Steve Vai’s Handwritten Transcription of Van Halen’s “Eruption”

From 1984: A Scan of Vai’s Original Seven-Page Document

While I was a staff editor at Guitar Player, we decided to feature Eddie Van Halen on the cover of the July 1984 issue. Since I’d already interviewed Eddie four times for the magazine, we asked if he’d be willing to give our readers a crash course in his playing style. Eddie agreed, and our music editor, Jim Ferguson, was dispatched to Los Angeles to meet with him for the “My Tips For Beginners” section of the cover story.

We also thought it would be beneficial to include music for more advanced players. Eddie’s “Eruption,” the guitar-and-drums instrumental on 1978’s Van Halen, seemed the obvious choice. But who could transcribe such a complex piece of music, with its groundbreaking finger taps, whammy wranglings, and sonic effects? The answer: Steve Vai, who’d just finished recording his Flex-Able solo album.

At the time, the 23-year-old Vai had already attended the Berklee College of Music and was a member of Frank Zappa’s band. Zappa regularly referred to the six-foot-tall Vai as “our little Italian virtuoso.” Steve found his way into Zappa’s orbit by doing freelance transcriptions of some of Frank’s more complex pieces. We contacted Steve, and he agreed to take on the “Eruption” assignment.

Soon afterward, Vai’s package arrived. The instant I unfolded his taped-together seven-page transcription, it struck me as a work of art. For starters, it was handwritten on cream-colored music paper. A similarly colored variation of White-Out had been used to make corrections. Notes on the top left-hand corner of the first page declared “Guitar Part Transcribed for Guitar + Pumped Marshalls” and “Balls Out!” This was no ordinary transcription.

Steve included eight paragraphs of notes to accompany the transcription, which can be seen in its entirety below. Here they are: