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:
“New is a word for fools in towns who think
Style upon style in dress and thought at last
Must get somewhere.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“To translate, one must have a style of his own, for otherwise the translation will have no rhythm or nuance, which come from the process of artistically thinking through and molding the sentences; they cannot be reconstituted by piecemeal imitation. The problem of translation is to retreat to a simpler tenor of one’s own style and creatively adjust this to one’s author.”
—Paul Goodman (1911–1972)
“Oh, never mind the fashion. When one has a style of one’s own, it is always twenty times better.”
—Margaret Oliphant (1828–1897)