Joe Satriani - Always With You (1st & 2nd B Major Sections) - Guitar Lesson

Surfing with the Alien

1987 3:22

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About Always With You (1st & 2nd B Major Sections)

The two B major sections of "Always With Me, Always With You" from Joe Satriani's 1987 album "Surfing with the Alien" are where the song's melodic heart lives. Sounding out in B Standard tuning, the piece sits in B major, and those two sections ask you to think like a vocalist: every note needs singing tone, smooth legato, and deliberate vibrato. The challenge is not raw speed but phrasing, keeping the melody fluid and even as you move across strings. At 120 BPM the tempo is comfortable enough to expose any unevenness in your pick attack or finger pressure, so there is nowhere to hide. Use the Practice Toolbar to loop each section slowed down and focus on matching Satriani's note length and vibrato width before you bring it back up to tempo. Instrumental Rock rewards players who treat the guitar as the sole voice carrying the listener, and this piece is an excellent test of that discipline.

• Both B major sections are played in B Standard tuning, so you will need to drop every string down by a minor third from standard before you start.
• The real technical demand here is expressive vibrato and legato phrasing rather than speed, making clean finger pressure and consistent note sustain the main things to drill.
• Looping the sections at a reduced tempo with the Practice Toolbar helps you internalize the melodic shape before worrying about matching full-speed tone and dynamics.