mowing lawns on your parent's block.
so you can suck and still tour w miles davus. cool dude.
Vanguard, so let’s hear what you can do. I don’t believe I’ve ever heard of you before 🤔
Oh yes, the world renowned 'Vanguard.' You couldn't carry Mike's case.
you must have dug into the comments to find any hate. most of them are astounded and loving it. this guy is a beast!
👏👏👏😊
3:07
❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍😀!!!!!!
18 people have no souls
Wow his thumb is like london bridge.I mean how can a person play extremely comfortable with a flat thumb like that.Absoulutely ridicioulus..
Love him to death.. but if I was him I'd ditch the chorus (or whatever sound effect that is)
33, the highest degree of FreeMasonry
to my eyes he appears not use the leading edge. sort of flat-picked
I can play..ugg..dude's a genius
Tfw the metal guys are like
Ahhg, go back to playing only Am all the time
Hue
Dude, things have progressed in the metal world.
Now it´s all about eb minor al the time.
Where have you been?
Drop C# word life son
Is Mike a mason ? 33. I like him anyway!
Why do much focus on the right hand? Right hand technique is even more individual than left hand technique...
Because he is the first who figured out how to analyze it and teach it methodically, no BS. So YOU can be abel to get the sound you are after. I strongly invite you to learn how to analyze right hand technique from a true objective standpoint and push the work of Troy forewad as it is most useful for studying musicians (build) ! Not to mention that this kind of technological advancement is most useful for progressive music styles like jazz if we use it properly. Dose not mean to stop studying or study less of what we were already working on just add this. This is true science and should be accepted by academia ! He focuses on what he teaches the best no pretension to teach harmony or improvisation etc... It's like asking why did Nikola Tesla not b uild bridges, well he was a physicist ~_~
@@strahinjaristic6544 gimme the TLDR
@@rillloudmother Ok zoomer
@@strahinjaristic6544 you're waaay off.
@@strahinjaristic6544 TLDR
Looks like mostly just basic alternate picking. What all the fuss about picking for. Picking comes natural to most guitarist over time as they learn to play.
Get rid of the chorus effect jeez
Who the fuck are you to tell this unbelievable guitar master what to do?
Says who?
Is it just me, but this is not impressive what so ever. Might be just difference of styles
Probably. The lines Mike is playing here are some of the most complicated fingering and string skippy things you're likely to encounter in an improvisational setting. And he's working them out, on the fly, in many of these cases. Sometimes to bust out of my comfort zone I'll work on one or two of these. It's a very stark reminder what a lazy comfort zone three-note-per-string scale playing and the like is for most people.
What makes it impressive is he is improvising at fast tempo but at the same time is very aware of the notes he play. Useful in a jazz context where chord changes are plenty and the harmony can be very rich that you need to play the notes that complement the chords. But yes.. I understand it not being everyone's style. That is for me as well.. but I can see the impressiveness behind it.
Troy Grady Can you honestly say that he is a great Jazz guitarist? An example for a great Jazz guitar player would be Andreas Oberg. Not sure if you heard about him
Personally I think Mike is an amazing jazz guitarist. The wealth of ideas in this montage alone. Who plays those kinds of quartal and sus lines? Mike will alternate pick anything, no fear, and it will be musical.
Troy Grady I respect your opinion😊 Just personal preference
Too much chromatic notes ha ha. Some I really like and some not much.
Sound is not for my taste ? But what I know it is his sound.
This is not my music but every music style has some unique that others has not.
Why he did not play with real Jazz guitar ? It is Yamaha Pacifica signature Mike Stern model.
Never liked Mike Stern. Don't like his repetitive jazz & blues licks, the chorus on his sound and his horrible bends. Don't know what others hear that I don't? But certainly very interesting from a technical point of view.
has anybody asked you about your opinion on Mike Stern?
Nope, just doing like everybody else here, giving mine
mattiv1: Yes I did, actually.
but why...? not everybody shouts their mind when not asked. Especially when opinion is based on subjective feeling (seriously, nobody cares) not on professional analysis.
Not everybody, but many do. So you never give out your opinion, ever, unless asked? And how often does that happen on youtube? Oh, and an opinion is by definition subjective.
Why are you picking on me exactly? There are tons of people right in this post giving their unrequested opinion (and 100s of millions of others on every social media platform...go tell them). By the way, who asked you to give your opinion on my post?
It gets a lot better than the beginning, which is so annoying that I want to pick up his guitar and smash it over his head. But the rest of it is a lot better. He's too late on the fast picking jazz, and his guitar is not right for that at all. The guitar can't keep up with his speed and the whole thing is late and cumbersome. But the other parts are better where he slows down and the guitar can keep up with him. He runs his guitar really weird with really high action it sounds like, plus he has effects or something. I do not like his playing.
your a moron
@TheHarmonicPulse beck is a rock guitarist ! stern is a jazz guitarist , stern can play on a jeff's stuff , i wonder if jeff can do tha same on a stern stuff ? i mean many chords, modulation and fast ! but it will be interesting ! to see and hear !
Beck...You're an infant.