John Petrucci

John Petrucci performing live.

John Petrucci (born July 12, 1967) is the guitarist and a founding member of the
progressive metal group Dream Theater. He is a popular musician in the progressive
metal genre and utilizes a mixture of styles when playing, such as shredding and
flamenco.

John first played guitar at age 8 when he noticed his sister (who was taking organ lessons
at the time) was allowed to stay up past her bed time to practice. He soon dropped it
when his plan failed. At age 12, he began playing again when he was invited into the
band of his friend Kevin Moore, who would later become the keyboardist of Dream
Theater. John began to practice in earnest. He was a largely self-taught guitarist who
developed his skills through attempts to equal the chops of his idols, who included Steve
Morse, Steve Howe, Steve Vai, Al Di Meola, Yngwie Malmsteen, Alex Lifeson, and
Allan Holdsworth. He has jokingly referred to his guitar idols as "the Steves and the Als".

John attended Berklee College of Music in Massachusetts with childhood friend John
Myung (bass), where they met future bandmate Mike Portnoy (drums). These three in
addition to another childhood friend of Petrucci and Myung, Kevin Moore (Keyboards),
formed the band Majesty, which would later become Dream Theater.

While Dream Theater is what John is most commonly associated with, he was also a part
of the band Liquid Tension Experiment and has appeared as a guest on several records by
other artists such as the Age of Impact album by the Explorer's Club.

John also came out with a guitar instructional video, "Rock Discipline", which covers
alternate picking, warmup exercises, sweep picking, chords, legato, and other techniques
for developing one's guitar playing.

In 2001 he was chosen by Joe Satriani and Steve Vai to tour with them on the popular G3
guitar tour, which exposed him to a massive number of new fans and inspired him to
record a solo album. Suspended Animation was released on March 1, 2005, and made
available for order from his web site. He also appeared on the 2005 G3 tour.

Petrucci also wrote and recorded two instrumental soundtrack songs for a Sega Saturn
game titled Necronomicon. Each track is roughly two minutes long and they are simply
titled "Prologue" and "Epilogue".

Gear

John's previous signature model, by Ibanez.

John Petrucci's signature MusicMan model.

Petrucci is also notable as one of relatively few users of the seven-string guitar. While he
uses a conventional six-string guitar in the majority of his compositions, he has used the
seven-string in songs like "A Change of Seasons", "The Glass Prison", "New
Millennium", "Jaws of Life", "Just Let Me Breathe" and "This Dying Soul", and for the
albums Awake and Scenes from a Memory. Recently he has favoured six-string extended
scale and drop-tuned guitars over his seven-strings.

Petrucci currently endorses Ernie Ball/MusicMan guitars and has two signature guitars on
the market, a six- and a seven-string. Two new models are on their way, and will be
presented on the NAMM show in January 2006. In addition to Ernie Ball/MusicMan
guitars, he endorses Mesa Boogie amplifiers, and is currently using the Road King and
Lone Star. He had previously used their Mark II C+ amp and their Triaxis preamp, among
others.
Rock Discipline
REH Video
2 hours

Dream Theater guitarist John Petrucci has long been admired by the guitar-
playing community for his almost unearthly technique. Petrucci is not only
respected for his technical prowess however; he has been voted "Best Guitarist"
in Guitar Magazine, and "Break Through Guitarist of the Year" in Guitar for the
Practicing Musician. Such remarkable accomplishments made Petrucci a logical
choice to host the Warner Brothers instructional video release "Rock Discipline".
The two hour video opens with Petrucci outlining numerous warm-up exercises
he uses prior to gigs or practice sessions. These exercises are designed to
strengthen your fretting hand, your picking hand, or both. These warm-ups alone
are worth the price of the video; all of them start at a reasonably simple level, yet
develop into virtually impossible exercises as variations are applied. That
Petrucci plays each at quick tempos without flinching is testamount to his
incredible technique.

These warm up exercises could provide hundreds of hours of practice for the
motivated guitarist, but these exercises truly are the tip of the iceberg in the
video. Next comes some of Petrucci's favorite speed building exercises. Many of
these are simply scale fragments that the guitarist plays repeatedly, or builds into
an exercise. These speed builders are good, but not as focused as the warm up
exercises. Some of the patterns are extremely long, and often don't follow any
sort of coherent musical structure, so they may be difficult to memorize.
Petrucci's extensive use of effects while playing some of these exercises is also
somewhat puzzling and distracting.
While there is some documentation on chord construction and soloing ideas on
"Rock Discipline", it is technique that is clearly the focus here. Petrucci,
throughout the course of the video, outlines exercises to help guitarists work on
"inside the string" picking, legato playing, sweep picking, arpeggiating chords,
string skipping, fretting hand stretching, and much more. The guitarist also takes
time to reflect on how he was introduced to the guitar, his thoughts on soloing
and songwriting, and his musical influences. Dream Theater fans will also be
very happy to find generous clips of Petrucci playing with the band. Also included
in the video is a segment that explains Petrucci's guitars and gear in detail,
including set-up information.
"Rock Discipline" clearly isn't intended for beginner guitarists; even the warm-up
exercises at the beginning of the video require stretches that novices will find
overwhelming. That said, "Rock Discipline" is a superior resource for
accomplished guitarists looking to increase their technical facility on the
instrument.