Greg Howe, Levi Clay: ICMP clinic review

I caught up with Über transcriber Levi Clay to get a low down on Greg Howe's recent ICMP clinic and see how it compared to the recent BIMM clinic in Bristol. Like BIMM, the ICMP is a highly regarded music eduction establishment.  Levi was lucky enough to get some quality up front time with the eminently likable Greg Howe, having been given the enviable job of looking after Greg while he was ICMP.

Levi Clay explains:

For the serious student of rock fusion, its impossible to overlook the six string wizardry of Greg Howe. In the Shrapnel golden era, Howe was at the forefront pioneering shred guitar melody and techniques such as the “hammer on from nowhere”. From his glorious second album “Introspection” through to the super group “Extraction” record (featuring Dennis Chambers and Victor Wooten) via the Van Halen tinged band “Howe II” and tours around the world with Michael Jackson, N-Sync and Enrique Iglesias Greg Howe has made an undeniable impression on the guitar scene. So imagine my delight when the Institute of Contemporary Music Performance sent me an email at Christmas informing me that they would be hosting Greg for an exclusive masterclass in March.

Greg Howe in the ICMP clinic auditorium 

Needless to say, on the day of the clinic, I arrived in good time and to my delight was given the job of looking after Greg while he was with us. This gave me the unique opportunity to get to know Greg a little better in a private setting.... one of my conclusions is that he likes green tea and without my power transformer the show couldn’t go on. (Lets hope some of his mojo rubbed off onto it!)

The other pleasant surprise was that Greg is touring with his entire rig. In the past I have had the pleasure of seeing great players like Wayne Krantz and Richard Smith come in and get fabulous tone from the in house Peavey amps, but there have certainly been those that have had a less than pleasant tone too! Greg’s rig currently consists of, The Axe FX Ultra, a Marshall power amp and two Marshall 2X12 cabs. He also has got his hands on the brand new Axe Fx foot switch which is used to control all his preset patches.

Greg Howe mid demonstration

For the actual clinic Greg treated us to a mixture of tunes (including “Kick it all Over”,” Jump Start” and my current favourite – “Morning View”) a pre planned talk on expression, improvisation and the most commonly asked questions he gets teaching, and of course, a lengthy Q&A session. Laughs were had by all as Greg is a real funny, down to earth guy. When talking about his experiences with Michael Jackson and how he prepares for such high profile gigs, he couldn’t help dropping in things like “the downside was they wanted me to wear this awful wig which, fortunately, didn’t fit me. I escaped it for three shows....” and his dealings with a pyro guitar where the only advice he was given after a chat on choreography was “Dont blow your hands off!”.

Greg tackled phrasing in a great degree of detail, rhythmic interpretation and variation and in general the topics you would expect from someone like Scott Henderson. It was really nice to get someone so deep into the rock side of fusion to talk on this. He delved into his “hammer ons from nowhere” technique which gave the audience a chance to get him to demonstrate some of his more technical string skipped tapping licks. Overall the night stayed quite far away from technique talk, in fact alternate picking, sweeping and legato weren’t mentioned once. This really was a special gathering of musicians rather than the guitar athletics show you may have feared.

The only complaint that I could think of was Greg’s control of the Axe FX, he did mention that he had been on the phone with the guy from Fractal Audio getting them to talk him through it a little, but some of the master volumes between patches were quite noticeably different and unfortunately for Greg he had set up his expression pedal as a wah so there was very little he could do about it. I also felt that the tone used would have been perfect for a live band, there was very little bass and a LOT of mids that would really help cut through when playing with a bassist and keys player. But, on his own.... there was just no bass and too much mids.

Greg Howe and Levi Clay

Greg also took a huge chunk of time after the clinic to sign whatever people had and take pictures. I now have Greg’s signature alongside Guthrie’s on my Suhr, plus Greg was kind enough to sign my transcription of “Morning View” and write me a very personal message in my introspection tab book thanking me for my help on the night.

I really want to stress that this didn’t make it a bad clinic, just dealing the truth. I took away some great advice from this clinic and the time I spent with Greg and I would urge any of you with the opportunity to catch Greg, do so. If you have already missed your chance, take a look at Greg’s website where you can book a Skype lesson and pick the man’s brain yourself. http://greghowe.com/

Levi Clay has a significant reputation in the transcription field. You can also subscribe to his YouTube Channel http://www.youtube.com/missmisstreater and of course his current web site is  http://www.leviclay.com/ where you can find some of his transcriptions and other goodies