Music Radar caught up with Dream Theater guitarist John Petrucci to discuss and break down his playing on the band's new album, Distance Over Time. Following is an excerpt from the in-depth chat.

Q: What advice can you offer players who, having gained a lot of technical proficiency, find it hard to decelerate and play with feel?

Petrucci: "You can approach the guitar like a voice. That’s the best way of looking at it. If you are singing, you can’t keep going a million miles an hour. You can only fit so many syllables in, so think about what you can sing through your guitar. Players like David Gilmour and Neal Schon are great at that kind of thing. The solo in 'Comfortably Numb' is so memorable, you can sing along to it. 

The other part of it is your technique as a guitarist. Once you are in that zone, hanging on notes and doing slow bends, there are so many things that can go wrong. You can bend out of tune, so technique is very important, just like it is when a singer hits flat. That really hurts your ears! So apply the same thinking into your vibrato and bends… that’s when you are exposed.

If you are playing a very well-known melody live and you hit a note just a half-step from where it should be, it’s so much more noticeable compared to a crazy passage that goes by super-fast. Something like the intro to 'Another Day' from Images And Words needs to be perfect. Believe me, I’ve messed it up before and it’s really no fun. You have to be careful, because playing slower involves a different kind of focus."

Read the complete interview here.

Guitar World recently sat down with Petrucci, who discussed his favourite riffs from his band's latest album, Distance Over Time. In this new clip, John discusses the inception and conceptual and technical approaches he and his bandmates took in writing and arranging "Fall Into The Light."