John Petrucci

I myself am a guitarist, so I decided to post information about a guitarist. I could not think of too many better people than arguably the fastest professional guitarist in the world. John Petrucci was born in the 12th of July,1967. Heis also a songwriter and the lead guitarist of the progressive metal band Dream Theatre. GuitarOne ranked him the 9th greatest shredder of all time.
He got attracted to the guitar in a somewhat unconventional way. He noticed that his sister was allowed to stay up late every night because she was taking organ lessons. So the eight year old John picks up the guitar, but his plan fails and he gives it up after some time. He started playing again at the age of twelve and was invited to join a band by Kevin Moore, the future keyboardist of dream theatre. He practicd earnestly whilst exercising physically. He was a largely self taught guitarist but inspired by Steve Vai,Stevie Ray Vaughan, Steve Howe, Alex Lifeson and Allan Holdsworth. He jokingly referred to his idols as "the Steves and Als".
Petrucci attended Berkley College of Music in Boston with childhood friend John Myung(future bass guitarist of Dream Theatre) and met Mike Potnoy( future drummer of DT). The three along with Kevin Moore formed the band Majesty which later became Dream Theatre.
In 2001 John was invited by Joe Satriani and Steve Vai to be the third guitarist on the G3 tour.After that he was named the 3rd guitarist another 5 times, more than any other invited guitarist. these live concerts exposed him to a number of fans. This inspired him to record his first solo album-Suspended Animation. Arguably the most popular song from this album is Glasgow Kiss.
Petrucci is respected for his variety of guitar styles and skills. One of the most notable of these is his high speed alternate picking. John uses mostly(if not only) Ibanez guitars and has played Flight Of The Bumblebee (an extremely fast piece composed by Rimsky Korsakov) live.