Waves- Guthrie Govan

rsvmark

I fancy having a crack at learning this track - well the first 40s or so as the main riff. But I am interested in unpacking the theory behind it. I have found a few yt and tabs but can anyone give me a head start on what he is doing in terms of the arpeggios over the chords?

viz

It's all notes from F# natural minor (or Aeolian if you prefer).

It's clever what he does, he almost makes it sound like he's got an octave pedal and he's flipping between an upper and lower octave (and it's probably a lot easier to play if you do do that), but knowing him he's just playing it without a pedal. The effect is a much more spikey, less "scalar" melody than if he'd stayed within one octave.

Good luck, let us know how you get on!

Brad

As @viz says, it’s in F#m (as a general overview). This is only my rough take on what is going on and I’ve not analysed it any great depth, but a little more specifically, he’s playing arpeggios of each chord in the progression:

F#m7 - C#m7 - F#m7 - C#m7
Bm7 - C#m7 - F#m7
Dsus2 - Esus2 - F#m7
Dsus2 -  Esus2 - Bm7

For the most part, he tends to approach each arpeggio note from a scale tone above or below. Approach notes are generally on the downbeat and arpeggio notes on the up beat and he’s displacing the arps. He doesn’t play the notes in strict order - the first 4 notes are E F# G# A, which is just a stepwise thing. But he moves the G# and A up an octave which, when done with the rest of the arpeggios and sliding into them, creates that incredibly wide, back and forth intervallic sound… evoking the sound of “Waves” perhaps?

If I spent time properly looking at it I’m sure I’d find a particular pattern that’s going on or at least give you more to work with. Hope that sheds a little bit of light on it anyway. 

rsvmark

Thanks both. I am looking forward to getting stuck in to figure out the patterns and concepts. @viz as far as I can tell there is no pedal (well from the live videos) so it’s pure Guthrie. What I like about it is the originality- I cannot think of another piece that sounds anything like it and for that you have to take your hat off to him

viz

Lovely stuff from Brad.

There are a few other players who enjoy the old octave scales - Steve Vai in the middle of Juice at 2:10 springs to mind, and Petrucci loves doing it. But yep, only good guitarists do it!

https://youtu.be/GdOcXEEa9RY?feature=shared

sweepy

Waves was tabbed out in GT years ago iirc

tbis might help

https://www.guitar.ch/tabs-pdf/tabs.php?pdf=GuthrieGovan/Waves

https://youtu.be/AR84VRAa9yg?si=TeUDDfPdb-DNml8C

CaseOfAce

If only the rest of the song was as good as the first 40 seconds  - it just doesn't seem to go anywhere afterwards.