arjunmenon
MIKA the better one wrote
I do know that they were just very clever in their marketing in getting noticed and signed.
And there in lies the rub ?
But seriously, like you say, its all a matter of tastes and choice.
If playing two notes over and over is what rocks your boat, then more power to you.
And if playing a million notes makes me happy, then thats my choice.
Personally, i can't stand the Arctic Monkeys and not really a fan of Frusciante , although i do like his work in RHCP.
And i completely agree with Shadow1 and Aubs. Playing a gazillion notes doesn't make up for a lack of musicality. As Aubs put it, what appeals to the masses is what seems to rule these days.
The key is to find that equilibrium where you don't overplay/underplay a piece of music. As Jeff Beck once said (and before by Count Bassie) ," Its not so much what you play, its what you don't play that can sometimes make a difference". The best guitar players in my opinion are the ones that can truly connect with their guitars on an intimate level and take the music further (and let's face it, when that happens, it shows in their playing)...and that to me means knowing what you can do with a guitar.
NorioDS
If you don't feel that Satriani is playing with emotion, then you're not listening. He has amazing feel. He has worked very hard to add as much emotion into his music as possible.
Listen to his vibrato. It's beautiful. It's gentle, it's "singing". Listen to his picking - he focuses a lot on picking lightly so you don't actually hear his pick during his legato runs. His legato? Flawless. Why does he focus on these things? To make his music gentler, more melodic and "pretty".
Sure he's fast but he makes that work within the melody of the music. Do yourself a favour and listen to these songs for emotion + feeling, etc...
- Love Thing
- Until we say Goodbye
- I Believe (my fave Satch song, listen to the volume swells, the vibrato, the amazing rhythm throughout the song - very very deep, even if you don't like his singing)
- Starry Night
- What Breaks a Heart
- You Saved my Life
- Cryin'
Pick any of those songs, pick a note out of that song that's got feeling. Just one note, with his gentle vibrato, etc. Now try do that. It's so hard to have that kind of control over your left hand (for normal vibrato) or right hand (for his whammy vibrato). And that's just one aspect of one note, out of one song from one amazing virtuoso.
Same goes for Vai, Andy Timmons, etc. It's like Bob said, technical skill is vocabulary. These guys get to say EXACTLY what they're feeling as opposed to a close idea of it because they work hard at perfecting their technique.
Listen to Andy Timmons: Cry For You (Solo of which was done in one take!)
And please don't mistake being able to play a Satriani song so that it sounds similar to Satriani for actually playing it like Satch plays it. I've yet to hear someone (apart from Meir Taitz) cover a Satriani song so that it sounds like him - emotion and all.
When I first heard Satriani, I thought "big deal, I don't get it". And that's the truth, I didn't get it. But once you actually start understanding what he's doing and you try do it yourself, you realise that that amount of feeling, emotion and skill, all in one song, is damn amazing to achieve and not many other guitarists out there can do that.
Please note: I love the feeling Gilmour and other guitarists achieve. They're amazing. They get a great message across with just a few "words". I just ALSO love guitarists with a wider vocabulary and just as much feeling.
NorioDS
+1 Arjun ?
arjunmenon
Norio wrote
+1 Arjun ?
Oh no, brother ? Kudos to you actually. You've hit the mark perfectly!
andrewjbryson
Norio and Arjun... +1 & Karma'd
chris77
I agree with you that less is more sometimes, but I think that to single out Vai, Petrucci and Satriani as an example of this is ridiculous. Let me rather tell you about a guy who shall remain nameless, but is a far better example of what sometimes gives "technical" players such a bad rep. This oke has some serious flurry fingers and can play stuff that makes your eyes water trying to follow what he's doing . He still lives of his folks and instead of studying and working he opted to spend his days smoking doobie and learning to play difficult passages by heart. (I remember Iron Maiden because I had heard of them at least but there was at least a dozen other songs I didnt recognise) As a result the dude can play quite a bit and manages to impress everyone -guitarist and non guitarists alike- who watches him play. And thats where it ends... He cant improv very well, has no idea of what key the piece is in and has no real understanding of how the stuff he learnt like a parrot actually fits together. As long as it sound impressive he's happy. Yet he has convinced himself that doing what he does is the way we all should be playing and that all other genres are kindergarten crap played by talentless yobos. I dont like the guy, I realy dont, and personally I prefer the sparse and tastefull lick and the catchy riff to the technical and clinical playing of the G3 guys, but I honestly cannot even for one second compare them to the their little disciple in Bloem. So like in any genre there are the fanatics who does it no justice, but to shoot down everyone in that camp as a result of them just places you in the same category but on the other side of the fence.
NorioDS
Thanks AJB + Arjun ? I karma'ed you guys earlier too! Very karma worthy posts!
Jack-Flash-Jr
There's haiku's and there's Joyce's Ulysses. There are good haiku's and there are good tomes. And there's plenty of crap in both forms.
arjunmenon
Jack Flash Jr wrote
There's haiku's and there's Joyce's Ulysses. There are good haiku's and there are good tomes. And there's plenty of crap in both forms.
And just for that, you, sir, have been applauded. ?
Bob-Dubery
I have to start edging towards Mika's side of the debate here. I think the emphasis on there is too much on technique with the guys like Vai, Satriani and Govan. And I think they are aiming what they do at an audience that appreciates chops on electric guitar. I'm sure I can't do what those guys do, but that's neither here nor there. There are plenty of people who can hit a tennis ball better than I can - it doesn't make them great tennis players.
I'm sorry, but I don't hear a lot of emotion in that music - though I think they are fab players and they DO have a lot of originality in their approach to the instrument. But it all seems a bit technique for technique's sake to me. I think when we say there is "emotion" in their music we are really saying that we like it, we appreciate the difficulty of playing it and we appreciate the way it's been executed - and that's valid, but it doesn't equate to a real emotional payload in the music.
If I had to draw a grap with "technique/vocabulary" on one axis and "something to say" on the other they'd all be near the quadrant that equates to "lots of words, not much to say".
I took some time to check out Artic Monkey's on YouTube. I don't think they're great players, and I don't think tht Mika's saying that they are. But I found their songs far more interesting, more grittily realistic than most of what I hear from the guitar supremos. Yes, they don't have the uber chops - that's no contents (Edit should be no contest) - but they're not positioning themselves as being elite players.
andrewjbryson
Nope Nopetiy Nope Nope....
Each his own
some people like to drive fast... some drive slow...
AlanRatcliffe
Technicality and feel - two sides of the same coin. It's all music and there are people who enjoy each approach. Just because one is not for you, doesn't automatically make it bad or detract from the music itself.
There are shredders who concentrate on technique to the exclusion of feel, just like there are blues players who crank out riffs by rote without feeling them. They both give a bad name to their respective genres.
Technically proficient players are more likely to fall into the trap of using technique for technique's sake, but the truly excellent ones that move beyond that and are able to express themselves - and IMO, Vai and Satriani are among those (very) few. I can't help feeling that the listeners who write them off have either not bothered to listen to them beyond the initial impression of "Too many notes" or are actually incapable of following the nuances in the playing. Vai in particular, I can understand people missing the detail, as while he puts a huge amount of detail and feel into every note, it is often in a fast passage where you need to be at a high order of appreciation to even hear it is there. It's easy to hear the flurry of notes, it's difficult to appreciate the detail.
Feel players are often underestimated by the more technically inclined too - they miss how much detail is being put into each note. It's also easy to miss how much skill goes into crafting a good pop song - because it's in the pop format.
It's pretty much the same with classical music. I know classical listeners who accuse Bach of being too technical with no feel (obviously never heard Wanda Lundowska), while others abhor Strauss for being too "commercial". Neither are right.
Quite honestly, it seems that the music business is filled with this kind of polarised black and white thinking (or rather black OR white). Not just the music, but even when it comes to gear. Too many of us tend to think that because we have a preference for a style of music or a particular brand of guitar, that everything else is somehow bad or "worse than ...", when it is merely different. I actually feel sorry for anyone who sees everything in these terms, because they miss out on so much good stuff.
MIKA-the-better-one
But how annoying are those guys who burn rubber outside your house at night and wake you up. Guys by no means am i saying there is no talent in g3 's playing, they have obviously devoted alot if not there life to progressing there art form. What I am focusing on is that there playing is dominated by the direction in which there art has gone. That every song will be dominated by there stacato, legato, vibrato, runs, scales and all. They struggle to possibly just approach a song from a neautral mind, the most objective aproach. Now to us guitarists there playing maybe be a absoulute wonder, amazingness. but thats because we share an element of the frame of mind.
Now think in a more objective less guitarist mind, more musician, whats a good song, not solo peice for a guitar. Artic Minkeys are simply my easy to use example, they can go through a whole song with no guitars, or one repeated line. Or they can just use boring power chords, but combine one simple line on the guitar, driving bass, a very good drummer, and melody melody melody on the vocals, playing with dynamic and layering what do you have, a good song.
I am not saying satriani (who again is an easy example of the style) cannot play or is devoid of emoton BUT rather imprisoned by his technique. Although Artic monkeys may suffer a similar fate from lack of the technical. However I have listened to those songs posted or some of them, and they just dont cut it for me, its like a very fast car thats good but runs outa fuel in seconds, subject to its own demise.
Norio if he has to "work hard to include emotion" would that not be a bit fake, that he has to resort to all the technical? Surely he should just harness what is actually trully there? Has anyone listened to John Frusciates solo stuff??? oooh and anyone watch my video post and see how simply they layered a good song?
NorioDS
Karma'd, Alan, nicely put!
aubs1
Alan Ratcliffe wrote
It's easy to hear the flurry of notes, it's difficult to appreciate the detail.
Awesome line Alan.......I like it ?
AlanRatcliffe
MIKA the better one wrote
But how annoying are those guys who burn rubber outside your house at night and wake you up.
Fish. Definitely fish.
Guys by no means am i saying there is no talent in g3 's playing
Maybe so, and I do get the point you are trying to make, but perhaps others would be more inclined to consider your point had you not been so obviously biased against these players. Replace "technicality" in the thread title you chose with "Arctic Monkeys" and read it again ...see the impression it creates? You basically said that technical players do not make "actual music". Now add phrases like "show off, macho, athletic style of playing" to the mix. Now suppose I phrased my argument as "Arctic Monkeys' music isn't any good because they can't play their instruments properly". If I did, you'd obviously take it as an attack andbe quick to jump to their defence, wouldn't you?
Now where's that confounded troll spray?
[deleted]
dwelved into new sonic territory
Yes, I also like to dwelve into new sonic teritory.
As a classical musician it's the biggest trap of all to just play tecnically. You have to go into all the possibilities of the song to understand which way is truely your own. That takes skill, but you also grow as a person and player. You use the music to express emotions that empower you. When you finaly get to the stage where you are happy with the direction and personality of the song you have to make it your own. You know you've reached the point where it's your own when you can play it seamlessly, effortlessly and beautifully, because what you are playing is coming from your heart. Just playing easy songs to avoid that confrontation is one option, I'm not saying it's right or wrong.
What is truely beautiful is if you are proficiant enough in skill and musical understanding to slip between Bach and Beatles without compromising the two while still making sense to the listener and enjoying yourself.
vic
Brian May is imho the perfect example of a guitarist who is not only technically superb, but also has the soul of a great musician...whatever that may mean ???
Guy-Onraet
Viccy wrote
dwelved into new sonic territory
Yes, I also like to dwelve into new sonic teritory.
As a classical musician it's the biggest trap of all to just play tecnically. You have to go into all the possibilities of the song to understand which way is truely your own. That takes skill, but you also grow as a person and player. You use the music to express emotions that empower you. When you finaly get to the stage where you are happy with the direction and personality of the song you have to make it your own. You know you've reached the point where it's your own when you can play it seamlessly, effortlessly and beautifully, because what you are playing is coming from your heart. Just playing easy songs to avoid that confrontation is one option, I'm not saying it's right or wrong.
What is truely beautiful is if you are proficiant enough in skill and musical understanding to slip between Bach and Beatles without compromising the two while still making sense to the listener and enjoying yourself.
I like this ?
At the end of the day, if you haven't put in the hours yourself, you most probably won't hear the subtleties in music played by highly skilled musicians.
Pop music is made to be POPULAR. So it's easily accessible, has a wide appeal and you don' have to put in some serious practice just to "get it".
It's like comparing the Sistine Chapel to a photo of you and your friends having a blast out on the town (or a similar scenario where you are having a fantastically great time). Both are awesome, and well worth experiencing again, but the score cards aren't even in the same language.
on a side note:
every single person i have ever met who has studied music formally, plays with infinitely more feeling that those who have not :-\
MIKA-the-better-one
I dont think we would have had a discussion if there wer two neutral sides, we kind of need to points to which we argue. If you would like me to use other examples instead of g3 we can say Yingwe Malmestein. And I am not trying to put a point across, some guys may really see Satriani as emotionally evoking music, good well written music, howver this subjective. To me and many other musican guitarsits this is how the their music comes across, quick to show off (macho) and all on speed and the technicality very much like a sport.
Artic monkeys and the somewhat primitive forms of music some of us prefer can be called noise, and played by a bunch of no talented junkies.
Satriani g3 all those ........ athletes (just kidding) can and as i have said play there instruments, the question posed and my impression (wrong or right) is that they tend to be limited to and unable to write a song. To me a song needs spontanaity, it needs to be layered and have in it something stimulating for the sense, I feel in their music they tend to focus on the guitar, all the emotion as mentioned earlier is forced.
The same way one guy on another chat thought kurt cobain was devoid of tone. There is no answer, will be no answer and that is why we have so many comments on the subject.
I have mentioned some technical bands I really enjoy REALLY ENJOY , The Mars volta, Mastadon, Phantom planet, MR BUNGLE mmmmm yeh thats about it. I think that they use their technical expertise to serve to the song as a whole, not to dominate the song with it. If you told a more technical player like satriani to play these three notes (call it E, G,A#) for a the duration of a song what would he do?
