Intro

"John Sykes is a bad motherfucker. He plugs his 1978 Les Paul straight into his Marshall JCM 800 and gets the most awesome tone. His speed is blinding, and when he plays slowly he has a beautiful vibrato. John also has an amazing voice, and is a great songwriter." - Derek Sherinian (Kiss, Alice Cooper, Dream Theater, Planet X, Yngwie Malmsteen, Billy Idol)

There isn't much more to add. John Sykes is one of the most badass guitar players ever, yet very underrated. The man who wrote most of the music for the legendary Whitesnake '87 album which has sold about 20 million copies and played some of the most amazing riffs and solos in the 80's deserves more appreciation than he has gotten.

The purpose of this article is to introduce John's amazing playing for all the guitar players or just general music lovers so they can learn to understand his incredible style and even apply it to their own music and guitar playing. There is a lot to learn from John because his style has a tremendous amount of passion and fire. You can spice up your playing a lot by using some of the things that John does.

The best way to learn John's style is just listening to his music, analyzing it and then applying it to your instrument. This is by far the best method because music is for the ear, reading sheet music or tabulatures doesn't develop your ear, it is the easy way. My mission is to show that if I can learn to play like John by using my ears then so can you. You just have to listen to all his records, analyze them, figure out how the music is played and then you have archived something. But I transcribed some of his riffs, licks and whatnot for you because maybe you have a hard time figuring out something by yourself or you have limited time for music. Whatever reasons you might have I still strongly recommend you to listen to the music and see if you can get something out of it, even if it is just a little bit. But I will not transcribe every single riff or solo John has made, I've made many examples so you would pay attention to his music more closely, it's like "hey check out this bitchin' riff, try to figure it out...". Consider this article as a guide if you get stuck figuring out something but do not use it as a road map. Also I made many examples which I came up by myself to show you that if you have learned to understand John's style then you don't have to be John Sykes to play or write music like him. My examples will show you that you can use John's ideas in your own music.

I mainly focused on the Whitesnake and Blue Murder era Sykes because then he was at the top of his game in every aspect. Before the Whitesnake, or the Tygers of Pan Tang and Thin Lizzy days John's style wasnt completely developed. After Blue Murder John took a slightly different musical direction. Mid 80's to early 90's describes John's signature style in the best way.

Basics & Influences

If you know the basic chords, major, minor, pentatonic and the blues scales, the modes and understand how to use them than this is more than enough. If you don't know anything about music theory then you'll be fine too. John uses very basic things when we talk about music theory terms, the difficult part is how he uses them. I will not use difficult terms because we are dealing with rock'n'roll after all not complex jazz or classical music.

John's music contains the basic major, minor and power chords mostly.

- John also likes to use Minor 7th Minor (m7) and suspended (sus2, sus4) chords.

* Some of the power chords and non-basic chords that John uses:

All the chords' root note is C

* The first bar contains different power chord variations.

* The second bar chords are: 1)root note + minor third interval 2)root note + major third interval 3)root note + augmented fourth interval 4)root note + minor sixth interval.

* In the third bar is a m7 chord without the perfect fifth interval. Cm7 chord would conists of C, D#, G, A#, this one is without the G note. It is very Hendrix sounding. This chord is given in two different fingerings.

* In the fourth bar are two C notes, one is octive higher than the other.

- Other chords than described above are rarely used by John.

- Sometimes he likes to use uncommon fingerings.

Scales & Modes

Most of the time John uses minor pentatonic or minor pentatonic blues scale no matter if the song is in the major or minor key, sometimes he uses major pentatonic scale when the song is in the major key.

His songs are mostly in major(Ionian), minor(Aeolian), Dorian or Mixolydian mode. The last three are the most common in his music.

* Example: If the song is in E major(Ionian) - or just simply E - and he doesn't happen to use pentatonic scale then he uses the diatonic scales wich are in E Ionian mode. These scales are E Ionian (major), F# Dorian, G# Phrygian, A Lydian, B Mixolydian, C# Aeolian (minor scale), D# Locrian. All these scales contain the notes E, F#, G#, A, B, C#, D#.

- John has also used some chromatic, diminished and Phrygian dominant runs but he uses them very rarely. He also has no problem playing jazzy atonal runs wich sound more similar to Allan Holdsworth's licks than his usual "hot-rodded" blues style but he doesn't play like that very often.

It's important to know that great players like John Sykes don't necesseraly use scales which would fit with the specific song's mode. Making good music isn't following the music theory rules, it's more like whatever works and sounds good no matter what the books say. If some note sounds great in some place but it's "out of the scale" then knowing it shouldn't stop using the note.

Influences

To understand why John does his music like he does you have to know where his ideas are coming from. A lot of the ideas are coming from influences. Listening to and learning from influential artists is a big factor in developing a personal style. I would say that John learned from the best:

* Lead playing from Gary Moore (probably the most intense lead guitarists)

* Riffing from Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin (the greatest riff maker)

* Songwriting from The Beatles (the greatest songwriters in 20th century)

Sure there are many other bands and musicians who influenced John such as Michael Schenker, Uli Jon Roth, Ritchie Blackmore and Deep Purple, Phil Lynott and Thin Lizzy, Jeff Beck, Jimi Hendrix etc. but these three: Gary Moore, Led Zeppelin and The Beatles are the most important influences for John, you can clearly hear their influence in John's music all the time. I suggest you listen to their records to understand where John got a lot of his ideas from.

Composing, melodies, rhythms & improvising

John's music is well thought out and dynamical. His music has all the right components. His songs contain killer riffs, melodies, hooks and solos. John has the ability to make his tunes very powerful and deep, even  his ballads sound huge and have balls in them.

John creates amazingly powerful and memorable riffs. Riffs are very important in rock music, good riffs can kick your ass and piss off your parents. But to be more than just a cool rocker you need hooks and John is the man who delivers 'em. There are so many rock and metal bands out there who write cool riffs and solos but they never make it big because their songwriting skills are missing the most important thing - the ability to write memorable hooks. Pop artists sell a lot of albums because they have good hooks, Whitesnake '87 sold unbeliveable amounts of albums because John wrote incredible hooks. A hook is by far the most important thing in a song. Whitesnake '87 is full of top notch hooks, even your girlfriend and your grandma wants to sing along.

John always creates very melodical chord progressions wich are very Beatles-like. This is the biggest reason why he has made so many good hooks. A combination of memorable chord progression and memorable vocal or guitar melody usually makes a good hook.

When John sings then his vocal melodies and harmonies are also very Beatles-like. He has leared a lot from John Lennon and Paul McCartney - the best selling songwriting team ever.

Some of the best rock guitarists like Keith Richards, Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Joe Perry and Nuno Bettencourt have one very notable common thing - it's GROOVE. Groove is at least as important as melody. John Sykes is one of the few European rock guitarists who has a tremendous ability to lay down killer grooves. Rhythmicality is very important. If all the rhythms are based on the 4/4 beat and all the "hits" are in straight 4ths, 8ths or 16ths then the music can be very boring. Unfortunately Europe has never focused a lot on rhythms but all the other continents are very rhythm oriented. Non-European cultures have focused a lot on syncopations, polyrhythms etc. and even the melodies contain a lot of notes wich have uneven lengths.

John has obviously listened to a lot of Afro-American music. Whether it's Funk, Rhythm'n'Blues, Motown/Soul, Jazz or Hip-Hop, they are all based on the rhythms and groove.

It's not that John sounds like a funk guitarists but his riffs have a very funky feel. And he always surrounds himself with a killer rhythm section who can groove.

When John records guitar solos then his slow melodies and phrases are often composed, his fast blues licks and all the crazy shredding are mostly improvised. When he is playing live, he often improvises on exteneded solo sections. But even if he improvises he always sounds melodic and has a certain structure. It's because he has a "big bag" of licks wich he combines together. It can make improvisations sound like composed solos. In many of his solos he plays a memoriable melodic theme, you can hear Michael Schenker's influence there.

John has a lot of blues in his playing which is a good thing. The attitude and the feel comes from the blues. Pretty much all the popular music wich was made in 20th century is based on the blues wheter it's obvious or not. There isn't a single great electric lead guitarist who can't play the blues.

Gear & Tone

John's guitar tone is god-like for many guitar players. 80% of his tone comes from his fingers, his aggressive style is a big factor in his tone.

Guitars

John is a Les Paul player, his main axe is the very cool looking 1978 Gibson Les Paul Custom with chrome hardware, it has the pickup covers removed. He owns many different Les Pauls including the '59 and Les Paul Juniors. Also he owns and has played with different Fender Stratocasters, Telecasters and some superstrats. One of his superstrats is Charvel San Dimas which has a Original Floyd Rose tremolo, this guitar was used for dive bombs and many other whammy bar tricks on many albums where John played.

Pickups

His Gibson guitars have stock or Gibson's replacement pickups. Gibson pickups usually aren't very hot, they sound warm and have great dynamics. His Fenders have stock pickups too. John mostly uses pickups which have great tonality and not a lot of output gain. The hottest pickup he has used was the old Gibson Dirty Finger humbucker which was in his '78 Les Paul Custom but it has been replaced with a PAF reissue. As said before John mostly plays with Les Pauls. Les Pauls sound fat and massive, these things are essential in great rock rhythm tone. I believe John has used Strats for some of the clean sounds, leads and bluesy licks. But most of the stuff is played with Les Pauls. He uses the neck pickup for some clean sounds and for some leads, sometimes the tone knob is turned half or all the way down for slower solos.

Amplification

John owns many Plexi type Marshalls and JCM800 series Marshalls. Some of them are modified. Some are modified by the legendary Jose Arrendondo who worked on Eddie Van Halen's amps. Marshalls have been John's main amps most of the time but during the Whitesnake and Blue Murder days he mostly used Mesa Boogie amps. The main amps for the Whitesnake '87 and Blue Murder's self titled albums were two Mesa Boogie Mark III Coliseum 300 heads. These amps are very rare and one of the loudest ever made. John also owns Mesa Boogie rackmount 2 channel Dual Rectifiers, Mark IIC+'s, Mark III's, Triaxis preamp and Strategy 500 power amp, he has used some of them for recording and gigging. H&H V800 power amp was also part of his rig durning the Blue Murder days. His speaker cabinets are also various Marshalls and Mesa Boogies, 4x12 mostly.

- Marshall and Mesa Boogie amps both have very good and powerful mid-range, Mesa Boogies have lower frequency mid-range which is good for fat and smooth tone, Marshalls usually have higher frequency mid-range which is good for cutting-through tone.

John's rhythm tone is pretty heavy, it has less mid range than the typical 70's classic rock sound but more than heavy and thrash metal rhythm tones. He uses more gain than most of the 80's rockers. I can describe it as really heavy in your face crunchy rock tone with a lot of sustain. It is very distinctive. John's lead tone is very "cutting". It sounds fat, thick and "middy". Sometimes it is very smooth, sometimes it is rough. His clean tone is usually very warm and "sparkling", it is crystal clear and processed.

Effects

All the effects except for the wah which are used on the records are added after the recording by the audio engineer, all the effects are from high quality studio effect processors. For the live rigs John has used Crybaby wah-wah pedals, rackmounted Crybaby wah-wah, MXR Phase 90 phaser pedal, various rackmount effect processors for reverbs, delays and modulation effects, some of them are Lexicon PCM series processors.

John has used effects like this:

- For the rhythm tone:

* reverb

* sometimes reverb and a little bit chorus.

- For the lead tone:

* reverb

* delay

* delay and chorus

* sometimes wah or phaser.

- For the clean tone:

* reverb

* delay

* reverb and chorus

* delay and chorus

* reverb, delay and chorus

- The delay time is usually about 350ms.

- The chorus effect is usually pretty quiet and the rate level isn't up so it wouldn't sound like a Uni-Vibe.

Before Whitesnake John's tone was pretty dry, for live and recording the sound guy added a little bit reverb or sometimes even delay in the mix. On the Whitesnake and Blue Murder days his tone was pretty processed, especially on the Blue Murder albums. The tone was very fat, clear and powerful. My personal opinion is that Blue Murder's '89 and Whitesnake '87 have the best guitar tones ever made. The clean, lead and rhythm tones were all outstanding. The clean tones had usually a lot of delay and some chorus, it made the notes ring very nicely. The lead and rhythm tones had tons of sustain. For the slow solos John usually used the neck pickup, turned the tone knob half or all the way down and also used some delay and chorus, the result was one of the most sustainiest and smoothest tone ever made. After the Blue Murder when John started using Marshalls again his tone was more fuzzy, rougher and dry. He used less effects, live and in studio. At some point he stopped using all the effects, I personally think his lead tone is too dry because of that. The good thing is that his solos are turned louder in the mix than before.

Picks Jim Dunlop Tortex 1.14mm

Strings John uses Ernie Ball Regular Slinky string set mostly wich string gauges are 10, 13, 17, 26, 36, 46.

Tunings John has used the following tunings:

* Standard E (E, A, D, G, B, E)

* Dropped D (D, A, D, G, B, E)

* Half-step down (Eb, Ab, Db, Gb, Bb, Eb or D#, G#, C#, F#, A#, D#)

* Half-step down dropped C# (Db, Ab, Db, Gb, Bb, Eb, or C#, G#, C#, F#, A#, D#)

Technique

John Sykes is a very technical player. He doesn't show all of his chops all the time but he can do a lot of different tricks. While having amazing chops he still sounds like old school blues based rock guitarist with tremendous feel.

- John has strong hands. You can tell that by his super heavy picking attack and very wide bends and vibrato.

- John has a very distinctive lead and rhythm playing style because of his unique playing technique.

Basic techniques

John is an excellent alternate picker. He can pick very fast and very hard. He doesn't focus playing as clean as humanly possible, instead of that he has a more raw playing style wich is similar to Gary Moore's. A lot of modern players try to have as little arm motion as possible to be very precise and they pick too softly, those players often sound kinda sterile. John's hand moves a lot, it's all over the place. More movement gives more strength. More strength gives more attack. John is all about the attack and attitude.

Just like Gary Moore, Zakk Wylde, Stevie Ray Vaughan or Ace Frehley, John has unbeliveable picking attack wich is as sharp as a samurai sword.

- Heavy attack makes the notes sound loud and cut through, also it usually makes the tone better.

John likes to play fast ascending runs, usually 2 or 3 notes per string patterns or he plays in repetitive sequence which means 4 or 6 notes per string instead of 2 or 3. Sometimes he does two or three repeats per string.

Descendingly he usually plays group of threes or group of fours patterns or fast runs in the pentatonic scale.

Sometimes John uses tremolo picking, he does it in the solos and rhythms. When he tremolo picks in the rhythm then it is usually some lick in the riff where he usually picks each note two times.

John uses a lot of hammer-on's and pull-off's. Sometimes he uses legato. When he plays blues licks and phrases then he usually combines alternate picking with hammer-on's and pull-off's.

John plays a lot of fast 2 note ascending or descending licks where he usually repeats one pattern three or four times and phrasing licks on two or sometimes three strings. He uses alternate picking or hammer-on's and pull-off's or combines all of them together for those licks.

- Sometimes John uses the string skipping technique.

Bending

As said before John has strong hands so in addition to the usual half, full, and two step bends and everything between he does a lot of 3 and 4 step bending, Sometimes even 5 step.

Vibrato

John has a very unique vibrato. It is very wide and slow. He has a perfect control over it. It is applied differently than common finger vibratos, because it's very wide and slow it is played more like repeatedly bending up and back down.

- There are many rock players with amazing vibrato like Yngwie Malmsteen, Michael Schenker, George Lynch, Warren DeMartini, Eddie Van Halen, Blues Saraceno etc. but John has definitely the most unique one, no one else sounds even close to him.

John doesn't use vibrato only when he is playing solos, he also uses it when he is playing rhythms. He applies vibrato mostly to the 2 or 3 string chords. It sounds awesome.

Harmonics

John does a lot of pinch(false) and natural harmonics. When he does pinched harmonics then he uses it with his wide vibrato, this makes the guitar really scream, If you thought that Zakk Wylde is the master of the "squeal" then you ain't heard nothing yet.

John plays regular natural harmonics to give a nice tonality to the songs. He also does sliding harmonics, with the left hand he plays legato primarily in one position doing usually 4 pull-offs and with the right hand palm he slides on the strings.

Sometimes he plays pinched or natural harmonics and presses the particular string downwards after the nut on the headstock. This way he can raise the played note's pitch.

Other techniques

John does a lot of pick scrapes and sliding. He usually combines them to rhythm parts. John mostly slides on the lower strings going from higher notes to lower.

Sometimes John uses two hand tapping, sometimes he taps with his middle finger, sometimes with the pick.

- John is a Les Paul player but he has used guitars with tremolo systems. He has done dive bombs, rapid vibratos and many other whammy bar tricks.

- John has used the guitar's volume knob for the fade in effect.

To be continued…