Joe Satriani - Always With Me, Always With You - Guitar Tab

Surfing with the Alien

1987 3:22

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About Always With Me, Always With You

Of all the ballads on "Surfing with the Alien," this is the one that most demands your right hand be completely under control. Joe Satriani builds the melody entirely on legato phrasing and smooth, singing bends in B major, so any tension or hesitation in your fretting hand will show immediately. The track sits at 120 BPM in E Standard tuning, which feels unhurried until you try to match the expressiveness of the lead tone: every note needs to speak clearly, with vibrato that is wide and even rather than nervous and shallow. The real challenge is sustaining that vocal quality across position shifts while keeping the dynamic arc of each phrase. Pick the hardest melodic passage, set a loop in the Practice Toolbar, and work it slowed down until the bends land exactly in pitch. This is a piece where technique serves emotion, and the two are hard to separate in Instrumental Rock.

• The melody is played almost entirely with legato and expressive string bends, so clean fretting-hand articulation is the core technical demand.
• E Standard tuning at 120 BPM gives you room to focus on vibrato control and pitch-accurate bends rather than speed.
• Matching Satriani's sustained, vocal tone requires a smooth pick attack and consistent vibrato width across every held note.