Gillis/Petrucci whammy technique - 'bird of paradise'?

[ShredHead42]

I was watching the dream theater tokyo disc the other day and at the end of one of the songs petrucci does this CRAZY whammy trick where it looks like he moves his left hand lightly up and down the strings while striking to bar to produce an unbelievable sound. On the commentary he mentions it briefly as the Brad Gillis 'bird of paradise' technique. Does anyone know how to do this!?

[zEr0]

Can you tell us exactly what song? I think you may be refering to the flutters he does at the end of Under a Glass Moon but if you can be more specific we will give you a clearer opinion.

[ShredHead42]

it's on take the time. right about 1:19:50or 1:19:55 into the whole thing.

what is bizarre is that i spent an hour this morning looking for it on the internet, and then this evening, the other guitarist in the band played me a mercyful fate song that used the same technique! how odd! still haven't figured it out or found any info!

[zEr0]

Yep, those are flutters. I can't do them cuz I'm not much into the whole whammy crazyness stuff yet but I know that what you see there is pretty much what you have to do to get them.

Just fret a note with your left hand and then hit the whammy very fast (tap it) so that the bridge flutters and the note goes prrrrrrrrrrr. I think it can be done with harmonics but I'm not sure (I don't have an elctric with me ATM). Some people say it's easier if you turn the arm around (facing away form the fretboard) so try it also like that. It shouldn't take you too long to master them anyway.

You can hear JP doing some fast flutters also during the Under A Glass Moon solo at about 07:07 - 07:08 on the same Tokyo DVD. Or you can hear Vai doing flutters probably in almost any of his albums (I remember he does them very clearly at the end of Blue Powder).

If you do a Forum Search on "flutters" you will get a lot of more useful information. Hope it helps.

[ShredHead42]

Yeah, i can flutter fine, but still can't figure out this variation. oh well. it's probably much easier for someone to just show you how to do than type it out in a post anyway

[zEr0]

Mmmmhhhhh.... that's weird cuz they seemed like normal flutters to me on the DVD.....

[ShredHead42]

Yeah, i can see he just picks the note right before he flutters. I was thinking he wasn't picking at all, just whacking the bar and making the harmonics leap out. time to go practice this now!

[microdmitry]

You can do this without picking, too. Hammer-ons and pull-offs work fine. In fact I think they even work better. Though you won't get harmonics in this case.

[Rich]

Unless you do pull off harmonics

[weserman]

Originally Posted by Rich

Unless you do pull off harmonics

Pull off harmonics? I think I've missed something here.

(1000th post!)

[Rich]

Just an unpicked harmonic. Pull off to a harmonic, or, you can "silent fret" and pull off to harmonic, or you don't even need to fret and just pull/pluck the string as you would in a pull off with another finger.

[Artist]

Or do them like Mattias Eklundh.
I've learn how, but no where near aswell :P

Just use your left hand middle finger to hit the harmonic really hard. Sounds best if you dip the bar before and release.

If you hear his cover of Smoke on the Water, you'll know what I mean.