Tapping, Bossa, Technology and... Guitar!Chatting with Tosin Abasi

the trick is like to hold them with your pinky hey guys kiko here so back in july 2021 at the  john petrucci's guitar camp Tosin Abasi and i were chatting just before my master class with  my guitar and quad cortex connected to the pa and i thought the conversation was pretty cool  so i decided to put my phone on top of a chair and film the whole thing so here it is for  you and then now you know um how you know two guitar players what they do what they talk  about in between master classes and

concerts so just feel like you're there with  your phone filming us all right so enjoy so it's not everyone okay  play that thing now this little thing and then so the harmony because i think music  with no great harmony is not fun yeah yeah and you have such a like a sense of harmony  so you do you think it's a necessity that you need to have those sounds because some some  musicians or composers they don't they don't go that far right they stay there in the one  four five and then i need to ha

ve this like a special card somewhere somewhere like oh  chain yes change the key and then of course you want to you know you you're like this  you so where does this come from oh man that's a really good question was not listening  to rock so exactly i think that's the biggest thing because a lot of genres um have rules and  if you're like a big you know judas priest plan or something you're not gonna hear like a seventh  chord and so um sometimes you have to look outside of the genre you you l

ove playing if you want  to start bringing in things that you don't hear so um i think learning some jazz yeah so yeah what  you just played would you relate to any composer any music that you listen what now do you see when  you play that uh i see i mean why do you okay i see the technique first right because the way  i'm making the notes is is weird i'm going like i'm hammering most of them and i'm picking  i'm like i'm not even using anybody you choose this is like a g sharp minor major seven

th and  then you have the e e which is like a flat six well that's just chamber yeah so  yeah like yeah so that would be so right so almost so more like a like a  augmented fit yes i love the augmented sound you see yeah because why you decided to be  in a 11th fret and not in the seventh fret the open string would sound more would be oh yes  yeah so yeah you chose like a weird place a weird place because you need that sound the augmented  fifth the major seventh in the minor chord yes am i corr

ect you're correct yeah and not only  that um well because i'm using an open string it starts to so that open string is  only going to work with some chords you know so it's a pedal tone that  limits the chords i can choose but it's also because you chose like one of the  yes worst one of the worst intervals so actually the first chord shows that you can do  anything you can right you can you'll see yeah but like none of this stuff is we're  not pulling from metal or rock at this point so what w

hat so okay technique you see first yeah  so in that case you know i'm doing this sort of once again there's a sharp five it's that same e so i like tension and i like um yes  things like sharp 11 sharp fives like these colorful intervals so technique  usually comes first because i'm like always thinking of some weird way of producing notes  and then like you said like my desire for the harmony to be interesting too because i remember  getting into the shred guys and it was like everyone was wit

h guitar it's like minor scale  or pentatonix and then i discovered ingde and i'm like oh that's a really cool scale and  i love english but it's like every song is diminished yeah so then i was like  learning some classical we were talking about villalobos earlier like you know  you have stuff like i think this is him yeah i think that's the  villa lobos tune and i'm like your brain starts to expand when you  hear a guitar guitar composition that is really combining these intervals that you don

't  hear in metal and you don't hear and rock and so it's like having the secret diet of like non-rock  non-metal but then loving loving heavy music and then saying can i get away with putting some of  this stuff in there so so when you play that thing what do you see so after the technique after the  technique what do i see i see like how do you feel emotionally i feel like i think music  is about feeling feeling less hopefully how i feel i feel like it's i'm filming so okay  i gotta answer thi

s question i feel stimulated okay like it's like a light bulb cool yeah  where i'm like because the direction of the notes is constantly changing i'm descending  a lot or doing these leaves up you know where i'm kind of um the interval  leaps are very long but uh i don't think i'm really voice leading in like a  really coherent way where i'm saying oh but i am attempting to give you a sense of uh the  chord movement without only doing it in the bass so sometimes the direction goes from the melod

y  note to the to the the lower note and it the whole thing is i almost like imagine like a rotating  like object so that's why you see yeah yeah it could be i would say uh raindrops yeah yeah you  know because the sound yeah yeah yeah raindrops raindrops the name of the song oh you're like yeah  would you relate to cecil taylor i don't know him guitar player i don't like him what is  it he's a pretest pianist from the sixth auto so when you say free jazz is i'm i'm kind of  like not that versed

but is that essentially like it's not like a tonal comp is it is it like is it  free jasmine there's no form or kind of somehow no it would be even more out more more free  right going but that you know or showing back yes so that would be kind of my relationship you  know yeah and then cecil taylor was like the last you know i would say you know because  jazz you have the bebop and the cool jazz and then like expanding expanding expanding  expanding what else now so like a tono and then kind o

f those things you know those  uh serial music yeah kind of a sequence of events that never really repeats never  really repeats and stuff like that and then you have the free jazz or like assassin  taylor or the cereal music or schoenberg which is before cecil taylor's like decades later and  then and then suddenly maybe that was too much it comes back to earth a little bit you know  um yeah and then what happens while in the in that field of the jazz then they started okay  harmony we expanded

to the place there is no it's like a harmonic now yeah harmonic and uh  and then you started the the okay let's go to other countries to see what they're doing  and then you have the fusion going on right by the report and then yeah and then you  have the wayne shorter going to brazil or uh 70s like experimenting other cultures and then  actually in the classical music that happened to you know a hundred years before like yeah elements  from other cultures because it's not about so after the 12

notes like how you're gonna expand  you're like already did the whole thing so like let me see how the turkish people use let me  see how the you know fred you know let me see how the brazilians they do use those notes and  then you start bringing the cultures because you have the rhythms you have the aesthetics  right sometimes different instruments and sounds different instruments and sounds and and  then the combination of that but this is like very i think when it's like like cecil taylor 

kind of thing i can see that i'm sure you should i mean there's more like but it's a piano right  of course so uh yeah you're kind of treating like a piano yeah you know when you're producing those  like this exactly you're not yeah it's similar to this right and i started to just realize like i  said like there's guys like you who like if you want to pick all the notes you have the technique  to do it and then i just i try that for so long not only would it be impossible i don't think  you woul

d try to do it with a pick because mechanically you'd probably do something else  yeah so the fact that i'm yeah um you know now i'm targeting intervals that don't make sense  to really pick yeah but you can do stuff like um yeah so this is like a major sound um but  i do a lot of things we were talking about harmony earlier like before i learned how  like you have to really change the chords in a key i would just kind of take one chord  and move it around and it gets uh like um it's almost like

the keys are changing or  something so even if you took like this so i took that same sort of  c but i went up a minor third you know so that's that  doesn't make sense in the key so i'm doing that same voicing  up here and you could do like but always keeping that open e as like a pedal  tone yeah yeah but i'm not doing like the the actual chords that would you know adapt to it yeah  i'm just using the same shape right yeah thinking morally and then honestly like i'll literally be  doing somet

hing like that and then move my hands intuitively maybe it's a major third jump same  cord and then i'll be like whoa that sounds cool and so a lot of it's like happy accidents  you know so in a weird way it's kind of it's yeah it's kind of good that i don't like have  complete fluency on the fingerboard because i make choices that i don't if i understand i would say  maybe that's a mistake or maybe that but besides rock what you're like playing video games you're  watching movies yeah yeah righ

t so the songs from the soundtracks they have all that yeah right so  somehow you have this music inside you already yeah and then it's not a happy accident it's not  like oh i know this it's some subconscious thing i know this because the moving minor thirds is  just modern classical music it's a bug it's like you know so it's not you don't find that like the  the you know like the major progression as you did this is like 340 400 years old you  know yeah but uh moving in minor thirds where the

y call the medians uh-huh that's like a  modern classical thing yeah exactly okay so but i like what you said about pulling from non-music  because i realized i really like science fiction okay so some of these tonalities i see they feel  like be like futuristic or something yeah but probably feel futuristic uh i will try to guess  here right okay uh because the modern composers was you know made like the russians the germans  they came to the u.s and they're kind of influencing all the the soun

ds the the music for  the movies right and then you have this in the in the music of the movies like let's say star  wars like these are the planets from gustav post like that just a like a copy paste basically  really yeah and then uh if you're gonna choose one song for star wars you're gonna choose then then  you have star wars and then you have those modern sounds as a futuristic feeling because of the star  wars and the whole all the you know movies that came that need that sound yeah yeah y

eah with  the medians okay you know it's it simple like you know that sound i love that right yeah yeah right cool right just just plain minor yeah right something kind of uh that's my [ __ ]  but you know it's always curious to understand so you you probably heard this like i love this and  then now everything you play yeah needs to have that well yeah that that sort of flavor yeah yeah  interesting so would you play something like that no no yeah i wouldn't i remember i remember once uh during

clinic with alan holdsworth and then he  played this chord here and it's like oh no i never you know he was like he's never played that  card he was so disgusting oh no no no no he did you know that's like so out of holdworth because  also you have to to create a sound you have to which i don't do myself you know i like i love i  love the a major d major as well yes i love the medians kind of yeah counting sound but sometimes  to create your identity you have to say no yes stuff you know i don'

t play the normal major  seventh chord i don't play the a major d major yeah because to have your own sound you have to  okay i don't play this that's an interesting way i don't play blues you know right which is kind of  me as well but you bring up a cool point because a lot of people think of their sound as like  what do i do and they don't always think about what don't i do exactly just like so one of one  of the most difficult thing is to forget stuff or to ignore stuff yeah you know so you

ignore a  lot of stuff well then you know you know i don't need to play blues you know there's so many guys  doing i mean it may be because it doesn't connect to you i don't need to play blues or to have the  one four five uh you don't need to play whatever you know some other stuff so then you're you're in  this place that i only play that and then suddenly you have a sound absolutely right and then you use  so much that thing that suddenly you own the sound yeah yeah it's like yesterday i was

doing the  tapping uh-huh that i was showing to you and then the guy said god there's like this this  is so animals leaders so and then they're like i was doing this when tosin was 10 years old  yeah but not the same way but i was playing a thing that i recorded in 2000 something you  know so yeah so i was playing like pearl jam but the thing is like once you do a lot something  you own yeah yeah it becomes associated with yeah totally and and of course it took to another level  as well you know

so actually so the stuff you're doing i think the level is the sunny jordan for me  was stanley jordan yeah but also stanley jordan is not i don't know maybe he's playing he's less in  i don't know yeah it's like less i'm not gonna say less people know about him but there was like  a period where he was the reference and now maybe someone else becomes a reference just because  of but nobody's doing what he no he was fully committed to you know and it's interesting  because the guitar it does i

mean you were playing some stuff earlier and i was like this  is like you said it's not you're not emulating the piano but you're producing notes in the same  way and it allows you to create you can have like flowing arpeggios and a melody at the same time  and that's very difficult if you're just playing traditional games so i was searching like how can  i so how can i use the stanley jordan technique just to have a different tone or different  thing going on instead of just like strumming or u

m doing the you know the finger style  kind of thing exactly which is very common uh for me to do as well so i i started doing the  tapping because i was not able or i didn't want to spend hours and hours like trying to be a stanley  jordan to have the independence in the whole thing and melody i tried a little bit then i gave up but  then something some little things stayed you know then i always use the same but you took to another  level which is amazing and then you use you're incorporating

i don't know because back then i  couldn't see the possibility of maybe i didn't try enough maybe the situations of the the gear maybe  because and then you had to play those things live and you have like a metal band and it doesn't cut  it it doesn't it's clean or something or it has to be the ballast that you do like intro with  that yeah oh that's it um maybe not so you you brought this into like full on metal going on and  then it's possible to hear yeah you can get it in the mix right i don

't know if the the technology  as well or the fact that we do a lot of stuff from home then you can really mix in a way  that people can i think that's it because if you're composing a way to do it and you  have the courage just like no [ __ ] it yeah yeah i know look having a good compressor  pedal or something like that and even things now i play the fishman pickups so they're  active so even in the pickup is some compression i see yeah and so and like you know you're talking  about riding in

the rehearsal space you have some drummer like playing super loud exactly you're  like this is gonna work and then you need to have like a like loud marshall that then you don't have  a great loud clean or something like that and also i remember uh trying to do the hybrid picking the  first album 93 you know like just a riff but with hybrid picking and then the producer said no this  is not bad you know the producer is not metal i don't i don't hear the the you know because  of slider you know b

ecause the type the the lighter yeah it didn't cut in yeah because it's  not uh i don't know what kind of picture you use this is too small okay uh yeah so  if you do like you know if you do i'm doing like this right instead of like so the producer would say no i need you see  what's right here so that's that's that too because you're recording analog and then you  know you can't i don't know you actually bring up a good point i realize a lot of the things i'm  able to do is because i'm riding i

t alone with a laptop sometimes where the guitar can be louder  than the drums there's no drummer being like and then also the fear like you know now we  have gear where you can make a preset for your clean that has compression and is like 5  db boost or so it's as loud as your lead tone you know so when i go to tap i'll boost my clean  to cut in the mix but you know back in the day if you have a two or three channel amp like you  you're just you're stuck with what's going to work in real time a

nd the great amp for distortion is  not necessarily the one for the clean then you get into the eric johnson thing like i have a fender  and then a marshmallow and then you know you you cannot you're an [ __ ] at that point too many  yeah steve morris had like different amps for that other horse worth he had like and then it  gets too complicated and you cannot fly and you know yeah you'll be able to pull off your  stuff if you don't yeah don't you don't have a gig because i never thought of it

like you know to  be able to play and make a living and have a band you have to play with the equipment the  promoter has in that scene you know the background and they have what a marshall  or a jazz chorus yeah you know like maybe a the technology helped to explore those things  which technology is supposed to do it's supposed to allow us to manifest things with like less  difficulty or do things we couldn't do before exactly yeah it's a good perspective on things  like modelers now because it

like does allow you to maybe throw in yeah sounds like that yeah  different compressors and you know have a fender between and then something yeah sounds great  a diesel one yeah but you still use real ants when you record i did yeah your album dude i  was gonna ask because you were performing last um day two or whatever and there was a section  from your solo record the palm mutants were like oh yeah it was i was just like dude what  amp is that it was the the aph oh really did you do like a b

unch of exploration  or did you where you decided no yeah yeah dv8 and like three four different bargainers oh  really yeah so it's a layer no no no i mean like amazing yeah we're experimenting  from the songs and the solos you know the shiva the you know the all the  all the like three four different bargainers um and then the ebh basically awesome yeah sounds  it's like for the rhythms was more the ev8 and the soul of the the volume yeah that makes sense  yeah that makes sense when do you ream

p or so like when you're looking for a tone do you like  to play through the amp no playing through the hand okay you play through you don't like record  it and then later it start no the way that could beat you but i yeah you prefer to connect with  the actual amp connect yeah i found the sound okay that's the sound for the solo and then that's  why you recorded interesting but of course you have always the option to maybe reamp if it's like  not working in the middle yeah yeah yeah yeah that w

as the idea yeah cool man yeah i like the i love  the harm you know like all the you know technique you know the because the metal does they do that  do they yeah of course but like in a seafood yeah but yo i've been i've been showing  people this thing i think it's because you tap because to do the hammer on the ham  from nowhere you're doing it like as if oh you just hammer but for a lot of guitar  players they can't just produce the notes yeah that's the standard jordan thing yeah  so you kno

w yeah yeah and how to right so yeah and then and the hammer is very  important even if you pick to have the straw that's like uh you know like with  holdsworth's legato it's like that yeah each note is as opposed to the pull-off  thing exactly it's cleaner so even doing that so that's the song i told you the trick is like to hold them with  your pinky yeah don't try that at home look he's making it look easy but sometimes well the purity of the note you're getting i remember doing stuff like ju

st a  simple uh just for for the groove like there's a layer as a guitar layer right so for those rhythms you're almost pulling from like drum sticking patterns like  rudiments and stuff like that yeah that's a sandbox get that that's hard or like uh let me see if i can do it like this no no no but it's cool there's tensions just trying to create something here better now contrary the thing is to find the the way to all the six strings together that's  why it sounds like a right stack yeah right

yeah yeah you get to sustain some intervals yeah man it sounds so nice like there's warmth  tapping usually sometimes it's bright but you're getting a really nice yeah warm this guitar  helps a lot yeah dude it sounds really good i actually tried the pickups you say yeah yeah  yeah i think you might like them so it's good for this kind of thing right yeah because it  has a little bit of that active style lift but it's not squashed like a normal active it  still has headroom so that's why i like

them today we learned the mina squad the same thing like i just said like  choose one chord and see what happens it's like this i love this score too  right you can't always use that chord i don't know it's hot this is crazy so hearing  you play like this you spend a lot of time i feel like the people who know you from like the  stage they're not they're not seeing this did you spend a lot of time like actually learning like  diatonic harmony and classical ambassador and all this stuff or becau

se it's like you're  so fluent with just moving the voicings and and all this stuff even the tone it sounds  like it reminds me of the guy who only plays like trying to write songs you know go like that uh yeah so much harmony yeah well it's cool  how much stepwise motion you're doing because you always and you always choose  a note that it's like it's not the exact note i expect it's like there's these curve  balls you know what i mean and it's always a tension it's always like a whoa whether 

it's that sharp five or some sort of yeah the brazilian music has a lot of this you  know if you play like uh 251 would be like and keep that that's like yeah like pop pop like radio music would be you know like steve wong okay yeah yeah you think that's that's so  funny you call that poppy all right the acoustic guitar kind of vibe yeah  like almost like tremolo or something so yeah i love that stuff this is a good one for you next  time you check a guitar check this yeah yeah yeah so what was

first for you when  you're playing this style or the rock rock metal or it's like i was kind of at the same time  kind of discover like enjoying the uh you know it's for the girls that you learn so my mother used to listen to those uh yeah yeah those guys were the  brazilian heroes you know it's such a such an amazing style of i'm not going to call  it pop music but the fact that it was popular is really awesome because there's so much going on  of course you have to pop up you know whatever rig

ht now like you know like the country like  the country music here uh-huh you know uh you know more simple yeah yeah but um  you know the radio music would be like right and then the bridge you're not going to hear that on the video yeah he's kind of one of these guys who could  bring a lot of complications that i'm playing is a specific song steve wonder played tomorrow  oh really there's a lot i was like an entertainer you know he was like always around those brazilian  pop guys yeah they're a

ll like hardcore composers even liens there's another guy that's  like yeah you would be surprised yeah we gotta go you would be surprised with  the you know the connection that happened the 70s you know i guess you just sent me some  some names i wrote down a few the other day he's playing only the songs from ginga  there's like a composer it's amazing and he has this thing of like and then it goes like and seeing your top you  know really because it's all about acoustic guitar because the secr

et of success is to be  sophisticated and popular yeah normally those things are yeah that's not you know that's  the jobing thing yeah yeah do you think because there was rhythm there was groove to the harmony  that it helps for people to you know what i mean so do you do you read the music again a little  bit okay so you're getting charged for this stuff and the co yeah the chords and the melodies and  and kind of learn harmony analyzing those songs yeah this is not much the the standards for 

more those songs well this almost is going you know standards you know  depending on how you're playing them i mean you have your you have your your chord  progression but i noticed with vasa there's so much transition between the chords  okay and then here you have the right stuff in brazil so the culture takes over right it's different than right yeah yeah so and then what's useless don't worry i know that chord yeah it's almost as if yeah and the  main difference like the brazilian and the j

azz would be the jazz  is more that's the way i see it simpler in a way believe it or not  because of more about improvisation yes they have a form so the melody would be uh uh this one is like the bebop had like complicated right there whatever but something like okay good now improvising you know so it's  like a simple thing like the brazilian would be a descriptive things like a long story right never ends like telling a story because then they're just just players like  joe henderson all tho

se people like i want to improvise on top of this yeah you know learn  the melody it's like a long because it's telling a story yeah and then in the american music  when you want to tell the story this morning right it's like that kind of  uh thing or even the metal tell your story right here and then  the brazilian has this like like a ever shifting evolving thing i really dig is yeah i don't know i'm not a singer do you remember  like the the song yeah i know yeah i kind of know i know some ly

rics of the proceeding  music i don't know they are made in there that's cool yeah and then and then you have all the  guys that like would come up for more those chords yeah bro my mind is below you know like like this for normal people to listen that's insane if you put something to the lyrics you know it's something that  makes you use the tension as like you know and then you go to a place that's  how you're sneaking in this yeah harmony now jobin would have this his song flat nine or someth

ing yeah i think super pop yeah singapore like i wouldn't call it i think i have a different idea  of pop than you oh you because it's normally like it's like candy look is rick biato do you know you know  who that is he'll do these analysis of like what's in the top 10 and he'll talk about  the harmony and you're getting like three chords if people don't yeah it's not missing  like a lot of uh like big chunk of music not having it's all about the groove and the  lyrics right yeah which can be c

ool but man the feelings you get when sometimes you use  harmony it's like because you can have like all right because one nothing can  give the difference all this like yeah right that's awesome you know jacob collier can we  heard it yeah he's doing this that's why i was asking the beginner  like do you need because i think people don't know that they need that the  movement you know the tension i know i need it yeah yeah because i'm hungry for sensations  yeah and i want the music to like be

giving me the colors yeah exactly there's  a yeah but sometimes i like you know know you know the zen yeah like only the  only the fifths yeah it's like a cleanliness it yeah i think it's when you get a  balance of some of those more like zen and then and then the  tensions come in you know but sometimes you can avoid all of the complexity  and have this thing that's like yeah super quick like the mega death has a intro that i did that's very e so cool crazy this guitar sounds  like that like co

ol man recording you know some players all tied  up yeah it's a pleasure to talk to you