Style
Batio is ambidextrous, a skill he taught himself. This enables him to play two guitars at the same time either in synchronization or using separate harmonies. This includes playing completely different parts at once, as shown while playing his famous Double-Guitar. Though naturally left-handed, he plays as right-handed when playing one guitar. Batio invented and often demonstrates the "Over-Under" technique, which involves flipping his fretting hand over and under the neck rapidly, playing the guitar both regularly and like a piano.
Batio gave lessons to guitarist Tom Morello (of Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave fame) while at college. Morello has credited MAB with teaching him in a feature article in Guitar World Magazine in 2005. Michael also gave lessons to guitarist Mark Tremonti after Creed broke up and Tremonti wanted to learn more techniques. Batio is also widely known for his extremely fast and well articulated alternate picking, which he credits to his use of anchoring, or planting the fingers he does not use while picking on the body of the guitar to restrict motion.
Batio has an advanced knowledge of music theory, having a deep understanding of complex scale combinations and time signatures which assist him in his compositions. Batio has cited F-sharp minor and F-sharp phrygian dominant as one of his favorite keys. He has described F sharp minor as a "demonic" key, giving a dark, evil sound.
Read more about this topic: Michael Angelo Batio
Famous quotes containing the word style:
“On the first days, like a piece of music that one will later be mad about, but that one does not yet distinguish, that which I was to love so much in [Bergotte’s] style was not yet clear to me. I could not put down the novel that I was reading, but I thought that I was only interested in the subject, as in the first moments of love when one goes every day to see a woman at some gathering, or some pastime, by the amusements to which one believes to be attracted.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)
“Where there is no style, there is in effect no point of view. There is, essentially, no anger, no conviction, no self. Style is opinion, hung washing, the calibre of a bullet, teething beads.... One’s style holds one, thankfully, at bay from the enemies of it but not from the stupid crucifixions by those who must willfully misunderstand it.”
—Alexander Theroux (b. 1940)
“All my stories are webs of style and none seems at first blush to contain much kinetic matter.... For me “style” is matter.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)