Dave Martone Interview: Technique, Clean and Guitar Education

By: Jesse James Mazzoccoli

Dave Martone’s website says that he’s “One of Canada’s Finest Guitarists,” but that’s probably a bit dated and should be upgraded to “One of the World’s Finest Guitarists.” If you haven’t heard Dave shred before, there’s no time like the present.

The latest album from Martone Clean, which includes Dave Spidel and the amazing Daniel Adair of Nickelback fame, is an incredibly intense shredfest of molten musicality that would rival any album in the genre. Special guests on this album include Joe Satriani, Greg Howe, Jennifer Batten, Billy Sheehan and Rick Fierbracci.

Dave is a first-rate guitarist, composer, performer, teacher, recording engineer, and clinician. He does clinics and masterclasses all over the world, while working for the National Guitar Workshop, Berklee School of Music, he is also an alum, Class of ’95, and the School of Rock Guitar Sessions for Tom Lee Music in Vancouver Canada, just to name a few.

I’ve had the opportunity to work with many great teachers of many styles over the years, and I have to say that Dave is among the very best. His approach makes the most difficult of techniques easy and understandable to all skill levels, and as I watched him teach, right there in the moment, his students become better guitarists. It was a beautiful sight, indeed.

When Dave and I were talking, we focused a great deal on his teaching approach. This is a great lesson for anyone that wants to take their skills, playing or teaching, to the next level.

Dave Martone Photo Credit: Edgar Barseghyan

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Jesse James Mazzoccoli: How do you approach teaching guitar? Do you have any specific methods that you like to use?

Dave Martone: It depends on what the student wants to learn. It’s always up to them. When a new person starts taking lessons I always ask, “What are your strengths, who are some of your mentors or influences, who do you think you should sound like?” Then, after they tell me that they want to sound like x, y, or z, I’ll focus in on those exact things that they’re looking for.

Usually, you want to get the student to learn something right away, so they’re excited. This gets them to come back, so you have repeat business which is an important thing. Also, it’s good to give them enough to work on, at a challenging level, so they come back in a week or two ready for more. That’s basically how I would start off with a new student.

After that, I show them the different directions that they can go in. Like I’ll say “check out when Gary Moore does this.” [Plays a howling bend a la Moore]

Say they need help with bending techniques. I’ll show them songs that will help strengthen those ideas. If they’re weak at tapping I might show them a tapping song, or for alternate-picking, I might show them “Flight of the Bubble Bee.” Songs to help work on specific weakness they have instead of just practicing exercises.

Jesse: You talk about capitalizing on your strengths. What do you feel are your biggest strengths?

Dave Martone: My strengths are…I have no strengths [Both Laugh]. Well, musically speaking, I usually try to inject a sense of humor into what I do so it’s not so cut and dry and boring. If not, it just becomes like a Peanuts-Snoopy-type thing [Imitating the inaudible grown-up on the Peanuts cartoons], and no one wants to hear that.

Technically, I believe one of the strengths I have is hybrid picking. That makes me feel like I can play things more effortlessly than are required. It just feels easier to my hand instead of alternate picking. Alternate picking has always been a challenge for me, even though it might not sound that way when I play. It took a lot more work to get that going than hybrid picking.

Another strength I have is tapping. I like the sound of tapping ideas, they just resonate with me. I like the wide intervals that I can achieve with two-hand tapping.

I also try to put out music frequently. Some friends of mine take a lot of time to put out records. I try to keep them coming because you got to have music out, people enjoy new music.

Jesse: I’ve seen you use different approaches to teach the same techniques. How do you decide which approach to use? I saw you say something that one person in the group didn’t understand, and there are 15 different directions that you can go in when helping them out. How do you decide which approach to use?

Dave Martone: Put it this way, imagine yourself seeing a beautiful woman that you want to talk to. You’re confident with yourself. People aren’t…um, assholes, and if they’re genuine, people will talk to each other. So if you’re shot down or they don’t understand the connection at first, I’ll try to a different direction to meet the person. If that doesn’t work, I’ll try to think of a different direction before I’m thrown in jail or have a warrant on me. [Both Laugh]

It’s always good to be able to get through and to be able to interact with the person and make them feel comfortable. That means that their minds are more open to learn and accept new information.

So there’s a comfortable situation to get them in. For instance, in this room there are 25 people plus, and if I’m talking to some youngster and he’s not understanding it, you have to step back again and say let’s look at it from this angle or let’s try it this way.

Usually, you can help the person get it, although it does get frustrating sometimes when you’re trying and it’s not working out. But there are a few ways that people learn, some are visual and just want to see it, some are aural and just want to hear it, some want to see it down on paper instead of just hearing it go by.

Those are the different types of people that there are, and usually, they don’t know what kind of learner they are, but I figure that out pretty easily. Like if I write down tab, and they look at it like hieroglyphics or something, as an instructor I’ll just pick up on those strengths and adjust because each person is different.

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Jesse: What kind of pick are you using?

Dave Martone: It’s a Frock.

Jesse: How thick is it?

Dave Martone: 3mm.

Jesse: Do you choke up on it high to get that superfast alternate picking?

Dave Martone: We all evolve from our heroes, and my first hero was Eddie Van Halen. He used those thin Dunlop picks, so I used those, they’re cool for strumming. In the studio I still use those for strumming.

Later I found that Yngwie used extra heavy picks, so I used those for a while. Then it felt better using a thicker pick. I don’t know why. I’m actually trying a different one right now.

Jesse: Can you give us a quick crash course on the following?

Technique

Dave Martone: Everything needs to be figured out. From the time you were born until you took your first steps, you didn’t instantly turn into Ben Johnson and start sprinting down the track. You had to physically learn how to walk first. Then once you did that, and your muscles were stronger, you were able to run faster.

Guitar technique is exactly the same way. You don’t just hop into it and turn into Yngwie Malmsteen. It just doesn’t happen that way. It’s impossible. Take it slow. If there’s a lick that I’m working on, say an A minor tapping idea such as this. [Starts tapping an A minor arpeggio slowly, then increases speed] I’ll start practicing slowly until I can get it under my fingers, then I’ll work up the tempo.

I also like to practice with a freer tempo, as opposed to just working with a metronome all the time. This allows you to have an expressive side to your playing as you’re not always playing exactly in time. That makes it flow better as well.

Speed.

Pretty much the same thing, however, there’s more physicality in the performance of your hands if you’re looking for speed. Most of it’s going to come from your fret hand. To be able to get your fret-hand rocking you first and foremost have to be able to play everything in a legato fashion.

Once you’ve built the strength in your left hand, the right hand should be easy. A lot of people, myself included, have a bounce in their picking. I try to show people that instead of a hand bounce, focus in on what a tremolo pick looks like. This makes the bouncing disappear. You can’t have the same speed as a tremolo pick with a hand bounce. It’s all a matter of efficiency.

Tapping.

It’s mostly left-hand strength for me. Whatever I do usually relies so much on left-hand strength. If I’m playing a scale, the left hand takes care of everything. All my left-hand strength is for tapping, even though the actual tapping is happening in the right hand. The combination of getting the timing together with both hands is important, too.

Sweeping.

There’s more of a circular type of thing going on with the pick. So, the thumb is straight on the way up, and bent at the joint on the way back down.

Guitarist Dave Martone

Jesse: Is there anything else you want to add as far as your teaching perspective is concerned?

Dave Martone: I’ve been doing it for many years, taught many, many people how to play, and it’s a great thing to pass on information that I’ve figured out to youngsters. It’s a craft, and we don’t want to see it disappear as an instrument. It’s good to share, and teaching is an awesome way of doing it.

Jesse: What’s your current record right now?

Dave Martone: The current record is Clean on Magna Carta Records. It features guests such as my best buddy Daniel Adair on drums, and Dave Spidel on bass. I think the strengths lie in the songs. I really love the songs on there because they’re full of melody and I try to make them not so full of testosterone, although there’s one that is full of testosterone: “The Dinky Pinky.”

It’s full of way too many notes, but, whatever, I wanted to do that. [Both Laugh] And there are some great guests on there that have become friends of mine such as Jennifer Batten, Grew Howe, Billy Sheehan, and Mr. Joe Satriani.

Jesse: What’s next?

Dave Martone: Working on music with my girl, beautiful singer, her name is Carmelina [Cupo]. She’s a singer/songwriter; she’s performed all over Europe to big audiences, 20,000 to 30,000 people. We’ve already written a handful of songs, and we’ve had Daniel play drums on them.

I have another band called Kadabra, which is a Spanish flamenco band, we play quite a bit. The other players are Brian Poulsen, spectacular player, and Dave Spidel, the bass player from Martone also plays in Kadabra. Sometimes we use a guy named Mike Michalkow on drums and percussion, too.

I’ve also been producing another band called Merge. They’re guitar-radio rock, and that’s been fun.

Jesse: Any instructional videos or books outside of the obvious in the near future?

Dave Martone: I have a lot of stuff up at Workshoplive. You can go there and I have, like 88 lessons on the site. You can sign up for it pretty cheap, like a buck a lesson or something like that.

I also do Skype lessons one-on-one, and there’s lots of shit on YouTube. There’s a feature in Guitar Player magazine, there’s ten instructional videos up there that talk about a lot of the techniques that I use, and they’re free.

I also have a couple live concert DVDs out that you should check out. One is called Martone Live, the other is called Live In Your Face that you can pick up at Guitar9.com.

Besides that, keep rocking, man.