On March 3, 2011, at 1:30 PM Eastern, Steve Vai and the Berklee School of Music, will attempt to set the record for the largest online guitar lesson ever taught. Okay, so there isn’t any real record to break. They will, however, be setting the bar for future online guitar lessons to aim for. In order to set a record they do have to meet certain criteria set forth by the Guinness Book peeps. So, they need YOU to be there to make this as great as it can be.

In the interview that follows, Vai talks about how, as an alumni of the Berklee College of Music, he feels it is important to inspire people to pick up the guitar and learn the freedom that comes from celebrating the creative side of your humanity. We also discuss music education and why Steve feels that it should never be taken away from our children.

Steve: When I was young, I was one of those guys who wanted to know music. I just loved the idea of being able to read and writing music. When I graduated from high school, I went to Berklee. Being an alumni, I have always kept up to date with what they are doing. With technology the way it is, they are offering online courses. They have ear training, guitar scales and all kinds of stuff. There are 12 classes in a session. There is an instructor and there are about twenty kids in a class. You log on and you’re basically with these other students.

They wanted to expand their ideas and start working with musicians. I was one of the first people they reached out to, as they know I am a huge supporter of music education. I liked their idea, so I flew to Boston. I spent the day recording my class; I basically spilled my work. I talked about everything from the very simple to the esoteric. They took that and they chopped it up and made it into a course.

If you sign up for the course, it’s called Steve Vai Guitar Techniques, then you see footage of me explaining all of these things. There is also an instructor. Once a semester, I come online and chat with the students. I think it is great because anyone, anywhere, can sign in and immediately become part of a community with other likeminded students, a great instructor and a world class musician.

Steve: Berklee hired a brilliant marketing firm, and this is one of the things they came up with in order to promote the class. I asked the same questions. I wanted to know if there was an actual record. After this record maybe I can go out and set a record for how many sticks of gum I can fit into my mouth. It is not that easy, actually, as Guinness has very strict guidelines.

While I am not aware that anyone has ever tried to set a record for online guitar lessons, when you go to do something like that, they research it and come up with parameters that become the criteria. They said that if we wanted to get recognition in the book, we had to have at least 1000 people online at all times and had to be teaching for at least thirty minutes. It is kind of a cornball concept but it is something that a lot of people would like to be a part of. If it works out, then it will be the second time I have made The Guinness Book of World Records.

Steve: Back in the ‘80’s, when I was with David Lee Roth, we had the biggest light show in rock history.

Steve: Yes. Setting a record is fun and cheeky and all that stuff, but the cool thing is that if you’re a closet guitar guy, which I have discovered that everyone is, then this will inspire you to pick up an instrument. I am really doing it for that reason. I want people to pick up the guitar and to start to play. I want to help them put down the preconceived barriers that we all put up.

Steve: It is according to who you are and what you want. If your desire is just to be a rock star then you don’t necessarily need to know much about the instrument. If you’re a musician, then you’re going to want to learn a lot about the instrument and about music. People gravitate to what they really want. If your desire is to be a rock star then you will sit in a music theory class, scratching your head, and wondering what they hell you’re doing there.

Steve: I agree but you have to want to do that. There is a lot of pop music that I like but I have always felt uncomfortable doing what other people already have done well. I never set out to be a great blues player or a great jazz player or a great classical player because it had already been done. My goal was always to find my own voice and to develop my own musical vocabulary and make music that has never been heard before. It doesn’t mean that is the right thing to do. The right thing to do is to do the thing that you love. If you love jazz or blues then go for it. If I were to sit and just play a Stevie Ray Vaughan riff or a Jimi Hendrix riff then I would feel silly but that is just me.

Steve: This is the first time I have done this at Berklee. Things really have changed. These days the way people are listening to music, buying music and making music is very different because of technology. The way that we are getting educated is changing as well. I think there is a great value to go to a classroom and being involved in an atmosphere where you can look the other students right in the eye and where you can get to know the teacher and all of his or her mannerisms. There is also a great value in being able to go online and learn this way. I think that technology allows you to educate yourself in a different way.

Steve: I think it’s a travesty that music education is being cut out of so many schools. Playing music is a cathartic birthright; it is a real inner discover and a freedom. There are a lot of rules in the world that we have to adhere to, like stopping at a red light, paying taxes or being religiously oppressed but when you create music in your own mind, then there are no rules. At that point, it becomes art, freedom and expression. We are creative beings and we need that side of ourselves cultivated because it is a part of who we are.

When I look back at when I was going to school in Long Island, it was just a regular little high school, we had rich music courses. I learned about music theory and reading and writing music from this one guy, who was a closet music genius. We had plays, bands, orchestras, jazz bands, choirs and choruses and you could sign up for these things and get great fulfillment out of it. There were also people I went to school with, not unlike today, where there were people who had no interest in it. They had tin ears and a melody sounded like Morse code and they didn’t want to play an instrument because they knew they would never be able to do it. The whole idea of being musical, to them, was uninteresting.

It is unfortunate that those people grow up and take these rights away from other people just because they have the louder voice. Usually, music oriented people are relatively passive. I will tell you this: It will not stop people who are compelled, musically, because they are going to find their way. They are going to evolve and not be stifled or snubbed out. When you want to do something musically then it is an unquentching thirst and nothing is going to stop you. I think it is a travesty that music education is being taken away because it helps keep an emotional equilibrium. When you take that away then it can get very frustrating. I’m not a political person but I think taking this away is very wrong.

Steve: When I was younger music was beautiful, it still is. Whenever I look at music written on paper then my heart goes pitter patter, it really does. I always wanted to understand it and know it. When I look at a piece of sheet music then it really does look like art to me. It looks like a code. It has lines and dots and they are beautiful lines and dots. There are little things that you can write that will tell you to play it loudly, aggressively, softly or to play it heartfelt. There is a code that only musicians understand. I had to know that code and I wanted to know it. I learned it and I mastered it. When I say I mastered it I mean that I mastered the understanding of it. You actually never truly master the expression of it.