During a 2002 tour with Yes, Steve Howe experienced every guitarist’s nightmare: the catastrophic break of his beloved 1964 Gibson ES-175 — the instrument heard on many of the band’s biggest songs, including “Roundabout” and “Close to the Edge.”

Remarkably, the incident remained a secret for more than two decades.

“I'm not really that keen to advertise the fact because it's not evident anymore,” Howe told this writer in 2003. “But something very unfortunate happened.”

Howe special-ordered the ES-175 from the Selmer music store in London in 1964 when he was just 17, and it has remained his go-to instrument ever since.

To say the electric hollowbody is beloved would be an understatement. At one point, Howe even restrung it every day.

“Basically, I was a bit of a lunatic!” he told Guitar Player in 2021. “But if you love something, you should nurture it.”

Taking guitars on the road, however, is always risky business — as Howe and his prized instrument discovered.

“My tour guitar tech Ron ‘Shooz’ Matthews did it actually,” he said. “Knocked it over.

“The guitar’s headstock did the classic break!”

It was the first serious accident to befall the instrument — unless you count the time Howe himself dropped it years earlier.

“I was really young, and it damaged the socket, but that was just a little wound,” he recalled. “What happened then was nothing compared to what happened this time.”

Matthews quickly set to work.

“The first thing he did was put it back together, but he didn't beautify it,” Howe said. “Three days later, I was playing the guitar onstage again.”

Once the tour ended, Howe sought a proper restoration and turned to respected British luthier Hugh Manson.

“I gave it to Hugh because I trust him very much,” he explained. “Hugh knew what a crisis it was, and so he had it for a while — very few people have had it for more than a day — but he had it for a while and he did a really beautiful job.”

“We completely eradicated any kind of visual or structural knowledge of it. So it’s been completely fixed and put back 100 percent.”

The art of guitar improvisation can be intimidating. Many players assume that, to excel with off-the-cuff soloing, they’d need a deep knowledge of the fretboard and theory.

But prog-rock stalwart Steve Howe believes it needn’t be complicated. He says all a player needs is “a bit of the plot.”

Despite his ability to craft long-playing and “marvelously tricky” material, the Yes and Asia guitarist was self-taught. Discussing his formative playing days in a new interview with Uncut, he says it has helped define how he approaches the instrument and improvisation.

“My brain capacity when I was young was all about hearing, and not playing while you look at a piece of paper,” he says, referring to his informal method of learning. “It comes through my head, and I put my fingers on the frets, and if I can recognize the tonality, I’m in the zone.

“That’s why I like improvising so much, because you don’t need very much information to improvise. You just need a bit of the plot.”

Getting ahold of the plot— that is, the melodies and hooks that sit at a song's epicenter — is what makes Howe's many standout guitar solos so strong, whether they are pre-written or improvised.

Chatting to Guitar Player previously, he revealed that he spent extended periods “fumbling around” to develop an idea into a song. But he says it's his heart, rather than his head, that's driving things along.

Ultimate, it's rhythm that makes it all come together for him.

“The important thing is that notes are fairly meaningless on their own,” Howe tells Uncut, “so the rhythm is important.

“Two of my sons are drummers — unfortunately, Virgil passed away [in 2017] — but it runs in the family. I could have been a drummer; it really interested me. I’m pretty fanatical about beats.”

However, despite his prog-rock credentials, Howe’s relationship with drums isn’t studious. It’s instinctive.

“I feel beats,” he says. “People talk about time signatures, but I can’t actually think about whether something is in 5/4 or not — I’ve got to feel what it’s like when the part’s in 5/4.”

It’s a process typified during the writing of Close to the Edge epic, “Siberian Khatru.”

“I was struggling to get my solo done on that,” he admitted to GP earlier this year. “So I said, 'Eddie [Offord, producer], turn off my guitar. I don't want to hear it, ‘cause my amp was out in the other room.

“So when we turned it off, I couldn’t hear it, and I made that solo out of thin air. It was quite a different perspective, because usually I'm feeding off the guitar I'm hearing, but instead I was feeding off the theme [of the song], and I was playing around it.”

Of course, this maverick method isn't always going to work, but it shows how the focus on the guitar part should actually be away from the acoustic or electric guitar altogether; it should be about weaving in and around the bigger picture.

In related news, Howe has spoken candidly about the most polarizing Yes album ever made and explained why he didn’t use to let his techs tune his guitars.

In the early 1970s, no prog group could claim to have had the success of Yes. Fragile, Close to the Edge and the live triple-LP Yessongs had established the British group as the most successful progressive-rock act of the era. Yes had every reason to believe fans would stick with them no matter what direction they took on their next album.

So they decided to throw in their lot with other groups of the day and create a concept album. And why not? It had certainly worked for the Who, which by that point had success with both Tommy and Quadrophenia, as well as for artists like David Bowie (Ziggy Stardust) and Pink Floyd (The Dark Side of the Moon), both of whom had recently established themselves as mainstream acts by doing so.

So what could go wrong? Well, plenty. To start with, there was the album’s ponderous name, Tales From Topographic Oceans. Inside, fans discovered four lengthy excursions that each took up a whole side of the double album. Not exactly easy listening. Although the record was a success on both sides of the Atlantic, it divided critics and fans alike with its ambitious musical aims.

But Tales also proved to be something of a line in the sand for keyboardist Rick Wakeman. Bored by the group’s new direction, he departed upon completion of the album’s tour and focused on his solo career.

Despite it all, Steve Howe looks fondly upon the album.

“It was a time of spreading our wings, a wonderful project where we went to the ends of the Earth to do it,” he told Guitar Player. “I don’t think we’d be the same group without it.”

Tales — which is getting a new release as a 15-disc Super Deluxe Edition boxed set this coming February — was the pet project of Howe and Yes singer Jon Anderson, the latter of whom was eager to continue exploring the longer song structures the group had created on Close to the Edge. He found a framework in the memoir Autobiography of a Yogi by the guru Paramahansa Yogananda. The book made a reference to the different levels and divisions within Hindu scriptures. Anderson thought that could be an interesting concept for an album.

Howe quickly got onboard. As it happened, the live Yessongs set gave the two artists more time than usual to work out their ideas.

“Jon would sing, and I’d noodle my riffs and things, and the band would listen and get their ideas. That’s how we did it,” Howe explains. “There was a rehearsal period, and then we went into the studio to start recording, and we were there for months and months. We kept plowing on until this thing was finished. It was a huge, huge undertaking.”

Despite writing the basic structures, Howe and Anderson encouraged the others to help flesh out the songs.

“Jon and I asked the guys to be as creative as they could: ‘Don’t complain that you don’t like it; find something to play, and then you’ll love it.’

“So there was a Yes-style credit for music by everybody, but of course Jon and I wrote the majority of the music, and they wouldn’t deny it. But all of them came up with a little bit to add to it, something they wanted to do. We just attempted to draw those things out of them so it was a worthwhile album.”

The result was an album that pushed Yes in new directions — which was one reason some fans had trouble with it.

“There are things in there you never would have thought Yes would do, particularly on side two,” Howe says, “some beautiful, unusual, folk-like, almost Jethro Tull–ish things. Then we got really out there on side three with time signatures and crazy stuff. And we were playing it live, because you couldn’t do it any way else.”

Howe says it was so complicated that he recalls getting lost at one juncture in the recording.

“The band was watching me, and I was watching them, and I didn’t know where they were!” he says. “But at some point we met.”

For the album, Howe set aside his Gibson ES-175 electric guitar — a staple of those early Yes albums — and switched to a Les Paul Jr. Which may be another reason why some listeners found Tales sounded quite different from its predecessors.

“Back in the ’70s I was searching to find out what guitar was the guitar, leaving the 175 aside a bit and trying all the stereo guitars and all of that,” Howe explains. “Obviously, I’m just so lucky to never lose sight of the fact that it was still me coming through, even if I played an ES-5 Switchmaster. It was still me.”

Given how excited he was by their work, Howe said he was taken aback by the polarized response to the album.

“I find it so funny that anybody criticizes this album on the basis that it was a concept album,” he says. “Out of the 22, 23 studio albums we made, one of them is a concept album called Tales From Topographic Oceans. Can you please allow us to make one concept record without getting on our case? We stuck our necks out with Tales, and some people wanted to chop our heads off for it.”

Time, however, hasn’t diminished his love for it.

“I’m still very proud of it and very pleased with it,” Howe says. I think Tales is totally epic, and I love it to bits.”

"It was a fascinating time," Steve Howe says of Close to the Edge, Yes’s 1972 release and fifth studio album. "We were still quite fresh with each other, so there was kind of a feeling we were discovering what each other could do.

With just three songs composed in complex, suite-like arrangements — the side-long epic title track, the majestic "And You and I" and the surging future concert opener "Siberian Khatru" — Close to the Edge found Yes at its peak powers. It was guitarist Howe's third album with the band, and Rick Wakeman's second.

Coming off two 1971 triumphs, The Yes Album and Fragile, the British quintet was locked in and ambitious, as evidenced by Rhino Records' new Close to the Edge Super Deluxe box set that features outtakes, early versions and live material as illuminating epilogue to the well-worn 38-minute story that's remained arguably Yes' top album since its September of 1972 release.

Howe and singer Jon Anderson began working on the concept for Close to the Edge soon after the release of Fragile, the album that gave the group its commercial breakthrough with the hit “Roundabout.”

“After Fragile, Jon and I went away and started beavering away on the title track, and it gradually kind of grew this idea that it was going to be 20 minutes long,” Howe says.

"Ten minutes was an achievable thing; we'd already done it a few times, so that was part of the story, this venturism of having something kind of big. It escalated forward into something we'd end up being really proud of."

Howe, who used a new Gibson ES-345 stereo semi-acoustic electric guitar throughout the album, describes an exacting, trial and error recording process, in which the band members — who included bassist Chris Squire and drummer Bill Bruford — fused the songs' movements together in often piecemeal fashion and sculpted into finished form with co-producer Eddie Offord.

The box set, with remixes by Steven Wilson, illustrates the group’s methodology by separating some of the song sections such as — from "Close to the Edge” — “Total Mass Retain," "I Get Up, I Get Down" and "Seasons of Man," and — from “And You and I” — "Cord of Life" and "Eclipse.” It also features an early studio run-through of "Siberian Khatru" that's dubbed "Siberia."

"Most of the early recordings were everybody throwing in stuff — that's the kind of arranging Yes did," Howe recalls. "We fired off each other; there was this… ‘competitiveness’ doesn't sound right in music, but you're trying to work towards an end that you all like. It was fun to record ideas and bring them in, usually on a cassette, and then construct them.

“At that point there was a Yes became very good at taking something and completely changing it — opening it up, making space for other things to happen.

“Like on 'Khatru,' for instance, we didn't have a harpsichord in the rehearsal room; Rick may have played something on the piano and we thought, 'Oh, you can do something there' and someone said, 'Why don't you use a harpsichord?' That's the way it worked.

"In the end everybody had to have their say. Everybody had to have their part. Someone would say, 'Oh, I don't know about this piece,' and we would say, 'That's because you haven't got a part to play. You haven't found a part yet. We've got a part. Get yours and you'll like it...'" Howe adds with a chuckle that, "Sometimes Chris took the longest, but it was always such a valuable part."

While Howe's virtuosity is all over Close to the Edge, his showcase is undeniably the "Siberian Khatru" — although, interestingly, he says the spidery, crawling core riff was actually introduced by drummer Bruford. "I don't know if he hummed it or played it on piano. Bill had enough piano chops to be writing stuff on there," Howe recalls. "It may have been on cassette. It was one of the key ingredients. That's such a cool riff.”

As Howe explains, the “Siberian Khatru” is full of challenges, even for a guitarist of his caliber.

"'Khatru' a very complex song, such a jumbled up mix,” he explains. “It's all riffs. The beat is marvelously tricky. It wasn't like we were fiddling around with a strummer here — there was no strumming. We were pulling out all the stops.

“It wasn't 'Close to the Edge.' It wasn't 'And You and I.' It was much more of a rocky song, and the intricacies of singing and plying everything at the same time...was a marvelous challenge. I sometimes can't believe we put all those bits in there. It's a very tight arrangement. There were notes you could add, and you better not miss any, 'cause every note was vital. It had to be practiced a lot.

And, with another laugh, "Why it didn't sound like a complete pile of crap, I don't know..."

While the core riff runs throughout the song — whose writing is also credited to Anderson and Wakeman — Howe solos twice during "Siberian Khatru." One in the midsection, played on an also recently acquired Gibson BR-9 steel guitar, follows Wakeman's harpsichord break.

"I'm kind of a chord guy," Howe explains. "If I invent a chord sequence, I don't know what to do with it, but it may have melodic implications in what happens. When I've got the structure as chords, I think about embellishing it — 'What could I play here?'

"I just improvise, and I suddenly go [sings], 'Oh! That’s good, that.' So I develop the tune kind of patiently, fumbling around, really, to find out how I can develop the tune and keep it going."

More striking is the solo in the outro of the song, which Howe extends during Yes' live performances of "Khatru." "I was struggling to get my solo done on that," he remembers, "so I said, 'Eddie, turn off my guitar. I don't want to hear it,' 'cause my amp was out in the other room.

“So when we turned it off I couldn’t hear it, and I made that solo out of thin air. It was quite a different perspective, because usually I'm feeding off the guitar I'm hearing, but instead I was feeding off the theme (of the song) that was being played, and I was playing around it.

"It was kind of an experiment...very interesting. I wish I did it more often.”

Howe says the live, extended versions of “Siberian Khatru” remind of the approach taken by his previous band, Tomorrow, in their performances.

“Tomorrow was very much a blowing kind of band, and Yes had that ability,” he says. “We never really jammed, though; we always needed structure to know what we were doing, because otherwise it was higgledy piggledy."

"Siberian Khatri’s" nimble intro, meanwhile, was another work of the moment, according to Howe. "I'm a bit of a deep pocket guy as far as riffs and musical ideas," says the guitarist, who shared his five top guitar tips with us previously. "I've got a sort of stockpile, so when we're thinking, Oh, we need something like this, a solo maybe or in this case a beginning, I'll go in and see what I have that might fit and then develop it from here.

“Sometimes they're things I tried on other songs that didn't make it for one reason or another. There's things on all three of those albums” — The Yes Album, Fragile and Close to the Edge — “that actually stem from earlier recording."

In addition to all the invigorating playing, Howe adds that he, Anderson and Squire found "Siberian Khatru" to be a vocal stretch, too. "I think the opportunity to have a three-part harmony song like that was...different for us, too," Howe says. "In 'Close to the Edge' you get Jon Anderson singing away, in wonderful voice, and Chris and I are there.

“But suddenly 'Khatru' is like a three-voice approach. But instead of it being, like, Crosby, Stills and Nash, all smooth, we're kind of honky and we're kind of shouty. Reproducing it onstage was all one marvelous challenge."

Yes did just that during its 1972–’73 world tour dates promoting Close to the Edge. "Siberian Khatru" opened the shows, coming out of an excerpt from Igor Stravinsky’s "Firebird Suite," and also led off the 1973 live album Yessongs. It's gone in and out of Yes shows over the years — and was part of the sets as recently as last year's The Classic Tales of Yes Tour.

As for having a pre-final playthrough of the song, as well as other outtakes and rarities, on the Close to the Edge box set, Howe says that he's "got mixed feelings. I transition from either enjoying it and thinking it's nice to research those things and then sometimes thinking, 'Oh, there can only be the stuff that was stamped 'finished.'

“But I can see that it's of interest to other people to see how certain things developed. I think they're quite amusing at times, and I have a bit of a laugh about some of them. I think you've got to appeal to fan interest, in the end."

Howe — who recently spoke with Guitar Player about the future of the Yes — says the group plans to be on the road again later this year and is also eyeballing more recording as part of a prolific period that's included two full and one mini-album since 2019.

"We're in the process of writing, collaborating, jiggling around," Howe says. "I think that's natural for us, and everybody has been doodling around. We could be putting something together; we're just not saying much more about it 'til we know what it is."

Depending on how you count, some 20 members have passed through Yes's ranks over the years.

But guitarist Steve Howe has been the true keeper of the tales — from Topographic Oceans and elsewhere. Joining the band in 1970 to replace Peter Banks. Howe quickly became one of the group's key composers and one of prog-rock's most esteemed electric and acoustic guitar players. He's appeared on all but five of Yes's 24 studio albums, and he stepped up to produce the last two, The Quest in 2021 and Mirror to the Sky in 2023. He's priming for more touring later this year and notes that the band is "jiggling around" with material for its next album.

The dude is 77, however. And as Rhino prepares for the March 7 release the Super Deluxe edition of Close to the Edge — the group’s biggest commercial success at the time of its release, in 1972 — it seems a good time to ask, 53 years down the road from that landmark — does he ever think about saying no to Yes.

"Well, I like to consider that I've got that option," Howe says with a smile via Zoom from his home in England. "I'm free to carry on, but I'm also free, if I did want, to stop."

That’s a very diplomatic way of putting it, and it doesn't seem like Howe — whose latest solo project, Guitarscape, came out last year — feels any sort of retirement is imminent.

"I think I've got a sort of internal agenda going on where I'm sort of doing a lot of tidying up of projects," he explains, "sometimes shrinking them down to make them completely practical. Having it be contained is definitely a way of seeing the future in a more positive and enjoyable way." Howe adds that the "may have something else I want to talk about, maybe later in the year as well."

As the ranking senior member of Yes, meanwhile, and only remaining link to the band's golden era of the 70s, he sees a future for the band even if he's not part of it. "That would be entirely up to them," Howe explains. "I think there's an in-built, driven thing to continue. We've seen it over the years. There’ve been so many times we thought, 'Oh God, that's it. How can we go on?’ And somebody appears or something happens."

Yes did that once without Howe, of course, between 1981 and ’94, when Trevor Rabin joined and gave the group new life — not to mention it's only number one hit, "Owner of a Lonely Heart." Howe and Rabin also played together in the ill-fated, eight-member incarnation of Yes that released Union in 1991.

Howe — who shared his top five guitar tips with Guitar Player in 2023 — has no real thoughts about who should take the guitar chair if he's not in it, however. "I think most of the people who have joined Yes didn't always have a long history with the band. Sometimes they were just passing through," he notes. One avenue for the group’s future is for a new member to give the group a new direction, as he and Rick Wakeman did when they joined in 1970 and 1971, respectively. “We were coming through. We weren't established, and I think that's a factor,” Howe says. “That might be an option, to have someone who's coming through to take it on in a different way.

"Obviously, I’ve been part of that driving force of determination," Howe acknowledges, "but I don't see that as an exclusivity I've had. In fact, I'm very surprised to have the amount of expression that I do have with Yes, and they fact that they listen to me and respect me at all. It's very nice they do appreciate having a guy who was on Close to the Edge, for instance. That's kind of a helpful part of the story."

Then again, Howe is widely seen as the "boss" of Yes — especially after producing their last two albums — so he seems to be unnecessarily modest.

"Well," he answers, "I used to say I don't think anybody can really lead Yes. I'm in a very prime position where the guys look at me and they will take my advice, but that doesn't mean I go around telling everybody what to do. I've got to find out what they're trying to do and make it work. If there's a tough decision it might come down to me, but that doesn't mean to say I treat them in any way different from (being) equal members, which is what they are.

"So, yes, I'm able to convince them that a lot of my ideas are quite good. If I didn't have those ideas and I wasn't progressive, then I wouldn't be as useful to Yes as I am. And I think I'm pretty useful. That said, it wasn't that I would say, 'I don't need you guys. I could do this on my own.' No way. I'm helping steer the band. I’ll take that."

One thing how used to do on his own, however, is tune his own guitars, on tour as well as in the studio. "I didn't believe anybody else could tune them better than me," he recalls, "and I didn't want to go on and go, 'Oh, no, this is wrong, mate.'

“So the tech did all the electrical things and brought the guitars to me and I tuned them and he took them to the stage. It didn't seem a lot of work 'til I found a guy who could tune as good as me. I said, 'Right, you're tuning now!’”

More than a decade before Duane Denison carved his name into the annals of noise rock with the Jesus Lizard, he tried to sell his guitar idol Steve Howe a rare vintage axe. He did it by convincing a roadie it was a deal the Yes guitarist wouldn’t want to miss out on.

“A friend of mine worked at a guitar shop that carried rare archtop jazz guitars,” he tells Guitar World, “and there was a Guild George Barnes acoustic-electric.”

Denison had grown up in Detroit idolizing prog’s guitar-playing elite — “punk rock hadn’t come along yet,” he says — and the guitar presented a golden opportunity.

“When I was a teenager, it was the ’70s, and so prog-rock was king. I’m not ashamed to admit that I loved it. The shredders of my day were Robert Fripp, Jan Akkerman and Steve Howe.”

Which may explain Denison's attraction to the guitar. While semihollow guitars are unconventional rock guitars, Howe has always had an affinity for them. His main squeeze is a Gibson ES-175D that he bought in 1964, a time when Gibsons weren't easy to come by in his native England.

Denison certainly knew of Howe’s affection for jazz guitars and decided to use his Guild as leverage to meet his hero, bringing his friend along to assist with any stubborn impediments.

“This friend was really pushy and talked to a roadie," Denison says. "And they said to come back the next day to meet at Steve Howe’s hotel room in downtown Detroit.".

Denison returned and finally got a chance to meet Howe, though the interaction was bittersweet. “He tried it out and played some stuff on it," the guitarist says. "But he didn’t buy it.” He suggests that may be due to Howe's own assertion that he's “a bit of a lunatic” when it comes to his beloved six-strings, choosing them wisely and caring for them well. As of September 2021, his famed ES-175D had been refretted just once after nearing six decades of use.

“People used to be amazed that I’d gone about 40 years on this guitar and it hadn’t been refretted,” he admits. “I got used to the flat frets. In fact, they were marvelous, but there were a few little problems. The 14th fret on the G got very buzzy.

“I’ve always been very possessive of this guitar. I used to do my own guitars, right through the ’70s. The 175 was always restrung, every day. So, basically, I was a bit of a lunatic! But if you love something, you should nurture it.”

Barnes' guitar, which featured two humbuckers are four control dials, is a rarity today, so maybe Howe missed out on a deal, but if nothing else, Denison walked away with a story to tell.

Howe's latest solo album, Guitarscape, provided him the “golden opportunity” to write music with “different chordal movements and structures”.

“I’ve utilized most of the colors, as I like to think of my styles,” he explains, “and I’m always pleased when I hear them running through and it moves from a steel, maybe, to a Spanish guitar.”

The Jesus Lizard released their latest album, Rack, in September.

Yes and former Asia guitarist Steve Howe has announced the details of his latest solo album, Guitarscape, which he says sits a little outside his usual canon. 

The follow-up to last year’s Motif Volume 2, the 14-track album has been described as a “guitar masterclass” by its creator, who has partnered with his son and drummer, Dylan Howe, for the LP. 

“We get on great and he seems to know what to play around my guitar, it’s almost instinctive,” he says of their familial relationship. “Dylan and I fit together really beautifully. We’ve had the chance to do this together, so it’s wonderful.” 

The new material will traverse the multitude of guitar styles Steve Howe has explored throughout his effervescent career, from rock, jazz, and classical to Spanish guitar and pedal steel. 

“This album has given me the opportunity to do something different,” says Howe. “I’ve utilized most of the colors, as I like to I think of my styles, and I’m always pleased when I hear them running through and it moves from a steel, maybe, to a Spanish guitar.”  

Save for the drums, he plays all instruments on the recording, taking in acoustic, electric, steel, and bass guitars along with keyboards. The latter has reshaped his approach to chord progressions and songwriting, helping the record evolve into one that distinguishes itself from his other solo releases. 

“I bought a Novatron Summit keyboard and found that it had a wealth of inspiring sounds,” Howe details. “It gave me a golden opportunity to create chordal movements and structures that I thought were a bit different. 

“I think differently on a keyboard, I don’t see the chords looking the same, but then I had fun playing around with the guitar to see where that goes.

“Because it’s a different sort of album,” he expands, “I’m not using terribly conventional chord sequences but things that give me a fresh feeling and opportunities to improvise and stretch out as well as be melodic and make this a nice tuneful experience.” 

Although unconfirmed, Howe’s beloved Gibson ES-175, an ever-stay since a then-17-year-old Howe bought it in 1964, is expected to feature.

He updated his live rig in 2020, pairing the vintage Gibson with a Line 6 Helix modeling amp, saying pedalboards are “passé to me.”

“I like to press one button and radically change my sound. That is heaven,” he says. “The [Line 6] Helix can do everything I can possibly want and, therefore, that’s all I want to use.” 

Guitarscape is set for a September 27 release via Howe’s own Howesound label. It will be available in CD, vinyl, Dolby Atmos, and digital formats.  

Head to Howe’s Linkfire page to pre-order the LP. 

The following is an excerpt from Martin K. Webb’s piece in the July/August 1973 issue of Guitar Player.

Ritchie Blackmore, lead guitarist and co-founder of Deep Purple, was born in Weston-super-Mare, England. 

Emerging to fame in America in 1968 with the hit single Hush, Deep Purple have appeared with the Royal Philharmonic at London’s Albert Hall, faced 4,000 rioting fans in Stuttgart, and been smuggled out of a concert hall in Iceland in a paddy wagon. 

Blackmore’s first guitar was a secondhand Spanish type, which he has since replaced with Stratocasters and Gibsons.

Did you ever have lessons?

“I had classical lessons for a year. That helped, because I learned how to use my little finger. A lot of blues guitarists play with only three fingers, so they can’t figure out certain runs that require the use of their little fingers.“

Besides getting you to use your little finger, has classical training affected your playing in any other way?

“I would say that it shows up most in the music I write. For example, the chord progression in the Highway Star solo – Bm, to a Db, to a C, to a G – is a Bach progression. The classical influence is always there somewhat, but I don’t intentionally use it that much really. I play a lot of single notes, and that’s not classical.“

How do you rate Steve Howe, as far as putting almost strict classical stylings into a rock context?

“He’s very good at it, but he’s not the kind of guitarist I can listen to. He’s very good at runs, but I don’t like that type of playing much.“

Did you ever do much work in record sessions?

“When I was about 17. Some of the work was a drag, but some of it was interesting. Session work makes you more strict. You can’t hit notes all over the place. You’ve got to make each one really count. 

“When you’re recording, if you’re not really clean in your playing, it sounds like a mess. You may think you sound fabulous on stage, but when you hear yourself played back on record, it’s just disastrous most of the time. If you can play well in the studio, you can play well on stage.“

How did you come to use your tremolo bar so much?

“I liked the way Hendrix used his tremolo – though I don’t think I use it the same way. A lot of guitarists think that a tremolo arm is for someone who can’t play a hand vibrato, but the tremolo arm gives a different vibrato altogether. 

“It affects whole chords. I can do the old hand vibrato just fine, but I like attacking the strings and getting all those sounds. You can get a lot of aggression out with a tremolo arm.”

You do a lot of hammering-on, and you frequently put your pick in your mouth and play with your fingers.

“I also play with my feet [laughs]. I use my fingers for different sounds and effects. But I actually play very lightly. That’s from the days when I used to use banjo strings. When I did a solo they sounded fine, but when it was over, I’d find the strings would be out of tune. So I started playing lighter out of necessity.”

How loud is your amp?

“Full up. Learning to play the guitar is one thing, but learning to play with a big amplifier is a different thing altogether. It’s like trying to control an elephant.”

“It was a time of spreading our wings, a wonderful project where we went to the ends of the Earth to do it,” Yes guitarist Steve Howe recalls of Tales From Topographic Oceans, the epic double-vinyl concept album the group released in 1973. Fifty years on, the record remains an important milestone in Yes history for the guitarist. “There was often a feeling that disaster was almost about to strike, but we got there in the end. You have to account for Tales in our history to properly talk about what Yes achieved, because it was quite exceptional. I don’t think we’d be the same group without it.”

Most certainly they wouldn’t. Following on the heels of the critically and commercially successful albums Fragile, Close to the Edge and Yessongs, Tales From Topographic Oceans was a success on both sides of the Atlantic, albeit one that divided critics and fans with its ambitious musical aims. It took a mauling in the music press. Worse still, shortly after its release, keyboardist Rick Wakeman departed the group, bored by the new direction and eager to enjoy his recently launched solo career.

But at its inception, Tales was an exciting project, at least for its originators, Howe and Yes singer Jon Anderson. After composing the lengthy, ambitious tracks on Close to the Edge, Anderson was keen to explore more elaborate musical structures. In March 1973, he had been turned onto the memoir Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda, a guru known in esoteric circles, who had also made an unlikely appearance on the cover of the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, sandwiched between H.G. Wells and James Joyce. The book had a profound effect on Anderson. “It started me off on the path of becoming aware that there even was a path,” he says. Moreover, he discovered in the book a reference to the different levels and divisions within Hindu scriptures, providing him with a framework in which to place the large-scale musical ideas and concepts he’d been mulling over. He found a willing ally in Howe, with whom he’d co-written both “Roundabout” and “Close to the Edge.” “We were really up for the big, challenging things like, ‘Let’s do an album with four Close to the Edges,’” Howe says with a laugh.

Zooming in with Guitar Player from his “second home” in rural England, away from the hustle and bustle of London, Howe seems relaxed and at ease, not at all like the guy who’s seemingly been working his tail off in recent years. Keeping Yes alive and on the road, save for the pandemic pause, has certainly been part of that. Howe, 76, has shepherded the band through the deaths of founding bassist Chris Squire in 2015 and longtime drummer Alan White last year.

He has also stepped up and into the producer’s chair, helming 2021’s The Quest, Yes’s first new studio album in seven years, and its follow-up, Mirror to the Sky, which came out earlier this year. On top of that, he re-imagined Permanent Dream, the 1968 debut album by his pre-Yes band Tomorrow, by refining the mixes and adding lesser-known studio tracks, and released a new solo album Love Is, as well as a seventh edition of his Homebrew series.

In that regard, the current year has been one of looking both backward and forward for Howe. It was in that mindset that he joined us to share his thoughts about Tales From Topographic Oceans, as well as Tomorrow’s Permanent Dream and Yes’s Mirror to the Sky.

TOMORROW – ‘PERMANENT DREAM’

What led you to re-imagine the Tomorrow album?

One day I was digging around and found the record. I put it on and thought, This shouldn’t sound like this; how can I listen to Tomorrow where it sounds any good? I’ve been friends with [Tomorrow singer] Keith [West] all this time. We eventually ordered the original mono tapes, because I believed it was much better in the mono world, but there were none really available – maybe an odd track or two. So we didn’t remix the whole album. All we could do is treat parts of it with the technology that’s available now. I just fixed all the things that were fixable. Fifty-five years was probably a long time to wait to work on this album, but I’m glad we did what we could.

What kind of perspective did it give you on Steve Howe back then and who he grew to become?

It’s my pathway. It’s where I’ve been. I can go back there and still play Tomorrow music quite easily, doodle around with it. But, yeah, it’s kinda like my early steps. I quite like some of the sounds. [Abbey Road engineers] Peter Bown and Geoff Emerick did a lot of that engineering on my [Gibson ES-]175, and I really like that sound they got for me.

Tomorrow were recording at Abbey Road while the Beatles were working there, too, right?

Yeah. One day Paul and Ringo came in together and put their heads around the doors, like, “Hi guys!” People were very friendly there. It was very nice. There were a few times we’d maybe go downstairs and hear music coming out of the door and think, “Omigod! That’s the Beatles! Omigod!,” and we’d sneak in to not disturb anybody.

It seems kind of ballsy that a young band like Tomorrow would cover “Strawberry Fields Forever” on Permanent Dream, not very long after the Beatles put it out.

[laughs] It was really quite a fresh song, yeah. I don’t know how we got that idea. Someone must have said, “I like that. Why don’t we try it?” It’s very unusual we didn’t choose another song, really, but we loved that one. It’s such classic Beatles.

YES – ‘TALES FROM TOPOGRAPHIC OCEANS’

Tales from Topographic Oceans turns 50 later this year. Before that came Yessongs, which was Yes’s first live album. Did surveying the group’s music up to that point for Yessongs have an impact on where you wanted to go on Topographic Oceans?

I guess doing Yessongs gave Jon and me more of a chance to finish up songs we’d written and to be able to present something in a rehearsal room. ’Cause you had to be quite brave; you did it on your own – “Here’s my song!” – or, in the case of Topographic Oceans, two people. Jon would sing, and I’d noodle my riffs and things, and the band would listen and get their ideas. That’s how we did it. There was a rehearsal period, and then we went into the studio to start recording, and we were there for months and months. We kept plowing on until this thing was finished. It was a huge, huge undertaking.

Rick Wakeman expressed some reservations with Tales and subsequently quit the group. Was it a hard sell to the other guys at the time?

Jon and I asked the guys to be as creative as they could: “Don’t complain that you don’t like it. Find something to play, and then you’ll love it.” There was that adage to everything. So it was a bit of an open book, and we did give everybody credit for their contributions, either structural, chordal structures, or a riff or some vocal line – not the whole song, obviously. So there was a Yes-style credit for music by everybody, but of course Jon and I wrote the majority of the music, and they wouldn’t deny it. But all of them came up with a little bit to add to it, something they wanted to do. We just attempted to draw those things out of them so it was a worthwhile album.

It was a bit polarizing when it was released, wasn’t it?

It was, yeah. But I find it so funny that anybody criticizes this album on the basis that it was a concept album. Out of the 22, 23 studio albums we made, one of them is a concept album called Tales From Topographic Oceans. Can you please allow us to make one concept record without getting on our case? We stuck our necks out with Tales, and some people wanted to chop our heads off for it.

How does it hold up for you 50 years later?

I’ve listened to it quite recently and, y’know, I’m still very proud of it and very pleased with it. There are things in there you never would have thought Yes would do, particularly on side two [“The Remembering (High the Memory)”] – some beautiful, unusual, folk-like, almost Jethro Tull-ish things. Then we got really out there on side three [“The Ancient (Giants Under the Sun)”] with time signatures and crazy stuff. And we were playing it live, because you couldn’t do it any way else. The band was watching me, and I was watching them, and I didn’t know where they were! But at some point we met. The articulation on Topographic Oceans, the drama going into “Leaves of Green” [the last movement of “The Ancient (Giants Under the Sun)”] – and then side four is like…“What?!” It’s really big, and it’s got a lot of lovely moods. I think Tales is totally epic, and I love it to bits.

What are your favorite bits all these years later?

I did do a condensed version of Tales on a solo tour in 1993, where I put it together very easily. And one of my favorite bits is [sings portion of “The Remembering (High the Memory)”]. Now that to me is Yes at its most exceptional. It’s not [sings riff from “Roundabout”]; it’s in the beautiful, folky world. Obviously, “Leaves of Green” is great – [Yes singer] Jon Davison and I have been doing that a lot over the last 10 years. And then side four, there’s some wonderful songs on that. Some of the fun Jon and I had there was very uplifting for us.

YES – ‘MIRROR TO THE SKY’

So you’ve got the new Yes album – two in 19 months, in fact.

[laughs] Well, what happened is what happened to everybody. The beginning of ’20 was a bit of a wake-up call. It was fortunate I’d had my studio upgraded the year before, and studio recording was where the energy could go. Suddenly it wasn’t about building the next set list for the live show. It was, “What about an album, then?” We’d started thinking about it, but of course this was the golden opportunity to have a golden harvest of recording.

When we finished The Quest, a lot of music had come in, and when we realized all was still not good with the world as far as touring goes, there was time to do Mirror to the Sky. I’ve enjoyed it a lot, and the guys did too. We’ve made some miserable records in Yes’s career – some were like pulling teeth, and then we’d dash out on tour. So it is quite nice to be able to take time and work on the music. Both of these records were made by everybody having their own sort of process in writing, coming up with the material, then sending it to HQ, which is where [engineer] Curtis Schwartz is. Then I’d go in and sort of sift through it at his place. What you’re hearing is Yes in 2023, and it is a team. It isn’t Steve Howe and his bunch of cohorts trying to emulate Yes. You’ve got to be Yes to really do what Yes can do.

That’s an interesting statement. What does it mean to be Yes? I think it’s a shared belief together now, but also in line with everyone that’s been in it before. Because, in a way, nobody can replace Jon [Anderson] or Chris [Squire]. All the people who have been on that journey have contributed enormous things. It’s a bit like a Star Wars sequel: You have Star Wars and another Star Wars and another Star Wars.

So Yes are like an undefined story of how music can be developed, of how people can take adventurous ideas, and the thread that sort of runs through it all. I think that’s what the Yes idea is. You have to know that story. It’s like a taxi driver: You can’t drive around New York unless you know New York, if you know what I mean. You have to know that story.

What’s on Mirror that you feel was different or new for you as a player?

“Cut From the Stars.” That came into the album late, and I’d already used every bit of gear I had in some way. So I just got out an analog pedalboard, plugged it in, and stuck it in an amp and put a mic there, and just recorded in more of an old-fashioned style. I enjoy doing that kind of live-guitar thing, more like the ’60s and ’70s stuff. I like to know about 80 percent of what’s going on, and that last 20 percent that I don’t know what’s going on, that’s great. I don’t want to know. Of course what I play has to work with it, but that’s where improvisation came into play. Basically, I just had a nice time just developing a guitar part.

Do you accept the idea that this year, after all the lineup changes, Steve Howe’s guitar is the defining voice of Yes?

Yeah, I guess I’d have to admit that maybe I’ve always believed that, but not any less than Jon Anderson’s voice was an integral part of Yes – at a time, an essential part. But I have had this great opportunity to continue that path, if you like, of working out how to develop it. It’s very flattering to consider that, but I won’t dwell on it too much. I just think it’s what I do.

Is it hard to push that into different directions, then?

Not really. I mean, I love my 175, and I know that’s got a kind of association with Yes. It was on so many things early on, a lot of lead guitar solos, because I was just so fluid on that one until I switched to the Les Paul Jr. for Topographic Oceans. Back in the ’70s I was searching to find out what guitar was the guitar, leaving the 175 aside a bit and trying all the stereo guitars and all of that. Obviously, I’m just so lucky to never lose sight of the fact that it was still me coming through, even if I played an ES-5 Switchmaster. It was still me.

“Yes may be the single most important of all the progressive rock bands,” claimed Geddy Lee while referencing the band's fifth studio effort, Close to the Edge, as among his “favorite rock albums of all time.”

For many fans of prog rock in the early 1970s, the arrival of the Yes album Close to the Edge in 1972 was not unlike the release of the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band some five years earlier.

Like that early psychedelic landmark, Close to the Edge was a sprawling, genre-melding sonic wash of sound unlike anything anyone had heard before.

From its 18-minute title track, which took up all of side one, through the operatic sweep of the 10-minute-long “And You and I” and the hard rock-jazz fusion of its closing track, the evocatively titled “Siberian Khatru,” Close to the Edge wasn’t just another album; it was a sonic journey that you experienced from one end to the other (preferably on headphones), and then, in all likelihood, repeated once the needle reached the inner groove of side two.

It’s little surprise many fans thought Yes hadn’t just gone close to the edge – they’d gone clean over it.

Beyond the sheer grand scope of the album and level of musicianship displayed, what impressed me most about Close to the Edge was the ensemble playing on display. Just listening to it, you could tell Yes were a tight and supportive band.

The music gave equal room to Steve Howe’s breathtaking range of guitar virtuosity – from Duane Eddy-era rock and roll to John McLaughlin fusion – and Rick Wakeman’s dazzling keyboard skills, all of which was ably supported by the melodic “lead” bass work of Chris Squire and the mind-blowing jazz-tinged drum work of Bill Bruford.

The fact that they all performed this music on behalf of Jon Anderson’s cryptic lyrics made the group seem like a sect of some mysterious religion.

The underlying sense I had was that this was how a band was supposed to be: like a supportive team. Which is very much the way Steve Howe describes Yes at this time in its development.

“We were young, enthusiastic, and adventurous, and we had this incredible breakthrough success with Fragile,” the guitarist told GP. “We saw our next album as a real opportunity to prove our worth as a band. The door had been opened and we weren’t going to go backward. We wanted to sharpen our skills as far as writing and arranging.”

Although the success of the “Roundabout” single helped launch their top-ten 1971 album, Fragile, Yes eschewed radio-friendly hits while pursuing a different direction that allowed the band to expand their music without any regard for commercialization. “We cared if people listened to it,” Howe told Guitarist, “but we didn’t want to fit into the box of being a three-and-a-half-minute hit band.

“We went in the opposite direction. Sometimes Yes purposely decommercialized music.”

Order Close to the Edge here.

Prog-rock blew my young mind in 1971, and it was largely thanks to Yes and a magnum opus called “Roundabout.”

I’d been amazed by the Beatles’ dreamlike “A Day in the Life,” thrilled to the Tilt-a-Whirl ride of King Crimson’s “21st Century Schizoid Man” and been dazed by the surreal centerpiece of Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love.”

Each of those was a mini symphony, with the various movements added on like musical boxcars.

“Roundabout” was different, and in so many ways. For one, everything gelled together, with each new movement evolving harmoniously from the previous one, taking the song further along, sometimes to entirely new stylistic juggernauts, but always reconnecting to the original theme, not just seamlessly but joyously, like a thrilling homecoming.

I suspect that congruity has a lot to do with the song’s commercial success.

“Roundabout” has many sections and changes, but it’s never hard on the ears or requires harmonic leaps that detract from the music’s enjoyment.

It’s also entertaining as hell. That is largely down to the virtuosity of Steve Howe, Yes’s then rather new guitarist (he’d joined the year before) and the co-author of this bit of musical majesty.

Howe’s stylistic diversity was one thing, but he also played with remarkable precision and speed, and without ever relying on clichés.

“Roundabout” and Fragile, the album on which it appears, were major successes and helped prog-rock break into the mainstream, where it brought a new level of musicality and virtuosity to rock seemingly overnight.

But what is prog? It’s been notoriously difficult to define. Both rock-driven and symphonic, as well as folk and electronic (no popular genre of the time made more generous use of synthesizers), it’s the most catholic of musical styles.  

With Fragile, Yes brought a new focus to their music and showed that elaborate symphonic-like works could rock out. Not only did the album create a style and sound that would define the band’s place in music for years to come but it also shaped the look and sound of rock for a good part of the 1970s.

Throughout the ‘70s and beyond, Howe has relied on a variety of guitars to help stamp his sonic identity onto recordings. While he developed his sound using Gibson electrics – notably an ES-175D on The Yes Album and an ES-5 Switchmaster during the recording of Fragile – he has also used acoustic guitars extensively, including a 1953 Martin 00-18.

His love of fine guitars continues to this day, and in this fantastic interview film Howe walks us through the instruments he used to record Yes’s latest studio album, Mirror to the Sky.

Starting with a “satisfying and gutsy”-sounding blonde 1955 Fender Telecaster modified with a humbucker in the neck, Howe says this vintage axe featured on 1974’s Relayer LP. “I’d decided that after several albums featuring Gibson guitars that I’d bravely go into the area I hadn’t used before,” he explains, “which is the fantastic sound of Fender guitars.”

Martin acoustic guitars have long been central to Howe’s creative process and are featured throughout Mirror to the Sky. “To me, an acoustic guitar is the most important guitar in my world because I tend to not only practice but also write on acoustic guitars,” reveals the maestro, showing us his MC-38 Steve Howe, a signature model that was released in 2009. (Martin also produced the 00-18SH signature model in 1999).

Elsewhere, Howe shows us his iconic 1964 Gibson ES-175D, a Gibson ES Artist, and a Fender Deluxe 6 steel.

Last week, prog rock legends Yes unveiled their 23rd studio album, Mirror to the Sky. This week, the band has announced a new animated lyric video accompanying the record’s third single, “Circles of Time.”

This comes after the release of the LP’s lead single and opening track, “Cut From the Stars” that was followed up by the expansive "All Connected."

“This is a very important album for the band,” says Yes’s longest-serving member and producer of Mirror to the Sky, Steve Howe.

Having replaced founding guitarist Peter Banks in 1970, Howe made his first appearance on a Yes long-player in 1971 with The Yes Album. The band virtually defined the prog rock genre in the early ‘70s, while Howe’s solo acoustic instrumental “Clap” on the LP showcased his creative diversity as a guitar player.

Diversity, virtuosity and a daring approach to music-making are hallmarks of the Yes catalog. And it appears the group are intent on keeping things moving forward. Having built up creative momentum during the making of 2021’s The Quest album, Yes rode a wave of creativity onto new shores with their latest effort.

“We kept the continuity in the approach we established on The Quest, but we haven’t repeated ourselves. That was the main thing,” explains Howe.

“As Yes did in the ‘70s from one album to another, we’re growing and moving forward. In later years, Yes often got going but then didn’t do the next thing. This album is demonstrative of us growing and building again.”

“I feel like everyone’s focused inward to the greater circle, concentric to the core of highest standards that define Yes,” elaborates vocalist Jon Davison. “It’s a wonderful thing to witness and of which to play a part.

“I believe this reflects vibrantly in the music and the creative input that each one is willing to apply, not for the benefit of the individual, but for the greater whole that is Yes.”

Featuring artwork by long-time Yes artist and collaborator Roger Dean, Mirror to the Sky is available now on the following formats:

• Limited Deluxe Electric Blue 2LP+2CD+Blu-ray artbook with poster
• Limited Deluxe 2CD+Blu-ray artbook
• Limited 2CD digipak
• Standard CD jewel case
• Gatefold 2LP+LP-booklet
• Digital album

Blu-ray editions feature Dolby Atmos, 5.1 Surround Sound, instrumental versions and hi-res stereo mixes.

Back in 1970, Yes retreated to the serenity of the English countryside and stayed in an old farmhouse where they finished off writing and rehearsing a majority of the music for 1971’s The Yes Album.

Following the departure of founding guitarist Peter Banks in 1970, it was the band’s first album to feature Steve Howe, and his creative juices were flowing.

On sunny days before rehearsals, Howe wandered the fields with his 1953 Martin 00-18 acoustic guitar. Armed with a cassette recorder, he would make notes of ideas that sprang forth. “I composed a lot of pieces that would later infiltrate the band's music,” he recalled.

With a body width of 14 5/16-inch, Martin’s 14-fret 00-size flat-tops are not only comfortable to play for many, but they often project a deep, clear tone that belies their smaller dimensions (by comparison, a 14-fret Dreadnought/D-size guitar measures 15 5/8-inch across).

A mainstay of Howe’s collection, his ’53 Martin 00-18 was used to compose most of Yes’s acoustic numbers. Such was his dedication to the instrument that, in 1999, Martin released the 00-18SH signature model.

“Martin have been amazing,” Howe told this writer. “I’m delighted to have a great working relationship with them. I have a ’53 00-18 and they brought out the 00-18SH [Steve Howe] based on that, which is a very nice guitar.

"Then they brought out the MC-38 Steve Howe, which is a signature model based on the MC-28 – a guitar I played for many years.”

In addition to the acoustic ideas gathered from his sunny jaunts, Howe presented the band with his first country-picking guitar instrumental. It would soon prove highly significant for him while featuring as a solo track on The Yes Album titled “Clap.”

“Bill [Bruford] and I came up with the title,” recounts the guitarist in his autobiography, All My Yesterdays. “But then Jon [Anderson] announced it on the live recording as ‘The Clap’ which, unfortunately, stuck for quite a while.”

Recorded live at London’s Lyceum Theatre on July 17, 1970, and appearing as the second track on The Yes Album, “Clap” was dedicated to his son, drummer Dylan Howe, who was born the previous year. (Interestingly, Howe later honored fellow Martin 00-18 endorsee Bob Dylan with the Portraits of Bob Dylan tribute album).

Howe’s recollection of his Yes debut solo composition was that it felt, “earth-shattering inside, because suddenly I was an independent person.”

And in this live clip from the Yes concert film Yessongs, his excitement for the music is palpable as he digs into his 00-18, treating London’s Rainbow Theatre to one of the best renditions of “Clap” ever captured on tape.

“My advice just comes from my experience,” Yes guitar legend Steve Howe says of his guitar-playing tips. “I’m completely self-taught on the guitar, which means nobody sat me down and said, ‘This is the right way to play; that’s the wrong way.’ But there was a kind of beauty and freedom in the way I learned, because I never felt restricted in any way. Playing the guitar felt like a journey to me, and it was one that I was keenly interested in.”

He admits to experiencing moments of self-doubt. “It happened from time to time when I was younger,” he says. “Somebody would say something to me like, ‘That doesn’t sound very good,’ and my whole world caved in. Over the years, I realized that I shouldn’t overreact to little things, because most of the time that’s what they are. People are always going to criticize, so it’s really a matter of how you respond to what they have to say.

“A guitarist can always come up with reasons why they’re not further along,” he continues. “But to me, the way around that – and it’s the most important thing, really – is to never give up on your dream.” He laughs. “It sounds like a cliché. But there has to be a dream.”

On that inspiring note, Howe runs down his top tips for guitarists…

1. Don’t Practice. Play!

“It’s fine if you want to do scales for a quick warm-up. I play scales myself occasionally. But I’d say that 95 percent of my contact with the guitar is spent improvising. I might noodle around or work on a tune I’m writing. Sometimes I’ll just strum for a while, especially if I haven’t played for four or five days, which is rare for me. Maybe I’ll play an Everly Brothers song. What I’m getting at is, you’re supposed to play the guitar. It’s supposed to be fun; it’s not supposed to feel like drudgery. I think back to my earlier years, and this was the same approach I had even then. One of the greatest joys I had was improvising on the guitar and just letting my mind roam.

“Speaking of warming up, this holds true for your guitar, too. To make a guitar speak, you have to play it for a bit to encourage it to project and sound good. They did a scientific study about leaving the guitar unplayed for periods of time. What they discovered was that the dynamic range was much less until somebody had played it for 10 minutes or 15 minutes. That makes sense to me.”

2. Get Fingerboard Knowledge

“The fingerboard of a guitar is fascinating. There are so many different positions in which you can play the same note. Even after all these years, sometimes I’ll play an inversion and think, Wow, I hadn’t thought about that one. The fingerboard is where your music comes from. Obviously, you have to use your picking hand, too, but the fretting hand on the fingerboard – that’s where all the possibilities are.

“There are various ways to gain fingerboard knowledge. I guess you can always pick up manuals as a starting point. It’s like cab drivers learning their way around London: They need a map – or at least they used to. However you choose to familiarize yourself with the fingerboard and all it offers, you want to end up feeling unchallenged – like, no matter what you want to play, you’ll know where your fingers should land. And as I said, there are so many possibilities. You might play something one day, and the next day you’ll go, ‘There’s got to be a better fingering for this.’ That happens all the time.”

3. Find Your Ideal Playing Posture

“Growing up, I never thought about my posture or how playing the guitar could hurt my back. I’d play wherever I was – sitting on a bed, stretched out my sofa... anywhere and anyplace. And, of course, there were so many years standing onstage and playing. Over time, that can present certain problems. When I see early pictures of me onstage, I can’t believe how Bill Wyman-ish my playing position was. I wore the guitar up so high. At the end of a tour, I used to go to see a chiropractor. I finally got fixed up with treatments, but I also discovered that I had to re-adjust and rethink my playing positions. Now I don’t wear the guitar up so high; it’s just sort of resting there.

“For certain things, I prefer to sit now, specifically when I play solo guitar. I discovered that the guitar needs to be in a position that I can always call my own. Like when I play ‘Clap,’ for example: I’ll play acoustic, and I’ll use a foot stool on my right foot. It’s weird – lots of people use a stool for their left foot. But I discovered that the stool under my right foot works best. I can get around the different ways I have to play.

“You need to look into ways that you can play without doing yourself any harm. You might need to make certain adjustments between the way you play electric or acoustic, because the two instruments are so different – their weight and how they fit against your body.”

4. Trust Your Guiding Ear

“For the first 10 years, learning an instrument is a physical exercise. You’re learning how to make notes and how to move your fingers. That’s all important, but after that, then what? The answer is, you need to follow your guiding ear. That’s what’s going to lead you toward your musical direction. You need to attune yourself to how you hear sounds and what they’re telling you.

“I think I first became aware of this when I listened to Kenny Burrell. He seemed to have a special sense about sound, but it wasn’t all about technique. I think it was about the way he heard its sounds – his guiding ear. He always sounded the same, and he always sounded great. He used a [Gibson] Super 400, on the front pickup. And that’s a great guitar and a great pickup, but the thing was, I think he always saw his sound through to the end. He followed it where it wanted to go.

“In other words, you play the part – it exists, but that isn’t the end. Stick around for the mix, so you can go, ‘I want the guitar on the left. Can you add a bit of reverb? Oh, no, for God’s sake, turn it down.’ You want to be part of the way your guitar goes out to the world. It’s got to be the way you hear it. That’s what I try to do: the playing it, the physical part. The rest is all up to your guiding ear and how you really want to sound.”

5. Research All Guitarists and Styles

“When I was young, I didn’t leave any stone unturned. I wasn’t just a guitar fan; I was a guitar researcher. I read all the mags and bought the records. I listened to radio shows. I just had to know about everything that was going on. 

“I guess it’s because I always had an adventurous spirit. I heard Chet Atkins and he made me think that I could play any kind of guitar. I saw Wes Montgomery when I was 16. I tried to mimic everybody I heard: Jimmy Bryant, Speedy West. There were so many guitarists in the jazz field, like Charlie Christian, Tal Farlow, Lenny Burrell... This list could go on for a while. And then John McLaughlin came along with so many other guitarists that I could really dig a lot. There was so much to learn from. And hey, it’s okay to steal licks, too.

“Instead of absorbing one style only, listen to other genres and distill them into what you do. It’s amazing how people limit themselves. Earlier today, I was listening to [Maurice] Ravel. I’ve always peppered my listening time with classical music. You can go on so many musical journeys if you give yourself the chance.”

I find it hard to imagine 1972 was 50 years ago.

This is in large part due to the fact that I was born on June 5th of that monumental leap year. What? You didn’t know 1972 is the longest year by the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) standard? With the added day, plus two seconds, the six-string purveyors of the day took full advantage of the extra time on both electric guitars and acoustic guitars.

As this new decade was still revving its engines, rock and roll was expanding in 1972. With the guitar at the forefront, there was glam rock, shock rock, prog rock, southern rock and even jazz rock. What’s more, there was the further development of soft rock and heavy metal alongside the burgeoning reggae and country rock genres.

Also on the rise was a reverence for the album format. Thanks to my older brother Louis and his well-fortified stereo system, our Jersey Shore home was consistently shaking at the rafters with all the rock 1972 had to offer. I soaked it all in from my very beginnings.

All things considered, it’s safe to say I was born into this collection of essential guitar moments from 1972.

Let There Be Rock

By the second year of the tumultuous 1970s, the world of rock had expanded into subsets that celebrated everything from platform shoes and glitter to fake blood and guillotines, and even included electrified southern-fried country and blues.

This trifecta of disparate approaches garnered a worthy collection of guitar moments, starting with David Bowie’s fab The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars. 

Bowie’s brilliance is matched by the prodigious playing of guitarist Mick Ronson.

Ex. 1 shows something similar to Ronson’s opening salvo in “Ziggy Stardust,” where open chords and arpeggiation patterns combine to make the prototypical glam-rock arena riff.

Shifting to the dark side, Ex. 2 takes its cue from the title track of Alice Cooper’s School’s Out, highlighting the vibe of the incendiary E Dorian riff played by shock-rock stalwarts Glen Buxton and Michael Bruce.

Completing the trio is an iteration of the Am riff of “One Way Out” (Ex. 3), from the Allman Brothers Band’s quintessential southern rock album Eat a Peach, courtesy of Duane Allman and Dickey Betts.

All three original tunes are as celebrated today as they were in 1972, from arenas to local watering holes.

Opening Lines

The ’70s was the decade of Detroit Iron, when nearly everyone drove a hot rod. If they weren’t cranking an eight-track, they were listening to an FM rock station, which was in the beginning stages of a transformation to the album-oriented rock (AOR) format.

Nothing had you leaning over to pump up the volume faster than a great guitar intro. Elliott Randall’s opening A major pentatonic licks in the Steely Dan FM staple “Reelin’ In the Years,” from Can’t Buy a Thrill, was a top contender.

Ex. 4 is inspired by and loosely based on this classic intro solo.

Ex. 5 brings to mind the dreamy relative major and minor arpeggios and modulating bends immortalized in that track.

Another classic is the unforgettable opening of the Bowie-penned glam-rock anthem “All the Young Dudes,” recorded by Mott the Hoople.

These are just two of the many songs that reeled you in from the first notes and entertained every type of rock apostle, both young and old, as they cruised America’s highways.

Hammer of the Gods

Two of the three bands considered the creators of heavy metal released records in 1972. With Led Zeppelin between Led Zeppelin IV and Houses of the Holy, the void was filled by Black Sabbath’s Vol. 4 and Deep Purple’s Machine Head.

Ex. 6 closely illustrates what Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi laid down on Vol.4’s “Snowblind,” with his signature power chording and speaker-melting gain in check.

As for Deep Purple’s Ritchie Blackmore, he was in his creative prime at the time that the group dropped its magnum opus, Machine Head. Much like Zep’s fourth outing, Machine Head featured timeless tunes that have proven their longevity to this day, including the venerable “Smoke on the Water.”

While the opening riff has ascended into a ubiquitity for rock guitarists the world over, Ritchie’s fiery solo over a power chord backdrop in the key of G minor showcases such signature Blackmore-isms as pre- (or “ghost”) bends, adjacent-string rolls and 16th-note linear flurries.

This is all on display in Ex. 7, which presents a reworking of some key licks from this solo.

Though in its infancy at the time, metal began with these pioneering bands and with albums and moments like these.

Everyone is Experienced

But 1972 wasn’t all about high-gain licks and riffs. The influence of Jimi Hendrix, who died in 1970, was felt across the guitar pantheon. Indicative of the time were a pair of low-gain opening riffs from two different worlds but in no less capable hands.

Ex. 8 is patterned after a moment from one of prog rock’s most endearing releases, Close to the Edge, where perpetual ambassador Steve Howe threw down biting Hendrix-like chordal comping ideas in the key of E minor at the top of “Siberian Khatru.”

Ex. 9 offers a taste of the kind of dynamic-duo guitar work of the Doobie Brothers’ Tom Johnston and Patrick Simmons on the endearing hit “Listen To the Music,” a moment that still motivates muscle-car drivers of yore to turn up the volume at the first hammer-on into that E/G# triad.

Groove Collective

But cleaner tones and booty-shaking grooves were also heard in 1972, thanks to the impact of a Jamaican film called The Harder They Come, which starred musician Jimmy Cliff. While the movie was released to much fanfare (on the very same day I started my journey to 50), it was the film’s soundtrack that made history, as it’s widely regarded as the world’s introduction to reggae.

Ex. 10 is inspired by the infectious opening groove heard in the Cliff classic “You Can Get It If You Really Want,” which features hallmark reggae rhythm guitar approaches with its tightly voiced top-string triads, anchored to the upbeat and treated with some staccato phrasing.

Back on the mainland, James Brown and Al Green were creating some of their most significant works. The Godfather of Soul put Hearlon “Cheese” Martin’s lock-tight precision into the limelight with “Get On the Good Foot” from the album of the same name.

An homage to Martin’s hypnotic single-note staccato phrasing is paid in Ex. 11.

Adding to the title tracks explored, the beloved gem from Al Green’s Let’s Stay Together features the sultry guitar of work of Mabon “Teenie” Hodges perfectly nested between Green’s enthralling vocal performance.

Looking at Ex. 12 reveals a remodeling of four bars from this treasured work.

Unplugged

Although the era of the chimerical Les Paul/Marshall monster had fully arrived by 1972, it didn’t quell the acoustic guitar’s substantial presence, which had solidified in the 1960s.

In fact, acoustic guitars were behind some of the most successful single releases of the year, including Paul Simon’s controversial “Me and Julio Down By the Schoolyard,” America’s mesmerizing “Ventura Highway” and soft-rock troubadours Seals and Crofts’ irresistible “Summer Breeze.”

The main themes of all three songs have been reinterpreted in Examples 13–15.

Aside from Simon’s syncopated voice-led triads, the other two riffs make ample use of the acoustic guitar’s penchant for open strings.

Not to be outdone by his American counterparts, Canadian-born Neil Young released the best-selling record of the year with Harvest, which boasted the number one hit “Heart of Gold.”

A rendition of the perfectly sparse presentation of Em and D chords is found in Ex. 16.

Outro

With countless guitar moments still to gush over, it’s important to note that 1972 was also brimming with superbly constructed albums that had massive impact and further bolstered the emerging AOR radio format.

The year delivered classics that featured now-mythic guitarist pairings, including the Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main St. (Keith Richards and Mick Taylor), Jethro Tull’s Thick As a Brick (Martin Barre and Ian Anderson), Genesis’s Foxtrot (Steve Hackett and Mike Rutherford), and the Eagles’ self-titled debut (Bernie Leadon and Glenn Frey), which helped bring country rock to prominence.

Before the year was out, Deep Purple went on to release the Made in Japan live album, and Stevie Wonder released his own pair with Music of My Mind and the seminal Talking Book.

The latter gave the world the funk-rock classic “Superstition,” which features a punchy Hohner Clavinet keyboard riff that has been appropriated by guitarists in countless cover bands.

If all these moments and genre births are any indication of the benefits to an augmented leap year, I say bring on the next one UTC.

"It was a really great time in our lives,” Steve Howe says, recalling the spring of 1972. His band, Yes, had hit the upper regions of the U.K. charts with their fourth album, Fragile, and much to their surprise, they did even better in the States. Tours were sold out, the venues were getting bigger, and FM stations were spinning the album tracks “Roundabout” and “Long Distance Runaround.” 

As their unbroken, six-month string of concert dates began to wind down and they considered their next recording, the group felt as if they had the wind at their backs.

“Our spirits were very high,” Howe says. “We were young, enthusiastic, and adventurous, and we had this incredible breakthrough success with Fragile. We saw our next album as a real opportunity to prove our worth as a band. The door had been opened and we weren’t going to go backward. We wanted to sharpen our skills as far as writing and arranging. 

"Concerts come and go, but a record is forever. I think we all had a sense that whatever we did next, it had to feel like some sort of definitive statement. A record like this was destined to be made, and we wanted to be the ones making it.” 

Vast, enigmatic, full of moments of spectacular grandeur and ever-changing hues, Close to the Edge is the Lawrence of Arabia of progressive-rock albums. Comprised of just three tracks – the dizzying side-long, 18-minute title track, the equally sprawling mini epic “And You and I,” and the whacked-out, hyperactive jazz-funk album closer “Siberian Khatru” – Close to the Edge documented Yes operating at the peak of their musical powers. 

At that point, the group consisted of Howe, singer Jon Anderson, bassist Chris Squire, keyboardist Rick Wakeman, and drummer Bill Bruford. Anderson was deep in thrall to Hermann Hesse’s spiritual self-help novel Siddhartha, as reflected in his cosmic lyricism. The band responded by pulling out all the stops, surging through each passage with unbridled zeal and relentless creativity.

For Howe, the widescreen canvas afforded him the opportunity to exhaust his wily eclecticism. One minute he’s unfurling gnashing, Hendrix-like riffs, the next he’s basking in elegant acoustic serenity. Each track yielded moments of meticulous plotting or go-for-broke improvisation. For a divine example of the latter, his nearly three-minute album-opening blitz is an epochal art-rock masterstroke. As definitive statements go, his playing on Close to the Edge checks all the boxes. 

“We were quite fortunate in that we could do whatever we wanted,” Howe recalls. “We didn’t really have any kind of outside pressure to follow up a hit. I think, fundamentally, we were helped by the fact that Yes wasn’t a singles band. 

"Obviously, ‘Roundabout’ launched our previous album, and that was all well and good, but we seemed to disregard that fact. Yes were now established, and we felt like Close to the Edge didn’t need a single. If we wanted to do a 10-minute song or even something that was longer, we could do it. And as it turned out, there were stations, particularly in America, that would play the longer songs. We lucked out.”

Close to the Edge marked the second consecutive album on which the band lineup remained unchanged, but shortly after the recording sessions finished, Bruford announced that he was leaving to join King Crimson. 

“We were all taken aback, obviously,” Howe says. “Up until it happened, we felt as if things were pretty solid among all of us. Bill left mainly because of his conflicts – or should I say challenging times – with Chris wanting him to dot every bass beat with the bass drum or something. Bill had his principles and his musical taste that he wouldn’t revert from, so he left.” 

Bruford, for his part, compared the jigsaw-like process of making Close to the Edge to “climbing Mount Everest.” His replacement, Alan White, stepped in with little time to prepare. [Sadly, White died on May 26, 2022, shortly after our interview with Howe.] “Fortunately for us, Alan White was on the scene and was already hanging around,” Howe explains. “He joined us in the nick of time, as we had a tour to start.”

That trek, a mammoth nine-month stint across North America, the United Kingdom, Japan, and Australasia, would be documented in the triple-LP Yessongs, released in May 1973. “All in all,” Howe declares, “we were quite lucky.” 

Despite its lack of an obvious single, Close to the Edge bested its predecessor on the charts and received almost unanimous raves from critics (even the NME, issuing a somewhat mixed assessment, concluded that “on every level but the ordinary aesthetic one, it’s one of the most remarkable records pop has yet produced”). Over the decades, the album has grown in stature among critics and musicians alike, and it’s now generally regarded as a classic. 

It routinely tops progressive-rock polls and has been cited by guitarists like John Petrucci, Steve Stevens, and John Frusciante as a major influence. In a recent interview, Wakeman called it the band’s finest album, and Howe agrees. “It’s got all the attributes a timeless record should have,” he notes. “It’s interesting, challenging, and exciting. It was certainly interesting and challenging to make, and dare I say, I think we broke new ground. 

"You never know how something is going to be perceived as you’re recording an album. You might think that it’s going to be a landmark, but there’s just no way to judge that in the moment. You just do your best and hope for the best. So 50 years on, it’s incredible to see the long life it’s had. I hear other musicians say nice things about it, and to see it being voted best prog album of all time, it’s all very delightful.”

Before recording Close to the Edge, Yes had toured with the Mahavishnu Orchestra. I understand seeing them had a big impact on you and Jon Anderson. 

"Oh, yes, but for me it started in the early ’60s. John McLaughlin was playing beautifully with Herbie Goins and the Night Timers. He had his amp on a stool, which I then started doing – I wanted it at ear level. With Herbie Goins, John was having fun being a really creative guitarist, but he hadn’t yet found his style. He found that with Mahavishnu and went on to greater things. 

"Anyway, Yes had done some shows with the Mahavishnu Orchestra. Jon and I were knocked away; we felt they were the most remarkable band since the Beatles. They were totally different, and nobody can really top the Beatles, but as far as pure musicality goes, Mahavishnu was just so impressive. That’s why Close to the Edge starts with a kind of manic presentation. You wouldn’t expect a song or album ranting and blaring away for three or four minutes." 

The Fragile tour was quite extensive and continued for the first month or two that you were recording Close to the Edge. How much actual writing time did you have before going into the studio? 

"There was a bit. Jon and I established a pattern for writing and arranging together. It started with The Yes Album and into Fragile, where we discovered that one guy presenting a song could get knocked down very easily. But two guys? Much harder.

"We did have an awful lot of Close to the Edge arranged – parts of 'Siberian Khatru' and then 'And You and I.' Of course, a lot of credit goes to the general collective of the arranging style of the members of Yes when we were together. Jon and I had the imagination that things would project further than our little cassette once we got in the studio with everybody." 

You did a bit of preproduction. Were the tunes fully fleshed out before going into Advision Studios? 

"Not fully. We had our crude cassettes of ideas. I remember we went to rehearse in this dance ballroom – the Una Billings School of Dance in Shepherd’s Bush. We’d go in for afternoons. Bill wasn’t involved in arranging as much as Chris, Rick, and me, and Jon, of course. 

"We were trying to find how to play these tunes and how we go from one to another. We were developing them together. The rehearsal period was fairly intense. We came out of it with mockups of sections of the music, if not parts of all of it. Some of the inventive arrangements came about in the studio. What I mean is, they became clearer to us in the studio. We’d figure out how to improve them. 

"It would have been a waste of time and money to go into the studio saying, 'Okay, we’re going to start Jon and Steve’s song ‘Close to the Edge.’ We would have been there forever. We only had blocks of days, not weeks or months. We would do shows and go back into the studio. I suppose our manager was trying to get his commission, so we kept getting put back out on the road. It didn’t leave a lot of time for the studio."

Obviously, the band did a lot of overdubbing. 

"Of course. We did an awful lot of overdubbing when we cut tracks. There was a lot of creativity on the part of Chris. He always liked to improvise, as did Rick, but he wanted structure around those improvisations. And he was right – there is a structure that you need so that somebody can then improvise. 

"That was the key to a lot of Chris’s rather ponderous and slow approach to coming up with his final bass parts, because he was always thinking, Well, I’ve got to commit to this. And Bill was like, I’ve got to commit, too, so let’s get on with it!" 

Yes had been working with Eddy Offord as engineer and co-producer for a number of years. He seemed to juggle his time between your band and Emerson, Lake & Palmer. What made him the go-to guy? 

"He had been engineering the band before I arrived. On The Yes Album, we chose him to co-produce because we felt confident and comfortable with him. He had a strong personality, but he could be fun. Actually, you mention ELP – they might say that we stole him from them. [laughs] 

"When it came down to the actual hard work, he was very good. If Jon was doing guide vocals in a booth, Eddy would say, 'That was a good take, but you went wrong here,' or 'I think you could do it better there.' He was our go-to opinion. He held that gauntlet in his hand, but he never abused it. He always got the best of us. 

"Eddy was also very good with his editing. We would have different takes, and choosing which one worked best took skill and the right set of ears. Also remember, he was editing on tape – you literally had to cut them and splice them together. That’s a skill, and Eddy was great at it. If he had been a rubbish editor, he probably wouldn’t have lasted with us."

Your opening guitar solo on the album’s title track is quite remarkable. Was it an improvised, one-take deal or planned out? 

"What I opened with [he sings the part], that was a structure that I used another guitar to harmonize with, but once it goes to the next part [he sings again], that’s an improvised take. There are so many meters, either 16 or 32 bars, and we knew we were going to do them. Those breaks had to be strategically placed in our minds. I think of myself as a composer in a way, but a lot of my music is improvised." 

Which guitar did you use on that opening solo? 

"Around that time, I did a strings advert for Gibson guitars, and they said, 'We’ll give you a guitar.' And I said, 'Well, I’ve always wanted an ES-345, with stereo wiring,' so they gave me one, and I plugged into two Fender Dual Showmans – or it might have been one Dual Showman and another Fender amp. 

"That guitar became the Close to the Edge model, really. I liked to feature a new guitar on an album. On The Yes Album, it was the Gibson ES-175, and on Fragile I played the ES-5 Switchmaster. Playing a new guitar on an album was exciting. The guitar would feel fresh in my hands, and it made me excel in a new way."

You used a descending guitar line from one of your old songs called “Black Leather Gloves” for the “Total Mass Retain” section. 

"Well, yes. That’s a reference to my old band, Bodast. We had recorded an album, but it went down the tubes and disappeared completely. The label folded and didn’t put the record out. So I said, 'Well, some of these riffs are quite good. I’ll throw them at Yes and see if they like them.' Some of my riffing came from that album, as it did with the 'Würm' part of 'Starship Trooper.' It was like a tribute to that band. The music came back, and I was proud to re-use it." 

Your singing on the album is extraordinary. The way you harmonize with Jon, particularly on the “I Get Up, I Get Down” section – he’s talked about how influenced he was by the Beach Boys and the Association. Did those bands impact you, as well? 

"I didn’t quite know the Association myself, but I certainly knew and loved the Beach Boys – not that I thought for a minute that Yes sounded anything like them. Actually, I hadn’t sung in public or on records until I joined Yes, but on The Yes Album there were harmonies that I could perform in my sort of naïve, untrained way. I could sing low stuff quite easily. I was a bit nervous and was sort of bluffing a bit, but in a strange way, once I started, it all happened quite fast. 

"I think I benefitted from my not knowing the rules. So it’s been nice: Over the years, I’ve had more and more comments from people who like the sound of my voice."

What kind of acoustic guitar did you use on the “Cord of Life” section of “And You and I”? 

"The main guitar I used was a Martin 00-18 that I bought in 1968, which is the best flattop acoustic I’ve ever had, even though I now use a Martin MC-38 Steve Howe model. Because of the cutaway, I’m much happier on that guitar. I had the 00-18, but I also used a beautiful Guild 12-string that Chris Squire had owned. I was very tempted to buy it. I think I did buy one in the end. 

"There were those ones, and actually, now that I think of it, here and there I did some overdubbing with a Gibson called an FDH. It’s a very rare guitar that came to England under the Francis, Day, and Hunter [FDH] emblem. It’s a guitar I still love. It’s the second Gibson I ever bought – it cost me 50 quid. 

"It’s basically a big archtop guitar, a little bigger than a 175. I still love that guitar. I’ll give you a scoop, in fact: Chris actually tracked with that guitar. His bass on 'Roundabout' was actually tracked with the FDH with a pickup on it." 

How did you come up with that pedal-steel part in the “Eclipse” section? Are you using distortion and delay on it? 

"Probably. But it wasn’t a pedal steel; it was a lap steel, or a Hawaiian steel – call it what you like. Nowadays I only play steels with legs because I like the guitar to be rigid, and then I can play well. If it’s on my lap, it’s hopeless, because I’m working a volume pedal as well. 

"At the time, I was just sort of learning about the lap steel and its possibilities. By the time of 'Going for the One' [1977], I played that whole song on a steel. I’d really worked on my steel playing after Close to the Edge." 

“Siberian Khatru” features a riff that’s pretty much the basis for the song. How did that come about? 

"Well, there’s two riffs, really. There’s the part [he sings] that I play for probably half of the song. I’m playing that with some different approaches, sometimes with a Leslie guitar, sometimes moving octaves around. Basically, that was one of Bill’s gems. He brought that in. 

"It was a knockout to have that riff. I adopted it, I loved it, I played it. It’s a fundamental part of the song. But the other riff – sometimes Bill would do this if he wasn’t sure how to finish a line: He’d just mouth something, like a scat singer. That happened on several occasions on those first three albums. Bill was remarkable like that. I don’t think he realizes how much he contributed. But in the spirit of the arranging of Yes, it was the giving and taking of ideas, and we were really fluid with that."

You played two solos in the song, the second of which, the clean solo, you recorded without hearing what you were doing, as I understand. 

"That’s right, yeah. We didn’t often record guitars with me standing in the big studio. I liked being in the control room, where I could really hear the music. I’d done some solos, but I didn’t like them. They just weren’t doing much for me. I had the 345 all set up and I was going to tape, and I said, 'Let’s try one without listening.' Everybody thought, He’s gone mad. But okay, do that. I played, and I didn’t even realize what I’d done, but I could see it in my mind. 

"It was a different way of playing. When we listened back, I went, 'Okay, I like that.' Everybody else liked it, too. It was an eye-opener for me, because I don’t know that I would have ever played like that if I’d heard what I was doing. I truly didn’t know where I was going at the time. By not hearing it and just thinking about my fingerboard and my positionings, it came out quite good. I was delighted."

Alan White joined the band three days before the tour to support the album began. What happened there? 

"It happened quickly. I mean, Aynsley Dunbar was pretty unhappy that I didn’t invite him. We were pally and we’d played together on a few recordings in the studio. I loved his drumming. When it was announced that Alan got the job, Ansley said, 'Why didn’t you give me a call? I would have come down.' But that wouldn’t have made any difference, because Alan was in the circle of people that we knew. 

"He was friendly with Eddy Offord, and he was hanging out in the studio. He may have even jammed on Bill’s drums for a laugh here and there. Basically, we looked around and thought, Oh, Bill wants to leave – Alan’s already here; why not ask him? His reputation was such that we could ask him, and he said yeah." 

How many rehearsals did you have with Alan before the tour? I’m guessing not many. 

[laughs] "Well, I wouldn’t think no more than a couple. I don’t know how it’s possible that he got onstage after having two or three days to learn the album. We did put him through it, you know what I mean? I mean, even though we knew the songs, we hadn’t actually played them live ourselves. 

"It was a remarkable learning curve. How anybody could come in and play Close to the Edge, let alone anything else that takes the highest level of technical and musical skill – it wasn’t an easy gig to step into, but Alan did his best to listen and practice. He tried a bit of this and a bit of that. We asked him to get it right as much as he could. And he did."

Previously, Yes played theaters and big clubs; even on the Fragile tour you played the Whisky in L.A. But you moved to arenas on the Close to the Edge tour. 

"There had been a bit of time when we could tolerate those places – it felt like when I was playing gigs in England in the ’60s. But the Whisky… I’m cautious to say it was an awful place, but in a way it wasn’t really suitable for a band like ours. However, everybody played there, and I think its reputation preceded its reality. 

"It was a place to be seen at – a place to add to the list of venues you’ve played. From the Whisky we made the jump to the Hollywood Bowl. We had played as a support band for several years in America. One night we played with Jethro Tull, the next night it was Grand Funk Railroad, and the night after that it was Mountain. We opened for acts that were on the Premier Talent roster. 

"Actually, the very first gig we did in [North] America was in northern Canada. We had gone to New York and we got scared in our hotel; it was next to a fire station and all hell was breaking out from the noise. Then we went to Edmonton, Canada, for our first show with Jethro Tull. 

"We went onstage and we were like, Oh, yeah, this is what we came for, because there was a captive audience of Jethro Tull fans. Nobody knew us hardly, but we went down really well. They liked us instantly. After that, we were unstoppable."

When you finally hit arenas, did you feel as though you were in your natural element? 

"Yeah, we were ready. By the time Close to the Edge came, we were out there on our own. I think we might have invented 'the evening with' lineup, where we didn’t have an opening act. We were geared up to do a whole show of our own music. We knew our time had come, and it happened, quite remarkably."

In this fascinating interview by Jazz Guitar Today, visionary prog rock guitarist Steve Howe discusses his creative approach to recording the Yes classic “Roundabout.”

The opening track from the band’s double platinum-selling 1971 album Fragile, an edited version of the song was released as a single the following year, peaking at number 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

Virtuosic, expansive and heroically progressive, “Roundabout” coalesced the band’s multifaceted musical mastery into a singular sound that defines the prog rock genre.

Written by Howe and singer Jon Anderson while on the road in Scotland, the guitarist once recollected, “I was big on intros back then, and the classical guitar intro I came up with for ‘Roundabout’ was one of the most signature things.”

Having developed his sound using Gibson electric guitars – an ES-175D on The Yes Album and an ES-5 Switchmaster during the recording of Fragile – Howe’s decision to record acoustic guitar on “Roundabout” was something of a risk, he says.

“I thought, Wow, this is risky,” Howe tells Jazz Guitar Today in the clip below. “I could start to feel that my electric playing had a certain style.

“But never had I stuck my neck out so much as to have [Bill] Bruford, [Chris] Squire, Rick Wakeman, Jon Anderson all playing, and all I'm doing is playing acoustic guitar.”

Using his now famous Martin 00-18 for the first time on a Yes recording, the prog rock innovator laid down his unforgettable acoustic lines.

“It was adventurous, and the risk paid off!” he concludes.

As well as the addition of acoustic guitar to Yes’s sonic palette, the band’s experimental approach involved shifting parts from one instrument to another.

Blending seamlessly with Howe’s fluid lines, some of Wakeman’s organ parts were written on guitar.

“I gave my lines to other people,” he says. “That meant that a song like ‘Roundabout’ was definitely going to stand out. It was not going to go unnoticed with the opportunities we had.”

Elsewhere in this revealing interview clip, Howe highlights the importance of working with Fragile co-producer Eddy Offord in driving the band’s sound forward.

“Him and I were pretty close,” he recalls. “There was a lot of empathy and enjoyment and adventurousness that him and I shared to get the sound.

“When you hear “Roundabout,” that is a band who’ve said, ‘We want to be as tight as Booker T. & the M.G.'s.’ Like, ‘We want to be as tight as James Brown’s band.’

“It’s very, very tight and I’m very proud of it.”

Order Fragile here.

We recently asked some of the guitar world’s best-known players to name their favorite lesser-known guitar solos. Here are Billy Idol guitarist Steve Stevens’ top five choices…

1) George Benson with the Brother Jack McDuff Quartet | 1964 live performance

GUITARIST: George Benson

“Just Google ‘1964 – Brother Jack McDuff Quartet (live video).’ A 21-year-old George Benson playing a Gibson Les Paul has to be seen to be believed. He’s trading solos at breakneck speed. At one turn, George starts imitating a chicken, never forgetting to be entertaining as well as virtuosic.”

2) Yes | “Yours Is No Disgrace” (live) from the ‘Sounding Out’ TV special (1971)

GUITARIST: Steve Howe

“It’s on YouTube. This live version is the best I’ve ever heard. No one was soloing like this in a rock band context in 1971. Blinding alternate picking. It’s as if he were channeling Joe Pass and Chet Atkins.”

3) Guthrie Govan | “Fives” from ‘Erotic Cakes’ (2006)

GUITARIST: Guthrie Govan

“He’s the best guitar soloist I’ve heard in 20 years. Even if this piece didn’t include a solo, I’d put it on this list. It’s a killer composition. Like Eddie Van Halen before him, he’s damn good fun to listen to.”

4) The New Tony Williams Lifetime | “Red Alert” from ‘Believe It’ (1975)

GUITARIST: Allan Holdsworth

“Allan Holdsworth gets such tone. A masterwork in how to build tension and melody to finally stun you with fury and speed. It’s like Coltrane on electric guitar.”

5) Scorpions | “Catch Your Train” from ‘Virgin Killer’ (1976)

GUITARIST: Uli Jon Roth

“Uli Jon Roth is the forerunner to neoclassical metal guitar. Beautifully recorded. The use of reverb to complement the solo is artful in the way it enhances the long, sustained notes.”

Pick up a copy of Billy Idol’s latest release – The Roadside – here.

In 1971, rock and roll guitar was barely in its teens. But, remarkably, what started as R&B- and western-swing-infused three-chord rave-ups had grown to incorporate elements of folk, Chicago blues, modal jazz, Indian classical music and flamenco. The music of the 1960s – especially that of the Beatles – proved that the pop charts could deliver expressive, high-quality artistry that rivaled that produced in jazz clubs and symphonic halls. The music of the time also became the de facto voice of one of the most significant cultural upheavals in American history.

As the new decade dawned, musicians were presented with a blank canvas on which they created what can rightfully be seen as the rock era’s belle époch. Indeed, many famous artists released their defining masterpieces during this fertile 12-month period.

Guitar Player has celebrated the 50th anniversary of this magic year with features on some of the greatest albums from 1971. Now, with it just about over, let’s have one final celebration of the albums, artists and guitarists that made the year so significant.

Power (Chords) to the People

The Who’s 1969 rock opera Tommy was an ambitious project that established them as major players, but it was 1971’s Who’s Next that is often considered their crowning achievement.

Ex. 1 is loosely based on the pugilistic power chords Pete Townshend delivers during epic anthems like “Baba O’Riley” and “Won’t Get Fooled Again.” The consummate rock rhythm player, Townshend didn’t merely “strum.” Rather, he attacked his strings with powerful percussive jabs, pioneering a style that would evolve into punk and metal in the hands of the next generation. When playing this example, try using a short, controlled wrist motion, striking the lowest strings with extra oompf! 

Going for Soul

A 2020 Rolling Stone poll cited Marvin Gaye’s 1971 release What’s Going On as the greatest album of all time, and though polls are subjective and art isn’t easily quantifiable, the album’s merit is unquestionable. Gaye’s emotive vocals and heartfelt lyrics are front and center on this song cycle about a Vietnam vet returning home to find his country in turmoil. However, the unsung heroes of this and many other great Motown releases are the Funk Brothers, a loose collection of studio musicians who played uncredited on dozens of hits.

Ex. 2 recalls guitarist Robert White’s pulsating chord work on the title track, a clever combination of jazz harmony and funk rhythm. To play the percussive “scratch” strums (indicated by Xs), simply loosen your fret-hand’s grip on the neck without taking your fingers off the strings. This will effectively mute the strings, so that, when strummed, they produce the hollow, pitchless “chick” sound that is a signature of funk guitar.

Sticking It to the '70s

The Rolling Stones were indisputably one of the most popular and influential musical acts of the ’60s. As the decade drew to a close, however, dark clouds seemed to be forming on the horizon. The band experienced the death of founding member Brian Jones and watched in horror as the Hells Angels security detail they hired for a 1969 concert at Altamont Speedway murdered one attendee and brutalized several others. 

They also sought to extricate themselves from management and recording contracts. Come 1971, the band returned with their own label, a new iconic tongue-and-lips logo, and arguably their finest record to date, Sticky Fingers.

Around this time, Keith Richards had fully embraced open-G tuning (low to high: D, G, D, G, B, D), and Ex. 3 takes inspiration from his clever riffage and chord voicings on such Stones classics as “Brown Sugar” and “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking.” 

Meeting of the Masters

Miles Davis was a pioneer of multiple styles of jazz, including bebop, cool, hard-bop, and modal jazz, and when he incorporated electronic instruments and rock beats on 1969’s Bitches Brew, jazz-rock fusion was born. 

Two years later, former Davis guitarist John McLaughlin formed the Mahavishnu Orchestra, a quintet that blended jazz harmony and improvisation, Indian classical scales and rock instrumentation into an incendiary mix. Their 1971 debut, The Inner Mounting Flame, was a hit with rock audiences and established them as the premier fusion band of their time.

Ex. 4 is modeled after “Meeting of the Spirits,” a track that begins with McLaughlin’s hauntingly exotic arpeggiated chords before exploding into an impassioned exploration around the Phrygian-dominant mode (1, b2, 3, 4, 5, 6, b7). 

Tapping Into English Moods

Without a doubt, 1971 was a landmark year for progressive rock, a style of music that drew heavily on European classical influences.

Ex. 5 is an homage to guitarist Steve Howe’s use of classical guitar techniques to enliven songs such as “Roundabout” and the solo piece “Mood for a Day” that were featured on Yes’s brilliant album Fragile.

Another significant prog release from 1971 was Genesis’s Nursery Cryme. Although not as well-known as Fragile, the record did herald the debut of Steve Hackett, a guitarist who employed fretboard tapping several years before Eddie Van Halen.

Ex. 6 recalls his approach on “Return of the Giant Hogweed,” but unlike Van Halen, Hackett would tap the strings with the edge of his pick instead of using a fingertip. 

A Case of the Blues

Although often labeled as a folk artist, Joni Mitchell drew inspiration from many sources. Throughout her storied career, the eclectic composer has melded elements of jazz, pop, blues, and electronica in with her songwriting and has collaborated with artists as varied as David Crosby, Charles Mingus and Pat Metheny. 

Mitchell often wrote and performed in a wide variety of open tunings, many of her own design, but for 1971’s Blue, her instrument of choice was often a four-string Appalachian dulcimer.

Because of variances in string thickness, it’s impossible to match the dulcimer’s tuning and timbre on a standard guitar, but for Ex. 7’s approximation of “A Case of You,” we tuned the top two strings down a whole step, to A and D, respectively, and the G string up a whole step to A, resulting in two unison A strings. This makes our tuning, low to high, E, A, D, A, A D.

If you stick to the top four strings, it evokes the droning unisons, octaves and 5ths associated with dulcimer tunings. Perhaps the larger lesson here is inspirational and not technical. Mitchell’s fearless artistic exploration and constant experimentation is a beautiful reminder to step outside of our comfort zones. 

My Back Pages

As 1971 dawned, Led Zeppelin – the supergroup that Jimmy Page had formed in the wake of the Yardbirds’ dissolution – was already in full flight, but it was their fourth album (generally referred to as Led Zeppelin IV, but officially named by the four cryptic symbols that adorned a sticker on the album’s wrapper) that would cement their legacy as the greatest hard rock band of all time.

Ex. 8 is inspired by the outro to “Black Dog” and demonstrates Page’s clever appropriation of country and blues licks to extend rock’s lead vocabulary beyond simple pentatonic scales. Centered on an A dominant-7 tonality, it makes effective use of b3, b5, and b7 color tones (the C, Eb, and G notes, respectively).

For our final example, we’ve chosen to template what is perhaps the most culturally iconic and controversial guitar lick from 1971; Page’s intro to “Stairway to Heaven.” Recent lawsuits have pointed out a similarity to Spirit’s 1969 track “Taurus,” but to our ears, both songs are based on a common musical trope – an A minor chord arpeggio with a bass note that descends down in half steps. Its use in rock music predates Spirit (Google: Ace of Cups “Simplicity” 1968). And, like a 12-bar blues shuffle, it’s arguably fair game when songwriting.

What makes Page’s take on this cliché stand out is his incorporation of contrary motion between the outer voices, with ascending notes on top pitted against descending bass notes. This is a cleverly appealing compositional move, which we’ve also used for Ex. 9.

Although we’ve covered several albums with an enduring legacy, we’ve barely scratched the surface of the major releases that turned 50 this past year. David Bowie’s Hunky Dory, the Allman Brothers’ At Fillmore East, Jethro Tull’s Aqualung, Pink Floyd’s Meddle, the Doors’ L.A. Woman, Funkadelic’s Maggot Brain, Black Sabbath’s Masters of Reality, Elton John’s Madman Across the Water, Janis Joplin’s Pearl, John Lennon’s Imagine, Van Morrison’s Tupelo Honey, George Harrison’s The Concert for Bangladesh, Rod Stewart’s Every Picture Tells a Story, and Sly and the Family Stone’s There’s a Riot Goin’ On are among the many great albums making a compelling case that 1971 was in fact the guitar’s – and modern music’s – greatest year.

You might think that the vast majority of rock riffs are in minor keys, but not so! A close study of the rock and pop guitar repertoire over the decades discloses a multitude of major tonality-based riffs.

The major scale and its close relative, the Lydian mode, are terrific sources for creating captivating and mostly bright-sounding riffs that can evoke all sorts of emotions, ranging from love, elation and triumph to mystery and even melancholy.

In this lesson, we’ll explore, arrange and deconstruct various riffs based on both the major scale and the Lydian mode.

Ionian (Major-Scale) Riffs

Throughout this lesson, the major scale will be referenced by its modal name, Ionian. As such, the C major scale (C D E F G A B) can also be called the C Ionian mode.

1950s – ‘70s

First up is a rollicking riff inspired by “La Bamba,” the smash hit by 1950s rock and roll star Ritchie Valens (Ex. 1).

The riff is based on the chord tones of the I-IV-V progression (C-F-G7) and hits every note of C Ionian. An early example of a bona fide guitar riff, it undoubtedly influenced future guitarists and riff writers. You’ll hear echoes of the original in later hits such as Roy Orbison’s “Pretty Woman.”

Ex. 2 is based on “Funk Brother” Robert White’s iconic intro to the Temptations’ classic Motown hit “My Girl.” Also in C Ionian, the melody cruises along the structure of the C-to-F chord cycle courtesy of C major pentatonic (C D E G A) and F major pentatonic (F G A C D) phrases. (Both of these five-note scales are diatonic to C Ionian, containing common notes.)

In this example, the major seventh, B, is thrown in to sweeten the pot. To achieve the desired tone, pick the strings with your thumb, using a strong attack.

Ex. 3 demonstrates how the sweet R&B stylings of the 1950s and early ’60s were transformed in classic rock. Equal parts Jimi Hendrix (“Angel,” “May This Be Love” and “The Wind Cries Mary”) and the Beatles (“Sun King” and “Don’t Let Me Down”), this riff in E Ionian (E F# G# A B C# D#) is fortified with sliding-fourths intervals and hammer/pull dyads that are scattered across the fretboard. This style, which pays homage to R&B pioneers like Curtis Mayfield, Cornell Dupree and others, is challenging to master.

Although it’s not generally recognized as a guitar riff per se (multiple instruments double the line on the original recording), the intro to Brian Wilson’s “California Girls” – a 1965 hit for the Beach Boys – signifies a shining moment in the ’60s Ionian repertoire. The offset rhythm of the melodic passage alone is worth the price of admission. Cast from B Ionian (B C# D# E F# G# A# ), Ex. 4 is a subtle reimagining of this classic riff, embellished with a bluesy half-step bend.

Jumping ahead to the ’70s, Ex. 5 is a twangy, folk-rock riff inspired by Mike Campbell’s 12-string rhythm work in “Listen to Her Heart” by Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers. Drawing from the groundbreaking 12-string riffs of the ’60s as crafted by such players as the Byrds’ Roger McGuinn and the Beatles’ George Harrison, it’s primarily chordal, outlining A, Asus4 and Asus2, all of which live within the A Ionian mode (A B C# E D E F# G#). It kicks up a notch in bar 2 with a driving single-note bass line played on the A string.

Ex. 6 epitomizes Eric Clapton’s mid-1970s blues guitar pop stylings. G Ionian (G A B C D E F#) by nature, it’s an amalgamation of his main riff lines in “Wonderful Tonight.” Voiced high on the neck for ease of bending (Clapton played most of the riff in seventh position), the melody avoids the major seventh degree (F#), relying chiefly on G major pentatonic note choices (G A B D E), with an added C note in the conclusion of the phrase.

Paul McCartney and Wings’ smash 1974 hit “Band on the Run” may hold the record for the longest guitar introduction comprised entirely of fourths dyads. (Nile Rodgers’ riff that kicks off David Bowie’s “China Girl” would come in a close second.) Ex. 7 serves up a slice of the aforementioned iconic intro, then caps it off with a pair of inverted Em and F# m triads.

Let’s close out our ’70s segment with a riff so infectious, the composer felt the need to transpose it to five different keys over the course of the arrangement! We’re talking about John “Cougar” Mellencamp’s late-’70s hit, “I Need a Lover.” Ex. 8 offers a variation on the riff in an E Ionian setting. As a musical exercise, you may want to try your hand at transposing the phrase to other keys. Staying true to the original song, try to hit the keys of A, Bb, B and F#.

1980s and Beyond

The dawn of the 1980s ushered in the era of MTV and jangly-riff songs built around open chords. Cashing in big time on both trends, the unstoppable Rolling Stones hit the decade running with “Waiting on a Friend.”

Not only does the main riff jangle in a way similar to Ex. 9, the song also produced one of the most popular MTV videos of that time period. Be sure to throw on a chorus pedal or a touch of light flanging to up the sparkle factor on this C Lydian riff.

Journey are another group that benefited in a big way from the onslaught of the fledgling MTV network. Ex. 10 blends elements from two of the group’s most popular major-mode-based songs, “Any Way You Want It” and “Don’t Stop Believin’,” into an E Ionian single-note riff enhanced with bold finger vibrato (a signature element of lead guitarist Neal Schon’s style) and chords.

You probably wouldn’t associate AC/ DC with the Ionian mode, yet there it is, firmly ensconced in the chord/melody-style intro to “You Shook Me All Night Long.” Granted, Angus Young throws in a couple of chromatic passing tones, but he makes liberal use of the G Ionian mode, including the major seventh. Ex. 11 reimagines the original riff in the key of A Ionian, mainly so that the open A string can fortify the key center. Keep your index finger barred across the top four strings throughout the entire passage.

Few guitarists, or musicians for that matter, have as sensitive a touch as Jeff Beck, who is revered for his ability to interpret a melody in a variety of emotive ways. The intro to his 1985 hit cover of Curtis Mayfield’s “People Get Ready” (originally recorded by the Impressions in 1965) exposes the fingerstyle electric guitarist’s uncanny chord-melody instincts. His lead fills that complement Rod Stewart’s vocal phrases throughout the song are downright stunning, but the intro riff is a definite standout.

Ex. 12 offers a similarly styled phrase based on the D Ionian mode (D E F# G A B C#) and meant to be performed fingerstyle, much as one would on a classical acoustic guitar. Play this passage with a lot of expression and dynamics.

Ex. 13 is a lovely acoustic example that springs from another rather unexpected source, namely Zakk Wylde. Inspired by the burly guitarist’s cascading intro riff to Ozzy Ozbourne’s 1992 hit single “Mama, I’m Coming Home,” it’s an E Ionian–based melody that similarly descends the G string and is interwoven with open B and high E notes. The original figure walks straight down the scale, but this derivative phrase mixes in a dash of George Harrison’s down-up-down melodic contour from the early Beatles hit “Please Please Me.”

Texas-born guitar virtuoso Eric Johnson has been at the forefront of modern high-tech electric guitar for the past three decades. Ex. 14 pays tribute to the Lone-Star Tone Czar with an arpeggio-laced example crafted from C Ionian. You’ll hear Johnson play similarly styled lines in his Ionian-based tour de force, “Cliffs of Dover.”

Lydian Riffs

Everyone knows what it feels like when they don’t get enough sleep the night before. Things seem just a little bit “off.” In a way, that’s what the Lydian mode is like when compared to Ionian. While the two scales are almost identical in structure, Lydian has a raised fourth degree (C Ionian: C D E F G A B; C Lydian: C D E F# G A B).

Subtle but significant, the raised fourth degree gives the Lydian mode a dreamlike, mysterious and wistful quality. Perhaps that’s why many film score composers use it in scenes of childhood innocence, dream sequences and reflection. (Check out the soundtrack to the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird.)

Let’s now explore some guitar riffs and musical passages that employ this emotion-evoking mode.

Based on the A Lydian mode (A B C# D# E F# G#), Ex. 15 illustrates a common occurrence in Lydian progressions – the establishment of a I major chord (in this case, A) coupled with a II major (B) and often fueled with a droning tonic pedal tone, in this case provided by the open fifth string. Essentially a loose composite of Mike Campbell and Tom Petty’s guitar figures in “Here Comes My Girl,” the passage casts an anticipatory mood, as they did in support of Petty’s spoken verses.

Ex. 16 is inspired by Fleetwood Mac guitarist Lindsey Buckingham’s acoustic intro to Stevie Nick’s song “Sara.” Harmonized from E Lydian (E F# G# A# B C# D#), it’s also set against a tonic drone (in this case, the open low E string) and is driven by a I-II (E-F#) chord sequence. Also included is an arpeggiated G# m chord (G# -B-D#), which is the iii chord in E Lydian. Notice how the passage evokes a wistful, melancholy mood that befits the lyrics of the song itself.

Ex. 17 brings to mind the rhythm riffs in Joe Satriani’s Lydian showcase, “Flying in a Blue Dream.” (Satch had employed an alternate tuning on the original recording, while this example is presented in standard tuning.) The first two bars are in F Lydian (F G A B C D E). The Fsus2(add#11) chord suggests a partial G triad over an F bass note that gives way to an F major chord, thus establishing the toggling I-II chord sequence (albeit backward this time) that we’ve discussed.

Bars 3 and 4 modulate directly to C Lydian, where once again the chords suggest a I-II trade-off, here in the new key. In Satriani’s original composition, the creative guitarist improvises corresponding Lydian melodies over each new set of chord changes: C Lydian over the C chord types, F Lydian over the F chords, Ab Lydian over the Ab chords and G Lydian over the G chords.

Ex. 18 is inspired by one of several Lydian passages in Journey’s arena rocker “Escape.” Based on A Lydian, it also features a driving tonic pedal tone that reinforces the ubiquitous I-II chord sequence (A-B). This example also includes a V-chord triad (E is the V chord in A Lydian). Strive to “wiggle” the marked triads with aggressive finger vibrato. Don’t be afraid to shake the guitar neck.

The octave-doubled melody line in Ex. 19 recalls the distinct E Lydian-based interlude in the Who’s “Who Are You.” Be careful to mute the unused string that lies between the two notes of each fretted octave. This is effectively accomplished by using the fleshy underside of your fret-hand index finger to mute the B string in the first four shapes and the G string on the remaining ones.

Based on A Lydian, Ex. 20 is inspired by Joe Walsh’s hypnotic intro to “Theme from Boat Weirdos,” an instrumental track from his 1978 hit album, But Seriously, Folks… Walsh is a master of crafty guitar figures, wherein the use of strategically placed open strings facilitates the performance of unusual chord voicings that would otherwise be unplayable using fretted notes alone. The picking pattern is the key to unlocking the melodic puzzle here and offers a creative springboard for devising similarly styled creations of your own.

Ex. 21 is the shortest and perhaps most straight-ahead offering in this lesson so far. An endlessly cycled riff cast from C Lydian, it brings to mind XTC’s 1989 hit single “Mayor of Simpleton.” The riff’s quirky charm is mainly due to the ringing open-G string, a technique used to great effect in Blue Öyster Cult’s similarly styled minor-key riff for “(Don’t Fear) the Reaper.”

Ex. 22 is also in C Lydian and is a rearrangement of the intro and outro passages of Christopher Cross’s yacht-rock smash hit, “Sailing.” Cross had employed an alternate tuning for that song, which is in the key of D, but this arrangement and new key make for similarly haunting riff that’s playable in standard tuning.

Ex. 23 is in the style of Police guitarist Andy Summers. Essentially a composite of the bubbling piano and synthesizer parts heard on the verses of “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” (which cycles around the G Lydian mode: G A B C# D E F#), it’s highly representative of the unique parts that the ground-breaking guitarist played during his tenure in the iconic band.

Ex. 24 heralds the Lydian mode’s “Big ’80s!” style. Inspired by the way-huge synth intro to Tears for Fears’ “Head Over Heels,” it drops straight down the C Lydian mode in bars 1 and 2. Bars 3 and 4 are inspired by the “answering” guitar line heard on the original recording.

Our final example, Ex. 25, is a fun mash-up that’s equal parts Jimmy Page (inspired by his playing on “Over the Hills and Far Away” and “Dancing Days”) and Steve Howe (recalling his solo break in “Sound Chaser”). An open-position, G-Lydian extravaganza, it makes good use of the technique of using single and double hammer-ons and pull-offs in various combinations with open strings, something for which innovative and exciting guitarists are known.

The ES-175D is not a conventional rock guitar, but then Steve Howe is far from a conventional rock guitarist. Long synonymous with the classic Gibson archtop Howe bought his first 175 many moons ago. And though he prefers not to travel with it these days, this electric guitar remains his main squeeze. In fact, he recently recorded a bulk of the new Yes album ­– The Quest – with it.

Gibsons weren’t easy to come by in England in 1964, when you acquired your first ES-175. How did you get it?

It had to be ordered. I went to Selmer on Charing Cross Road and said, “I want a 175,” and they went, “Well, we haven’t got any of those.” But they said not to worry, as they could get me one as long as I ordered it. They ordered it, and two months later I went and picked it up.

One of the guitarists that I admired at the time was Kenny Burrell. I got back home, plugged it into a Fender Tremolux and played “Chitlins Con Carne,” or something, and…that’s Kenny Burrell! That’s his sound. He did play a 175, but his main guitar was a Super 400.

How do you tame the 175 onstage?

It might be just about where you set your bass level on your amp. If you’ve got that too high, this guitar is going to give you all the trouble it’s known for.

Have you ever had it refretted?

Once. Tim Stark from Mansons Guitars, Exeter, was the only person ever allowed to do anything of that nature. People used to be amazed that I’d gone about 40 years on this guitar and it hadn’t been refretted. I got used to the flat frets. In fact, they were marvelous, but there were a few little problems. The 14th fret on the G got very buzzy.

Tim said, “Well, look, I know you don’t want to have it refretted, but it’s the only way.” I’ve always been very possessive of this guitar. I used to do my own guitars, right through the ’70s. I’d restring and tune them. I’d have 10 guitars and I’d do that every day. I wouldn’t restring all of them, but the 175 was always restrung, every day. So, basically, I was a bit of a lunatic! But if you love something, you should nurture it.

The pandemic may have put the kibosh on many things as far as being a guitarist goes but it hasn’t stopped Steve Howe from writing, producing and recording another Yes album. 

Despite the various challenges faced by musicians in recent times Howe managed to push the project forward with recording sessions taking place both in the US and the UK. Subsequently, the new studio album by Yes – The Quest – is due out on October 1.

Earlier on, we caught up with the prog rock legend to talk music making. Here are his top six tips on how to stay creative…

1. Lifestyle

There is a quagmire of things that can affect how you’re going to be creative. Nobody can tell you exactly how much creativity will be affected by things like what you eat; what you drink; what you smoke; how long you sleep for; what your relationships are like; and how much money you have or haven’t got. So, you’ve really got to make the right choices for yourself.

2. Listen to More Music

Have you listened to as broad a cross section of music as you want to? Are you yet to listen to things you’d like to hear? My advice is keep being inquisitive. For me, [listening to] music is just part of the artistic side of life.

3. Be Ready

Don’t expect anything but be ready when something comes. That’s why I always use digital voice recorders. You don’t have to do anything elaborate – you just turn it on when you think of something nice. Whether it be a simple chord change or rhythm, just record it.

4. Revisit Your Ideas

Store your ideas, go back to them, and find out where they fit. You’ve got to imagine that anything is possible. You might find that what you did today works with something you do tomorrow. Maybe all you need is a key change to make something fit together. Find out how to manipulate your music in the best way you can.

5. Work with Other People

You might think you’re the greatest guitarist, writer, or producer in the world, but you’ve got to work with other people to find out whether that’s true or not. Test yourself. Get out and about. Don’t always try and make your life easy.

6. Look After Your Guitar

Once you’ve got an instrument, look after it. The worst thing is to let an instrument corrode, erode, and be out of sorts, rattling and buzzing all over the place. I need my guitars to play almost perfectly – as well set up as can be.

Pre-order The Quest by Yes here.

Earlier this month, progressive rock titans Yes announced The Quest, their first album of new material since 2014's Heaven & Earth, and their first to not feature co-founding bassist Chris Squire, who died in 2015.

Now, the group – currently comprised of guitarist Steve Howe, drummer Alan White, keyboardist Geoff Downes, vocalist Jon Davison, and bassist Billy Sherwood – have premiered The Quest's first single, a seven-minute epic about climate change titled “The Ice Bridge.”

You can give the tune a spin below.

“‘The Ice Bridge’ opens the album in the dark and moody key of C minor, aided by the orchestra," Howe said of the song in a press release. "The rolling bass part kicks things into gear as the vocals and guitars start a winding journey through the various structures till the breakdown happens, where ice breaking is heard.”

Set for an October 1 release via InsideOut/Sony, The Quest was produced by Steve Howe, and can be preordered here. It features 11 songs in total – 8 on the main album with 3 extra tracks on a bonus CD – and will be available physically on vinyl and 5.1 Blu-ray and CD deluxe editions. 

You can check out the album's track list and cover art below.

Yes – The Quest:

CD1:

1. The Ice Bridge
2. Dare To Know
3. Minus The Man
4. Leave Well Alone
5. The Western Edge
6. Future Memories
7. Music To My Ears
8. A Living Island 

CD2:

1. Sister Sleeping Soul
2. Mystery Tour
3. Damaged World 

Steve Howe has no idea where the term progressive rock came from, but he makes one thing clear: It certainly didn’t start with him. “I never called us ‘progressive rock’ or ‘prog-rock,’” he says. “As I recall, when I first joined Yes, we all used to call our music different things. 

"There was ‘orchestral rock’ and ‘cinemagraphic rock.’ We never argued about it, but there were a lot of names and terms being tossed about.” So what term did he use to describe Yes’s music? 

Howe laughs. “I often called it ‘soft rock,’” he says. “I thought what I wrote was a sort of soft rock, but the phrase didn’t catch on, at least not with what we were doing. But progressive rock? Where that got started, I don’t know. I think it might have come after the fact.”  

Howe had already achieved a fair amount of notoriety as a guitarist by the time he joined Yes in 1970. Beginning his career in 1964 at age 17 with the London-based R&B group the Syndicats, he then joined the soul-and-covers band the In-Crowd, which soon transformed into a psychedelic outfit called Tomorrow. 

After Tomorrow broke up in 1967, he played on a few sessions and recorded a couple of tracks with a pre-Faces Ronnie Wood before hooking up briefly with a rock trio called Bodast. 

When that band’s record deal fell through, Howe plotted his next moves. He auditioned with Keith Emerson’s band the Nice but didn’t think they were the right fit for one another.

He bailed on a try-out for Jethro Tull when he discovered they weren’t open to his songwriting. And an audition with the Atomic Rooster (which featured Emerson’s future bandmate Carl Palmer on drums) didn’t result in a love match. “I had done my share of playing around and had gained a lot of experience,” he says, “but I was looking for the right kind of band that allowed me to do whatever the hell I wanted.”

What Howe was looking for was a musical outlet for his burgeoning interest in songwriting, but also one in which he could apply all the facets of his guitar-playing vocabulary, which by now included jazz, rock, classical, and flamenco. And such a situation opened up when Yes founding guitarist Peter Banks left the band in April 1970.

Joining Yes – which then included singer Jon Anderson, bassist Chris Squire, drummer Bill Bruford, and keyboardist Tony Kaye – gave Howe the perfect opportunity to spread his creative wings.

“I was ready for it,” he says. “Right away, I could feel that this was a band that was head and shoulders with me, and vice versa. I had been in bands that were pretty good, but suddenly I was with people who were world-class. I admired each member for his particular talent. 

“I thought this was like an orchestrated band. We were going to write parts; we were going to write songs with great lyrics and music that really went somewhere. We were going to throw this whole thing out to the world. That was the plan.”

By then, Yes had released two admirable but rather disjointed albums – their eponymous 1969 debut and 1970’s Time and a Word – that failed to chart in the U.S. and barely made a dent in their homeland.

Howe’s transcendent skills as a player and songwriter ignited a creative fire in the group, and they kicked off 1971 in grand style, starting with The Yes Album. The group dispensed with the reworkings of cover tunes that had bogged down their earlier efforts and focused on original material that allowed them to carve out a new identity.

The album was brimming with expansive, energetic, and hook-filled rockers like “Yours Is No Disgrace,” “Starship Trooper,” and “I’ve Seen All Good People,” each of which made full use of Howe’s wide-ranging repertoire of guitar styles. The Yes Album turned the heads of critics and record buyers alike, hitting number four in the U.K. and cracking the U.S. Top 40.

By the end of 1971, Yes were firing on all cylinders and they delivered the second half of their one-two punch with Fragile. A superlative sustained musical statement, it saw the band framing Anderson’s fanciful, sci-fi-laced themes with wildly inventive and hyper-aggressive arrangements.

Egged on by the turbocharged rhythm section of Bruford and Squire, Howe and the group’s wily new keyboard whiz, Rick Wakeman (who replaced Kaye just prior to the album’s sessions), engaged in electric games of one-upmanship that revealed how they were actually two sides of the same creative mind.

It didn’t hurt that Yes were sitting on a sublime collection of melodic gems – most notably “Roundabout” and “Long Distance Runaround” – that hit radio playlists with deadly aim. Within months of its release, Fragile became the breakthrough the band had long sought, reaching Number Seven in the U.K. and going to Number Two in the U.S.

But success wasn’t without its compromises. Howe recalls how, after the band delivered Fragile to its U.S. label, Atlantic Records, and laid down the edict to promote it at all costs, the radio department responded with a three-and-a-half-minute single edit of the nearly eight-and-a-half-minute album version of “Roundabout.”

“We did react with some horror to that at first,” he says. “But on the other hand, we were sensible enough to realize that it was simply an advert to an almost 10-minute song that wasn’t going to be played on every station. There’s always a rub.”

On their own, both The Yes Album and Fragile were enough to signify that a radical shift was afoot in some quarters of British rock. Combined with the efforts of contemporaries like King Crimson and ELP, they helped shape a movement. 

Asked if he has a strong preference between the two albums, Howe hesitates. “That’s a tricky one,” he says. “I mean, they’re such different records.” But after a second, he offers his definitive assessment: “I think Fragile is the one where we sounded like us. It’s sort of like Wes Montgomery – he made a few records and then suddenly he sounded like Wes Montgomery. 

“For me, Yes were pretty good on The Yes Album; we had a quirky sound. But I think the production, the ideas, and the tightness were exceedingly good on Fragile. It’s a lovely album to listen to because it’s a real recording. The whole band had a chance to do their own thing on it.”

Before joining Yes, you were sniffing around other bands. What made Yes appealing to you over other groups?

Well, they were pretty intelligent and clever people. They laughed a lot. There was a good time to be had. I don’t think you can dismiss the value of human communication and respect. So that made the enterprise very desirable to me and made me think, I should really get behind this. 

I listened to the way Bill Bruford played drums – he could do jazz and rock, and really weird-out. I used to love it when he’d say, “Tonight I’m going to play all my drum breaks differently.” Although sometimes I didn’t. I’d be like, “No, Bill, please don’t.” And he’d say, “No, I’m going to.” And he did. [laughs] That’s the kind of band Yes were.

Did you audition for Yes, or did they take you sight unseen? 

Oh, no. They definitely auditioned me. Chris called me and said that he and Jon had seen me play, and they said I was pretty good. They asked me if I wanted to get together and play, and I said sure. I took a bus to Putney, where the manager lived, and they were set up in the basement. 

It was just like any other audition, really. I plugged in and we started playing, and I thought, These guys are good. I guess they thought the same of me. We played a bit and they saw I could do stuff – I could improvise. I thought, Yeah, take me. There was a fair bit of enthusiasm in the room. Bill had reservations because he thought I was too much of a hippie. I loved that. [laughs]

Did the fact that you could sing also work in your favor?

It didn’t really. I was just playing guitar at the time, but Yes did give me the platform to sing with Chris. I would often sing the third parts – the low parts. I learned very quickly that I could sing, which was incredible. 

All the big bands had lots of singers: The Beach Boys, the Beatles. Everybody sang. You had to. So although I hadn’t really engaged with it in the ’60s, I was certainly interested in doing it with Yes, and it became a full-on commitment.

Before you joined, Yes did a fair amount of cover tunes on their records. That stopped with The Yes Album. 

It did. I would like to take credit for it, but I think the band were headed that way anyway. At one point, I think I said, “I don’t know about playing cover tunes,” and they said, “Don’t worry. We’re not planning on that.” They had done it already. 

I had just come out of bands that wrote their own material, so my way of thinking was, Okay, let’s write! The other thing I liked about singing was it allowed me to present songs to people. I could sing to somebody and say, “This is the song.”

You played a bunch of live shows with the band before recording The Yes Album. Did it take a while for you to get used to large rooms? 

Not particularly. I’ve been playing onstage since I was 15. I joined the In-Crowd in the ’60s and they had a hit record, so I was used to playing all sorts of places with girls screaming at us, which was ridiculous. We kept at it a while – played big shows with Jimi Hendrix and all that. Playing with Yes was very inspiring musically right away. We came across well. I’d say we knocked some people out.

Producer Eddy Offord became the progressive producer du jour, dividing his time between Yes and ELP. What was he like to work with? 

Oh, he was terrific. On those first three albums I did with him, it was all plus, plus, plus. He had a bit of a bossy side, but he knew stuff. He knew which knob to turn to make you sound awesome. That’s a big part of producing, isn’t it? He was great on tape machines. I learned a lot from him. He was totally on it.

You guys and ELP also shared the same recording spot, Advision Studios. Was it a comfortable place to work? 

Yeah, but it was very simple. It was in the West End of London, like a few other great studios. You went in, and there was a studio downstairs – that’s where we mixed things like Yessongs. But the main studio was a great room at the time. Eddy liked to work there, and the place had a bunch of people who were very nice. 

It was a kind of trendy studio. It wasn’t popular in the kind of EMI sense, but there were certain people who liked it. You were kind of isolated in Advision. You’d go to other studios and there’d be people milling about; it was hard to concentrate with all that going on. At Advision, you could focus on what you were doing. 

This was especially important on The Yes Album because it wasn’t recorded in any sort of block. We didn’t do three straight weeks of sessions. It was recorded in small chunks of time. Three hours here, half a day there. Sometimes we got a whole day. 

We’d have to go back to the studio and set everything up again, and then we’d go off and do some shows. In a sense, it was beneficial as we were a new band in a way. It was certainly a new band for me. We were learning how to write and make records of our own material.

Your solo guitar track “Clap” was recorded live at the Lyceum Theatre in London. Did you have that song already written and in your back pocket before joining Yes? 

Well, yes. I actually wrote it on the 4th of August, 1969, on the night that my first son was born. So he was born, and six months later I’m starting to get to know who Yes are – I knew I was going to play with them. So we were writing The Yes Album, and it was one night in this old farmhouse and I said to them – or maybe it was Bill Bruford – I said, “I’ve got this guitar solo. What do you think?” 

I played it to him, and he said, “That’s terrific. Let’s stick it on the album.” And then they all said, “Let’s stick it on the album.” And I went, “Okay, that’s nice.” I was very impressed that I got the opening to do that, and I forever thank them for that. But, of course, Jon said on the recording, “Steve’s gonna play a tune called ‘The Clap.’” And it became “The Clap,” even on the record at first, and that was a mistake.

I wasn’t really conscious of its meaning at first, and then I discovered that it had this wrong connotation. I was like, “Hang on here!” Eventually, I got Warner Brothers to officially change it to “Clap,” but it was too late. It had already gotten out there.

But that piece is the quintessential coming together of all my love for Chet Atkins. There was basically him and Merle Travis, along with other great guitarists who inspired me along the way. But Chet was the biggest influence on me. I just wrote that out of admiration for him, really. The opportunity came along where I could write that as my first-ever solo guitar instrumental, and it’s a pretty hard one to beat.

You used backward flanging on the “Wurm” electric outro section in “Starship Trooper.” Was that kind of studio trickery new to you at the time, or had you already been experimenting with effects? 

It was sort of new. We recorded my guitars completely clean through a [Fender] Dual Showman. It was just a plain-old clean sound, but we’d planned on using some of the effects that were coming out. There was the Eventide and the Bell flangers. I don’t think we had an Eventide yet, so we used the Bell. 

That was an English flanger, and it got a great sound. It was fun to play with that. So we recorded the “Wurm” bit, ran it down clean, and then Eddy and I got down to things. Sometimes we were the first and last people in the studio, mucking about with things. We got a nice sound on that. It sweeps you away.

Your solo in “I’ve Seen All Good People” is beautifully composed. Are there any parts to it that were improvised? 

Well, to an extent, some of my classic solos are actually a combination of different riffs I’d been playing. On that solo, a few bars into it, there’s an unusual use of chromatics, where it goes up but then goes down to a lower string and goes up again; and then it goes down to a lower string and goes up again. 

Those were things I just had lying around, so basically that was my approach at the beginning. That arrangement, the way I had Chris and Bill kind of punctuating and signposting everything in the solo – it worked out well. I love that solo to bits. I often try and play it note for note, but I can’t always match it 100 percent. It’s sort of a blueprint.

Your Gibson ES-175D was the bedrock of your sound. Did people think that was a strange guitar for a rock player at the time? You were about the only guy playing one outside of jazz. 

A lot of people looked at me as if I were weird for playing a full-body jazz guitar, but I’d seen guitarists I’d quite admired play it. Judd Proctor – he was one of these professional players you’d see backing people up. I saw him with a 175 on TV, and I thought, Oh, my God! That’s what I want. I picked up a Gibson catalog and decided the 175 was the guitar for me. 

I wasn’t going to get an L-5. Too expensive. Didn’t want a Les Paul. But it almost went wrong. I had unwisely been drinking beer while playing the 175, and I dropped it, slightly damaging the input jack. I took it to the shop to have it repaired, and while I was there I saw a sunburst Les Paul Standard. 

I thought, I don’t know… It looks kind of cool. I took it home, played it, and I thought, Wow, that’s it with the 175. I’m gonna get one of these! A week later, I went back to the shop, and the 175 came out from the back. I opened up the case and took a look at it and thought, I was wrong. I’m not gonna compromise. So it was back to the 175. It’s always been a great guitar.

You guys did a pretty extensive North American tour for The Yes Album. You even played the Whisky A Go Go in L.A. It’s hard to picture Yes playing there. 

It is hard, isn’t it? I remember my crew guy fell asleep in this little cubbyhole by me while we were playing. He had obviously been up all night doing something he shouldn’t have. It’s funny. We were adaptable to places like the Whisky. We could streamline. 

Moving our gear around could be a chore. Somehow we managed to get these Dual Showman amps up escalators in airports and onto planes. The West Coast was a pretty big deal for us. We’d been to the East Coast. We’d seen downtown New York and had been on some of the streets. L.A. seemed like a paradise. After a while, it was someplace to look forward to – the beach and all that.

Right at the end of that tour, Tony Kaye left the band and Rick Wakeman joined. 

That’s right. It’s always the same in Yes – necessity comes along. Tony’s reluctance to be flamboyant on multi-keyboards was really apparent, and he wasn’t going to budge from being who he was. It’s how he played, and he wasn’t comfortable with so much gear. But we were already thinking about that stuff, so that was part of it. 

It’s a shame that Tony didn’t stay with us and develop his thing like Rick was able to. We’d seen Rick play with the Strawbs, and we thought he was great. He had a funny way of joining, though. He wasn’t always in attendance at our recording sessions for Fragile. 

He was a busy session guy, so he’d pop in and say, “I’m free at three tomorrow.” And we’d be like, “Oh, okay. Drop in then. Do that.” Which basically allowed the rest of us to get tracks sorted, so he’d come in and play on them. We didn’t mind. 

There were some tracks we needed Rick for because we had to sort out the guide parts of the keyboard, so all the members had to be present; and sometimes four were enough.

There were tracks that had parts where I wasn’t playing, like on “South Side of the Sky,” so I could sit there and go, “Oh, yeah. That sounds nice.” There was a good sense of teamwork. 

Fragile was recorded more as a piece of production as opposed to a band going in and playing live. We constructed tempo, drum parts, guitar, keyboard – how many of these, when the verse came, when the chorus came, when this happened. It was a beautiful thing. We benefited from having that production mindset at that point.

When Rick joined, did he mention that he was going to wear capes onstage? 

[laughs] No! No, he left that bit out. But that’s what was great about Yes – you could wear whatever the hell you liked. You had to look fairly smart and presentable, like you’d made an effort. A lot of things got played out, and then we were onto the next thing. On Relayer, when Rick wasn’t there, I had a cape, but it was a really short one. 

We did dress up a little bit. Chris made a lot of effort. He had some boots that we used to call the “poodle boots.” They would come up right above his knee. He was a big, tall, slim guy, and he’d hoof around very agilely most of the time. It was fun. I’ve always felt that getting dressed for the stage was an important thing. I never went on in the same clothes I wore all day.

On “Roundabout,” did you have the acoustic intro written when you came up with the main riff? 

Yeah, that came along with what Jon and I wrote together. It was something that was there, because it led into the verse structure, and almost the chorus structure too. The chorus is really like a major version of the minor verses.

I’d always had a thing about intros. I guess I’d played a lot of them in the past, and now I’m quite fanatical about intros and endings. It’s like, if the song doesn’t start out like something, then it’s not going to go very far, is it? 

The intro to “Roundabout” is a classic. It’s got three different ideas going, so I quite like it. Fragile was that kind of album. It wasn’t like a live record where we went in and played and people strummed. All of a sudden, we didn’t like strumming. It was like, “Why has anybody got to strum? Play notes! Play a part, a riff. Play a line, play a theme. Do anything but strum.” 

I just loathed the idea that Yes would have too many songs we just strummed on. Of course, there were songs we did that, but they were done in a certain texture, where it wasn’t just a cop-out for not thinking of something better to play.

Was “Roundabout” a particularly tough track to get right? 

We spent a lot of time on it. We did everything in a lot of sections. We’d choose from different takes. We’d have half a song done, then we’d play back the second half and take over. That could be a risky thing, but Eddy was into it. There was a lot of editing, but it was all quite exciting.

How composed was the guitar solo? 

On certain lines, there was some improv, but some of those main lines were already there. You’ve got to have them thought out to give the solo value. And Rick and I doubled on them, of course. We both had spots where we could rock it up or jam it out, whatever it was. 

There were takes where I put my head in and improvised, but certainly there was a degree of things that I played often, where I kind of pulled off on the G string. That was a simple thing I used in different places.

For the acoustic parts, you used a Martin 00-18, is that right? 

That’s right – the first one I’d bought. It’s from 1953, and I’d bought it in 1968. I’d seen Paul Simon with a guitar. I’m not sure what it was, but I thought it was a 00-18. I wanted a Martin, and the minute I got in a shop and played it, I realized that the fingerboard was everything I was looking for. 

Not only that, but the sound was just perfect. Strangely enough, we tried it in the studio and it sounded too dead, so I got it in a corridor outside the studio, set the mics up, and it sounded great. We liked to do stuff like that. “And You and I” was recorded in a booth. I played Chris’s 12-string Guild acoustic.

“Roundabout” became a massive hit. When you were listening back to it, did you think you had something really special? 

Well, I mean, we weren’t really making hits. What we were making was high-class new music. We didn’t know you could chop down 10 minutes and have a hit, and we didn’t want to do that. We didn’t dirty our hands with that idea. 

When we finished The Yes Album and I listened to it, I didn’t really know how we’d go over, whether we were too quirky and British nerdy. But when we finished Fragile, I went, “Oh, my God. This is fantastic. I’ve always wanted to be in a band that sounded like this.”

“Long Distance Runaround” has many cool guitar parts. But how did the heavily delayed bits you play at the end come about? 

Do you mean when the band stops and I play?

Yes, that part.

That was done with some sort of Echoplex. I wouldn’t think it was a [Watkins] Copicat by then. I always had delays around; I had a few of them. You had to really play with the delay. You had to be able to hear the delays to make it worthwhile. 

I think I’m fairly uncomfortable with that little bit, actually. It was a great opportunity, but I would definitely learn how to do it better now. That was a real opportunity to do a kind of crossfade between that and “The Fish.”

You have another solo-guitar spot on the record, “Mood for a Day.” What absolutely gorgeous flamenco playing!

Thanks for saying that. I’ve played the song many times since recording it, and I think I was pretty heavy handed back then. I don’t mean reckless, but more heavy going.

That did give it a really strong flamenco feel, which I don’t relate to now. I think guitar should sound beautiful. Period. As far as “Mood for a Day,” the way I play it – or learned to play it – over the last 25 years is far superior to what I recorded.

Did you use your ES-175 on most of Fragile? 

Not mainly – only on “Heart of the Sunrise.” On the rest of the album, it’s a Gibson ES-5 Switchmaster. I played that on “Roundabout,” “South Side of the Sky,” and “Long Distance Runaround.” I think it’s on “Five Per Cent for Nothing.” 

The Switchmaster was an even bigger jazz guitar than the 175, and I was quite high on it at the time. But it didn’t work for “Heart of the Sunrise,” so I was back on the 175. My amp was still the same, as far as I remember – the Dual Showman.

When the album was released, it seemed as if everything lined up for you guys – radio play, record sales, sold-out shows. How different was the reality of success versus what you had imagined it would be? 

I’d describe it as two sides of a door. On one side I had my private life, which at that point hadn’t changed a great deal. I didn’t have a car, didn’t own a house. I was just getting by, paying the bills and living. But it was all rather beautiful, really. But on the other side of the door, there was enormous success, where everybody’s like, “Oh, there’s a limo for you,” or, “These people wanna meet you.” 

All of the sudden you’re playing the Forum, Madison Square Garden – it’s all kind of happening. But fortunately, I was able to maintain my sameness and be a private person. I still do it. I get on with my life. I’ve got my problems, I’ve got my joys, I’ve got my miseries. I never got hooked into ego. 

Sometimes I walk around and people are like, “Hey, isn’t he…?” You know, they can tell I’m somebody they’ve seen somewhere. Most of the time, though, I get away with a great deal of freedom.

One funny thing about the Fragile tour: Before you guys hit the big places, you did four more dates at the Whisky.

I know! What were we thinking? [laughs] You know, there was a notoriety to the place. Everybody and their uncle played there, so we didn’t want to miss out on it. You played there because it was the happening place.

• Yes's Fragile (Expanded and Remastered) is available now on Elektra.

For more than five decades, prog rock has been the cradle from which guitar virtuosity has crawled forth.

Here, in their own words, more than 20 pioneering prog-rock guitarists share insights into their craft.

Frank Zappa

“The history of pop music has a habit of telling us who we really are – ’cause if we weren’t that way, we wouldn’t have spent billions of dollars on those records, would we? 

“After careful training by media and merchandising people, the entire population (even guitar players) has been transmuted into a reasonably well-groomed, odor-free, consumer-amoeba which is kept alive only to service manufacturers and lives its life by the motto: ‘Biggest, fastest, loudest is most and best.’”

Listen To: “Watermelon in Easter Hay“

Robert Fripp (King Crimson)

“Originally, the [Frippertronics] system was introduced to me by Brian Eno. I worked with him on it for the piece of music that became No Pussyfooting. I began working on it on my own in June and July 1977, when I was living in New York. Frippertronics as such went public for the first time in February 1978 at the Kitchen [a New York City arts and performance gallery], where I was giving a solo concert. 

“I needed a name for it, so I came up with ‘Frippertronics’ because it was silly. Then it went very, very public in 1979 with a four-month solo tour – two months in Europe and two in America. And it was there, actually in front of people – in record shops, pizza parlors, record offices, small cinemas, museums, all matter of places – that I began to learn to work with it pretty well. 

“I would run the tape back and improvise on top of it. The original form was with two Revox tape recorders, but now I’m working with the Electro-Harmonix 16 Second Digital Delay. It was advertised as a Fripp in the Box. It’s far smaller, quicker, and easier to set up than two Revoxes, although the sounds one gets are quite different.”

Listen To: Let the Power Fall (Robert Fripp)  

Martin Barre (Jethro Tull)

“I learnt my lesson in 1967. I was in a studio doing a session for Eric Burdon and we were doing the backing track. Jeff Beck wandered in. We were in awe. When we finished the track, he picked up an old amp and guitar in the corner of the studio, plugged in and sounded amazing. 

“And it was Jeff Beck that produced that sound, not a particular amp or pedals. It was purely him. He was totally in control. He could’ve reproduced that anywhere in the world in any circumstances. That’s what I’m always aiming for.”  

Listen To: “Aqualung”

John McLaughlin (Mahavishnu Orchestra)

“Sometimes I can’t actually sit down and write music. I have to wait until I hear something. That’s why I like my iPhone: I get an idea and I can sing it directly into my phone, and it’s archived. 

“It might be just a melody, or it might be an idea I have for a particular chord progression, or it might just be a rhythmical idea. So I actually do so much with my iPhone and my voice. Who knows where I might be? I’m not necessarily going to be home when I get an idea, and if I don’t record it, it’s gone.”  

Listen To: “Birds of Fire”

Jan Akkerman (Focus)

“Focus is for me one of the few groups who know how to catalyze love for music and voice. We get into the theatrics strictly through the music, like with ‘Hocus Pocus.’ I want to reach the people with pure beauty. I want to make pure music.”

Listen To: “Sylvia”

Todd Rundgren (Utopia)

“Mahavishnu Orchestra was a revelation to us, so we started composing long, polymodal polyrhythmic marathons with bits of vocal and occasionally something that sounded like a song…. 

“We were comparing ourselves individually to our various heroes as well as to each other, and I developed a whole new relationship with the guitar. The material was structured in a way that left long passages without vocals and an uninterrupted focus on the instrument. For fleeting moments, I could channel the inner mounting flame.”

Listen To: “The Ikon“

Steve Hackett (Genesis, GTR)

“In Genesis, I was always writing solos. There were a few improvised ones, but there were not that many because there was always such an emphasis on writing with the Genesis team. I think I probably erred more on the side of blues than any of the other guys in the band. 

“I did always have the ability to be able to go into a blues. And I still do. It’s something you can share onstage with somebody else’s band, and I often have, where I don’t know the tune but I just wing it as a blues player. It’s stood me in very good stead.”  

Listen To: “Fifty Miles from the North Pole” 

Mike Oldfield

“When I listen back to Tubular Bells and Hergest Ridge, it sounds like yesterday. For a start, I use all five fingernails on my right hand, not a plectrum, so I get a very pure sound. That’s why people don’t seem to see me as a guitar player. 

“When there’s a video of me, I don’t look like I’m doing very much. I use violin vibrato. I can only think of Robert Fripp, who also uses that. And I often play just one note with a lot of power to start a melody.”

Listen To: “Ommadawn”

Steve Howe (Yes, GTR, Asia)

“I’ve always put [prog-rock] down to a post-psychedelia reinvention of rock music, because it had already got churned up quite a lot in psychedelic times, but I think it got broader then, and orchestral spirits came into it. I think what was great about [Yes, Pink Floyd, Genesis, King Crimson, and Led Zeppelin] was that each one of its members had a different story that they wanted to bring into the group. 

“I wanted to bring my writing into the band – my guitar ideas, my chordal ideas and songs. Bill [Bruford] wasn’t going to play 4/4, you know? He always knew what was appropriate, but he also knew what Bill Bruford would do with it.”  

Listen To: “Siberian Khatru” (Yes)

Steve Hillage (Khang, Gong, System 7)

“I was nine when I got my first guitar – a little acoustic with steel strings. I learned to play with a pick, and by the time I was 12 I’d got quite good. My first electric guitar was a Watkins Rapier, then finally I managed to get a Fender Stratocaster – my first pro guitar – in ’67. I think it was either a ’62 or a ’63. 

“I gradually found my own thing through a long series of experimentations with tape recorders, and later on I started getting into tape echo and various echo boxes. That’s how I really developed my personal sound and style.”  

Listen To: “The Glorious Om Riff” (Steve Hillage)

Alex Lifeson (Rush)

“I feel [my vibrato] is one of the more outstanding characteristics of my playing. I’m heavily influenced by Jimmy Page, and he has a fantastic vibrato. It’s so loose and so emotional. So as vibrato bars got better, I really wanted to create a subtlety in the right hand with the bar that matched my left hand. 

“I would push the left hand a little more, and I would ease off on the right hand. Of course, I did a lot of dive-bomb stuff in the ’80s, but I always wanted to have a very subtle vibrato on the whammy bar. It takes time, but it’s a very emotional thing. And very effective.”

Listen To: “La Villa Strangiato”

Allan Holdsworth

“I’ll just experiment with different voicings. What I usually do is just try to find the kind of voicings of particular chords that I like, and turn them around. I don’t like the sound of conventional guitar voicings. I love listening to jazz guitar – I listened to it a lot when I was younger, because my father introduced me to it. 

“But I very quickly tired of the sound of the chord voicings. I just decided that if I was going to get some chord things together that I might as well play some other voicings, instead of the kind of Jazz Book One or Jazz Book Two or Jazz Book Ten types of chords.” 

Listen To: “Metal Fatigue”

Tosin Abasi (Animals As Leaders)

“I would say the pure definition of progressive is to create new things. So advancing the scope of a genre – or the expression within a genre – is to be progressive. The minute you try to define what you’re doing is when you put limitations on yourself. I’m looking outside metal for my inspiration right now. That’s not to say that I don’t love my influences, because I do. But I want to keep moving.” 

Listen To: “Tempting Time”

Steven Wilson (Porcupine Tree)

“This idea of being ‘progressive’ is misleading. I don’t like the word, anyway. I certainly don’t like the word prog. There’s nothing on anyone’s record that you cannot relate back to something from the past. I am aware of that, and I kinda embrace it. 

“What we’re doing is trying to invest that musical vocabulary with enough musical personality that it still sounds fresh. For [Wilson's 2015 solo album Hand.Cannot.Erase.], I would say it’s conceptual rock music, with all the implications that may or may not have.”  

Listen To: “The Raven That Refused to Sing” 

Steve Morse (Dixie Dregs, Kansas, Deep Purple)

“To become a good guitarist, you have to be open to things. When I first played with Al Di Meola, I asked how he sounded so percussive. We switched picks and there was a difference, so I changed from nylon to celluloid for the rest of the tour. 

“I’d love to get to know Jeff Beck and see if he really is pulling it out of nowhere, which is how it seems. It feels like he’s really improvising and making art through his guitar.”  

Listen To: “Tumeni Notes”

Steve Rothery (Marillion)

“I fell in love with Genesis after I heard ‘The Knife’ on Alan Freeman’s Saturday Rock Show. After that, I discovered Camel, Yes, King Crimson.... For me, there’s only good and bad in music. Labels are meaningless. 

"The true meaning of progressive is music without any self-imposed boundaries. It’s having the freedom to work outside the constraints of conventional song structure, almost like a soundtrack-type approach to creating songs.”

Listen To: “Grendel”

Dweezil Zappa

“I love the sound of microtonal instruments. On Via Zammata, I played the oud and a Godin Glissentar. I’m inspired by a variety of Eastern styles, including Indian, Turkish, Arabic, and Bulgarian. 

“I even recorded some music by the Bulgarian Women’s Choir. The tunes I chose have resonated with me since my dad took me to one of their concerts. I orchestrated them for guitar in a way that pays homage to Brian May.”   

Listen To: “Funky 15”

Alan Morse (Spock's Beard)

“When I saw Yes, I felt like they incorporated everything I loved about music into one thing. I saw them play live when I was 12, opening up for Black Sabbath in Los Angeles, and they really changed my mind. I was raised with all this classical music and some jazz, and I loved the power of rock and felt like Yes particularly embodied everything that I loved about music.”  

Listen To: “The Man Behind the Curtain”

Omar Rodríguez-López (The Mars Volta)

“From a fretboard perspective, I work with shapes rather than patterns. I’m useless at running through scales, but I’m good at arranging my thoughts into geometric shapes and creating chords and melodies out of them. Thoughts have shapes, just like tones – they have waveforms. 

“You can translate the shapes of thoughts and emotions through your hands onto the fretboard. With experience, you start relating the shape of your hand on the fretboard to certain geometric shapes that enter your mind when you’re hearing those sounds or having those feelings. You hear people use shapes to describe things all the time, such as, ‘That guy is a square,’ or ‘This sound is really round.’”  

Listen To: “Eriatarka”

Mike Keneally

“I decided a good discipline exercise would be to learn all the guitar parts on all the Gentle Giant albums. It turned out to be very valuable. But even more valuable was the time spent learning from Zappa’s discs. 

“I managed to develop a pretty good memory by playing stuff off of them. One of Frank’s names for me was Evelyn Wood [of speed-reading course fame], because of my unusual amount of comprehension and fast recognition of patterns. I can read music, but I don’t sightread it.”  

Listen To: “Lightnin’ Roy”

Guthrie Govan

“I think the best way to become comfortable with odd time signatures is to not think of them as odd. You just have to develop a natural feel for the contour of the bar in any given time signature, so you can sense when the ‘one’ will return without having to do any literal counting. 

“However daunting the top number in the time signature may appear, there’s generally an underlying framework, so it’s helpful to focus on finding the most prominent pulses within each bar, which are generally separated by smaller, more manageable numbers, like 3 and 4.” 

Listen To: “Sevens”

In 1964, a 17-year-old guitarist named Steve Howe walked into the Selmer music store in London and special-ordered this Gibson ES-175. A hollowbody electric was an unusual choice for a future rock star, but one of Howe’s strongest influences was jazz player Barney Kessel, who played a Gibson Super 400CES hollowbody.

At 16 inches wide, the ES-175 was smaller than the 17-inch L-5CES or the 18-inch Super 400CES, and its body was of laminated maple rather than the solid spruce and maple of the higher-end models. In performance, however, the 175 had the basic necessities: a cutaway body and a pair of humbucking pickups. 

Its laminated construction and lack of fancy pearl inlay made it more affordable than the L-5 or Super 400, and by the 1960s it had become the workhorse guitar of the jazz world. Howe put 60 pounds down (borrowed from his father) and paid the rest over the next few years.

The ES-175 proved to be the perfect vehicle for the eclectic style Howe brought to the group Yes in 1970. Although he used a number of different guitars through the 1970s, the ES-175 remained his main studio guitar and his personal favorite. He has taken meticulous care of this guitar, and it shows only a few dings and scratches as evidence of his use.

Yes guitarist Steve Howe recently sat down for a chat with Guitar World.

The wide-ranging conversation touched on topics ranging from his first band, to his time with Yes, to his massive, mouth-watering vintage guitar collection. However, it was Howe's comments about pedals, and his love of Line 6's Helix multi-effects unit, that were the most eyebrow-raising. 

“I’ve got some great, great guitars, but what I don’t use now are endless arrays of pedals," Howe said. "I mean, I did the pedalboard thing pretty early on. A lot of people sussed that if you stuck them on a ’board, you didn’t have to set it up every day, they wouldn’t break or fall apart so easily, and you wouldn’t stumble over them. 

"I had pedalboards like that for years and years, but now I don’t. It’s just passé to me. These days, my gear is incredibly streamlined. I like to press one button and radically change my sound. I just press a button and it all happens at once. That is heaven, you know. 

"Performing is all about preparation. It took me a while to get into programming, but the [Line 6] Helix can do everything I can possibly want and, therefore, that’s all I want to use." 

Howe also made a point to mention that, in his view, gear is far from the most important aspect of a guitarist's sound in the studio.

“I’ve had so many [pedals] over the years: Big Muffs, Boomerang pedals, different sorts of wah-wahs and stuff from Maestro.

"Most of the stuff I’ve forgotten about, but I have it somewhere, or remnants of it. But the thing people often miss is - and this is important - is that it’s not just about your guitarist, their guitar, the pedals, the amp, the microphone... It’s also about the recording engineer who knows how to record a guitar. 

"So I give credit where it’s due, because there’s a lot more to sound. There’s a myriad of different things. The first thing is who’s playing it and what that person thinks while he’s planning to play something. It goes down that long chain and it ends up with a recording engineer sitting in a studio.”

To read the full interview, step right this way.

On April 7, 2017, vocalist Jon Anderson performed with Yes - his former band - at the the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, NY.

It marked Anderson's first performance with the group since 2004.

Best of all, Yes - in this case, Anderson, Steve Howe, Trevor Rabin, Rick Wakeman and Alan White - were joined by a special guest, Rush bassist Geddy Lee. They opened with “Roundabout,” a classic track from 1971’s Fragile, which happens to be their first album to feature Wakeman.

Lee then left the stage, and the band - now joined by former Yes guitarist Trevor Rabin - performed an extended version of “Owner of a Lonely Heart,” the band's only No. 1 chart hit (from 1983’s 90125). 

For this performance, guitarist Steve Howe played a Rickenbacker bass, most likely in honor of longtime Yes bassist Chris Squire, who died in 2015. Meanwhile, Wakeman switched to keytar.

Other former Yes members (and co-founders) were honored that night, including Squire, Bill Bruford and Tony Kaye.

Within the hallowed catalog of progressive rock music created during the late 1960s and early ’70s, a handful of groups are responsible for a surge of excelled musicianship and composition that flourished during the birth and heyday of this highly creative and musically and lyrically sophisticated sub-genre of rock. This pantheon of pioneers includes extremely talented and forward-thinking musicians, well known for routinely pushing their musical abilities to new heights of creative and technical achievement. While there are several bands and individual musicians that come to mind, it's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees and progressive rock legends Yes that arguably take home the largest trophy, as they've built their respected legacy using a distinct approach of artistic discovery and musical self-expression for 50 years, which is extraordinarily impressive. 

While it's true that any member of Yes could have an entire book written about them (and several Yes-alumni do have their own published biographies), it is the contributions of guitarist Steve Howe that really helped the band achieve its original sound, style, and direction when he joined Yes in 1970, notably replacing original guitarist Peter Banks. Howe single-handedly introduced generations of rock fans and musicians to the wonderful worlds of classical, jazz, bluegrass, and folk guitar music, by wielding an eclectic blend of influences and a mastery of shifting among various styles with ease. The guitarist instantly elevated himself above the pack of blues-based rock players that emerged during the '60s and '70s by using this interesting combination of styles and approaches as a guide.

Howe’s adventurous exploration of sounds and textures are driven by his fascination with non-mainstream musical styles, unusual rhythmic concepts, and classically-flavored melodic ideas. He is notoriously quoted for taking great pride in being different, musically speaking, and many of his riffs, licks, and solos feature left-field phrasing, finger-twisting fretboard gymnastics, and precisely crafted fingerings, which routinely leave traditional blues and rock players in the dust, so to speak. Howe’s insightful approach to the fretboard and ability to combine different elements from various musical styles creates his signature sound and musical identity. It's an approach of style fully-realized during his tenure with Yes in the '70s. Compared to the average rock guitarist, Howe’s playing is noticeably different, but that's what makes it so interesting, fresh, and inspiring. With influences including six-string legends such as Chet Atkins, Wes Montgomery, and Barney Kessel, the icing on Howe’s musical cake comes with the foundation of learning a mountain of classical, bluegrass, and folk guitar music, which feeds his appetite and love for the acoustic guitar. This lesson will focus chiefly on Howe’s electric playing, but he is an equally accomplished acoustic guitarist, a feat documented by his acclaimed acoustic guitar compositions, such as “Clap” (The Yes Album) and “Mood for a Day” (Fragile), the former presenting a notable and beloved hybrid-picking (pick-and-fingers) workout for acoustic guitarists all over the world, and the latter having become a modern standard within the classical guitar repertoire.

It's interesting that Howe's brilliance on the electric guitar is sometimes misunderstood, but part of this is due to his complete awareness of the fretboard and a personal quest to locate efficient fingerings for everything composed or performed. Searching for specific and refined fingerings can lead to various performance issues when attempting to learn how to play his music authentically, and these calculated fingerings can leave uninformed players confused and with twisted digits. As you study the material in this lesson, be sure to use the fret-hand fingerings indicated in the standard notation for each example. If you cannot read standard notation and rely on the tablature, you can still benefit from following the fingering directions, which indicate which fret-hand fingers to employ. (The numbers 1-4 indicate the 1st-4th fingers, respectively.) While this additional notation it not commonly found in modern guitar sheet music, you'll find it often in classical guitar method books and transcriptions. Howe originally learned the merits of using logical fingerings from studying classical guitar music and technique, where he first explored the mathematics of guitar fingerings and the neck. 

Unlocking Howe's navigation methods and connecting the dots on neck, so to speak, is where the “geometry” aspect of this lesson comes into play, but don't be intimidated by this analysis, as we're simply applying the directional terminology found in geometry to the fretboard. Doing this will help you see the multi-directional movements you can visualize as you navigate the grid. The four directional terms we'll apply are vertical, horizontal, diagonal, and reverse-diagonal movement (or motion). To prepare, sit down with a guitar in your lap and focus on the fretboard in front of you. This player’s perspective of the neck is what we'll mentally visualize and refer to as we begin unlocking Howe's secrets and discoveries. Learning how to traverse the fretboard using each of these directional movements will help your playing immensely, and as a bonus you'll uncover the origin behind a number of famous riffs, licks, and phrases from the classic Yes catalog. Before moving ahead, be sure to carefully study Fig. 1, a useful visual aid presenting a set of fretboard diagrams that indicate the four directional movements we're applying to the fretboard, for both ascending and descending motion. 

Vertical is the first movement we'll explore, and this should be relatively easy for most guitarists, as it occurs in standard fingerings for major and minor scales, including the widely used minor pentatonic scale. Once you have the premise behind vertical movement on the neck, try tackling the phrase depicted in Ex. 1, which brings to mind the signature melodic C9 (C E G D) arpeggio-based motif Howee plays in “Long Distance Runaround” (Fragile). Notice how this elegant melodic phrase remains in one position, via the use of a refined and efficient fingering, which flows across the strings vertically. The motion ascends from the D string over to the high E, before descending and finishing on the G string. 

Ex. 2 offers another sample of vertical motion, inspired by a busy melodic sequence heard in “Roundabout” (Fragile). Notice how this major scale-based phrase incorporates ascending and descending vertical motion across the strings while also utilizing a horizontal position shift to move the phrase from G to Bb.

To help you further explore horizontal fretboard movement, Ex. 3 offers a variation on the busy E minor pentatonic (E G A B D)-based lead lick Howe plays in “I've Seen All Good People” (The Yes Album) using hybrid picking. As the phrase unfolds, notice the reiterated open high E note, plucked with the pick hand’s middle finger, which creates a twangy drone and exemplifies the influences of country and bluegrass guitar playing on Howe’s style. This type of horizontal movement can also be found in the music of other electric guitar legends, such as Al Di Meola, Eric Johnson, and Eddie Van Halen, to name a few.

Ex. 4 presents another highly musical application of horizontal motion and features a variation on the busy melodic arpeggios Howe plays in “Yours Is No Disgrace” (The Yes Album). This fluid arpeggio workout is in the key of Bb major and moves along the neck using a horizontal approach that targets the arpeggios Bb (Bb D F), Cdim (C Eb Gb), and Cm (C Eb G), gliding along the top two strings exclusively. Other examples of this kind of arpeggio approach in rock music can be found during the legendary harmonized guitar solo in the Eagles' “Hotel California” (Hotel California) and Mark Knopfler's climactic lead licks in the Dire Straits classic “Sultans of Swing” (Dire Straits).

To give your fingers and mind a diagonal-movement challenge, Ex. 5 reveals a reworking of the busy chromatic-based riff from “Heart of the Sunrise” (Fragile). Aside from the pick-hand challenge and shifting benefit from working through this busy idea, you'll also gain a visual understanding of how to travel across the strings and up the fretboard using diagonal motion. For those unfamiliar with this kind of movement, it can be challenging at first, until you begin to see the individual notes and octaves connected on the grid. Making these octave-based connections—octave linking—will help you view and understand the layout of the entire fretboard. Mastering diagonal fretboard movement takes time, practice, and patience, but the benefit of unlocking the neck using this motion and mental visualization is immense and should be eagerly explored.

Ex. 6 introduces reverse-diagonal movement with an aggressive, chromatic-based, rockabilly-style frenzy similar to a run Steve plays in his solo in “I've Seen All Good People.” As you play through this phrase, be sure to employ all four fret-hand fingers. In addition to helping you discover a new type of movement on the neck, this example also serves as a great picking, fretting, and string-shifting warm-up exercise.

Now that you've experienced the four directional movements individually, try locating additional licks and phrases that feature combinations of these approaches. Ex. 7 is inspired by a fast legato run Howe pays in “Roundabout.” As you practice this challenging phrase, notice the abrupt vertical movement occurring within the six-note legato motif, followed by a descending horizontal bass note moving along the A and low E strings.

Ex. 8 offers another directional combination, with a variation on the slip-and-slide glissando melodic fills from “Yours Is No Disgrace.” This advanced shifting and finger-sliding workout can be simplified by selecting an appropriate fingering combination to use as the entire idea shifts around the strings and neck. Notice how the majority of the fingering scheme revolves around alternating between the index and middle fingers as this long-distance idea finally reaches the end. To successfully create and perform licks like this, you'll need to develop an awareness and knowledge of the notes on the fretboard in every position. This is a major hurdle and limitation for many players, so if you haven't learned the notes on the fretboard, make the time and effort to do so. A great way to do this is to practice playing various scales and arpeggios up and down each individual string in all 12 keys (or at least what you consider the important guitar keys).

Our final offering (Ex. 9) may appear as some form of Medieval finger torture, but this extremely angular phrase recalls the extended opening riff from the epic Yes composition “Close to the Edge” (Close to the Edge). Before attempting to play the phrase, take note of the fingering shifts and movements that occur, as this abstract two-note motif combines the notes E and F across three octaves and positions on the neck. This melodically bizarre, octave-displaced idea creates an interesting and jarring musical effect, and it also serves as an intense position-shifting and octave-hunting workout for the adventurous guitarist.

The concepts, ideas, phrases, and licks presented in this lesson represent but a small cross section of Howe’s multi-faceted playing style and technical arsenal. If you explore the guitarist’s complete, extensive discography, you'll discover a prolific and inspired solo career that began with his acclaimed 1975 solo album debut, Beginnings. Howe continued his musical output and discovery with Yes until 1980, before moving on to join the groups Asia and GTR (also featuring guitarist Steve Hackett) in the '80s. During this period ('77-'81), Howe won Guitar Player's prestigious and coveted Best Overall Guitarist title five years in a row in the magazine’s annual Reader's Poll. In 1981, Howe was the first rock guitarist ushered into the GP Hall of Fame. 

The following decades begin an off-and-on working relationship with Yes, including various side-projects with Yes-alumni and other super-talented musicians and artists. Howe's music has continued to evolve and develop through the years, and studying specific aspects of his ingenious playing style and approach to music will shake things up for any guitarist, regardless of their own stylistic leanings. Good luck and enjoy!

Howe joined the prog-rock heroes Yes in 1970 and quickly established himself as one of the most stylistically well-rounded players of the time. His expansive musical range and virtuosity were head and shoulders above those of many prog-rock guitarists of the time, and he instantly put his stamp on the group’s music.

Howe’s Yes debut, 1971’s The Yes Album, is in many ways one continuous showcase for his riffing and solos, from “Yours Is No Disgrace” to “Perpetual Change” to his Travis-picked solo track, “Clap.”

On that album’s followup, Fragile, Howe created one of classic rock’s instantly identifiable themes with his harmonics-laden intro to the hit “Roundabout,” and he further established himself as a versatile player with his flamenco- and baroque-inspired solo moment “Mood for a Day.”

Howe carried on as one of the major players in Yes in the years after, playing on such great albums as Close to the Edge, Tales from Topographic Oceans, Relayer and Going for the One. He was gone from the band for much of the Eighties, during which time he performed with Asia and GTR (with former Genesis guitarist Steve Hackett), before returning to Yes in the Nineties.

While Howe certainly turned in some stellar moments with those acts and on his own solo records, we’ve decided to stick with the Yes catalog for our celebration of his greatest guitar solos.

“Yours Is No Disgrace”

The Yes Album (1971)

Howe’s cleanly arpeggiated riffs and jazzy runs propel the song through its first half, but the real excitement begins halfway through with a wah-drenched guitar break that bounces from speaker to speaker before giving way to a psychedelic reverb-saturated solo.

“Clap”

The Yes Album (1971) 

Howe recalls, “It’s the first song I ever wrote, and I think it’s really a good piece. I wrote it on the 4th of August in 1969, when my oldest son, Dylan, was born.” A meld of country blues and ragtime, “Clap” is a showpiece for Howe’s excellent Travis-picking technique. In concert, “Clap” serves as a vehicle for him to improvise around the distinctive themes, making each performance a special treat.

“Starship Trooper (Würm)”

The Yes Album (1971)

Howe’s big moment doesn’t come until the end of this nine-plus-minute track, in the part titled “Würm,” where he improvises freely over a three-chord vamp consisting of G, E flat and C. It requires that he switch scales with each chord change and find the common tone center that keeps it all sounding harmonious. It’s a skill you’ll find in numerous jazz guitarists and not too many rockers. Howe, naturally, is among the few who can pull it off. While the studio version is excellent, we have a warm spot in our hearts for this live performance, with Howe shredding away on his white Gibson EDS-1275.

“I’ve Seen All Good People”

The Yes Album (1971)

Howe combines his rockabilly influences and tremolo picking on a solo that’s part Chet Atkins, part Jimmy Bryant. If you’d heard only the solo, you might think you were listening to the hottest boogie band rather than the biggest prog act. Admittedly, it’s hard to choose between the original studio version and the blazingly fast live version on 1973’s Yessongs set, as both have their charms, but we’ll opt for the impeccable execution of the former.

“Perpetual Change”

The Yes Album (1971)

Howe shows an impressive span of his range within the scope of this song’s eight minutes and 49 seconds. Starting around the four-minute mark, he plays a brief and bluesy string-bending solo before segueing into a jazzy section that wouldn’t sound out of place in a cocktail lounge. On the build-up back to verse, Howe performs a flurry of atonal lines that ascend the fretboard. He caps it all off on the outro with a continuous stream of country-blues licks that prove his musical versatility knows no bounds.

“Mood for a Day”                                                                                                               

Fragile (1971)

This flamenco- and baroque-style solo showpiece from Fragile is full of lovely contrapuntal textures, and it shows off Howe’s excellent finger-picking technique. But there’s also no denying that it is first and foremost a lovely and evocative melody and, along with “Clap,” one of Howe’s finest solo moments on record.

“Siberian Khatru”

Close to the Edge (1972)

The last of the three tracks on Close to the Edge, “Siberian Khatru” is a Howe showpiece and one of his finest recorded moments, beginning with his snarling Hendrix-like opening phrase, complete with funky “chukka” string muting. His brief Coral sitar break is followed shortly afterward by a delay-drenched overdriven Fender steel guitar passage and a ripping six-string solo that leads back to the song’s opening phrase. Howe’s jagged solo phrases on the outro are as memorable as anything else in the song, and it’s a treat to hear this part on the Yessongs version, where Howe blazes along to keep up with the rest of the band. By the time he hits that closing phrase, you can practically hear the sizzle coming off his fingers.

“Going for the One”

Going for the One (1977)

Yes responded to the advent of punk by emphasizing their rock and blues roots and stripping their songs down to about half their usual length. “Going for the One” is among the best examples of this approach, with the band losing none of its prog bearings as it embraces a more straightforward rocking approach. Howe’s raunchy pedal-steel work on the intro kicks “Going for the One” into high gear, and he turns in an appropriately greasy solo that should leave no doubt as to his and the band’s rock and roll bona fides.

“Awaken”

Going for the One (1977)

For many fans and Jon Anderson himself, “Awaken” is the greatest work in Yes’s estimable catalog. Howe gets solo moments toward the beginning and end of the song, and the first is easily the better of the two. Beginning near the three-minute mark, he kicks in with a series of rapid-fire runs and blazingly fast shredding along the length of the neck. The beauty of Howe’s playing is that it’s never one dimensional. Even when playing fast, he imbues his licks and solos with evocative and memorable melodies.

“Machine Messiah”

Drama (1980)

Yes sound more metal than ever on this track from 1980’s Drama album, with the slow, doomy intro recalling Black Sabbath and the twin-lead-guitar lines suggesting Judas Priest. The middle solo gives Howe plenty of room to shred, but where others would overplay, he instead turns in a series of blazing runs, some drama-inducing tremolo picking and groaning whammy-bar work. Howe has good reason to show restraint, since the 10-minute track contains yet another opportunity for him to shred all over the place.