To all you shredders...

[DJROBA]

Re: To all you shredders...

My advise to you is this.
Put in a cd or tape of music that you are fairly familiar with, then just start jamming. Try to follow the singer for melody, then work off of that. Learning scales is great and all, and you will learn them naturally. But learning how to play with feeling and emotion is something that comes from within, and nobody or no method tape can ever teach you that. When you start jamming with feeling instead of technique, that's when the real fun begins. When you are armed with the ability to play with emotion, and can improvise to anything, and have alot of fun as well. Good Luck!!

[countandduke]

Re: To all you shredders...

Trust me when I say that we all have problems playing licks that we are too familiar with. One of the things I TRY and do is to create boundaries for myself. For instance, try soloing on one string only, then try the top two, then the bottom 2, then middle four, stuff like that. It forces you to play other types of licks other than the ones you are used to playing. Also, SLOW DOWN....one of the biggest mistakes I think lots of guitarists make is just playing too fast. Joe Pass used to have his students play 8th notes only. This is a WAY cool excercise and I recommend it to my students, it frees your mind to play things you wouldn't normally play because you have plenty of time to think about what to play next. So again, try slowing down even to a ridiculous speed and FORCE yourself to play slowly REALLY slowly, hopefully your mind will be going faster than your fingers and all kinds of licks will pop up. The other cool thing you can do is record this on a tape player with a speed adjuster and then turn the speed up to hear what your licks will sound like at a faster speed........

[jgcable]

Re: To all you shredders...

whats an 8th note?? [img]graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[charvelguy]

Re: To all you shredders...

Originally posted by AlexL:
I get discouraged that I can't play fast leads as well, so you're not alone. But before you get too down on yourself and start the old "I suck at guitar because I can't play fast and I'll never amount to anything" routine, I have two words for you:

Eric Clapton.

- E.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Lol..
Hate to bore ya with a story, but this one sticks in my mind.
When I was 16..(yeah, back when I was just a youngin) I was at this guys house who was hosting a jam of some of the more prominent players in the area..Some of whom were teachers at the local music stores.

I had spent alot of time practicing and learning exotic scales and was beginning to put together a style in accordance to my influences.
In that practicing, I had also developed alot of speed and ability much the same way Word did only hes a couple years younger. When you're a kid and you spend hours a day jamming along with your favorite artists for months on end and practice scales for hours daily.. you can develope alot of ability quickly. I had some very good teachers who stressed, start slow for at least 10-15 minutes and eventually increase your speed and tempo playing as cleanly as possible.

Anyways...I was asked to jam for a bit, so I grabbed a guys '69 strat and had at it. When it time to leave..one of the local instructors came up and talked with me a bit. He handed me a copy
of Clapton's Slowhand and told me to give it a listen and learn some of the stuff off of it.

Pretty obvious hint.. while I listened to Clapton.. he did not inspire me to learn his stuff as much as I did with VH, Frank Marino or Steve Lukathur. Which in hindsight, I wish I would have spent some hours learning some Clapton as your're bound to need it somehwere down the line unless you're totally original.

David Gilmore or Billy Gibbons too...no speed demons there, but again, damn effective note squeezers playing some cool stuff.

[jgcable]

Re: To all you shredders...

There is a very good reason they call him "slowhand" [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]
The topic at hand is about shredders and how he admires shredders. Look, lets be real here, any beginner with a glimmer of talent and a year or two of practice can do a fairly decent job covering players such as Clapton, Gilmour, Iommi, Frehley, Vaughan. Sure... I know... they are great players with great tone and feel and writing ability ..blah..blah..blah.. but they also aren't very technically challenging. To shred in my opinion is the highest level that a hard rock/metal guitar player can achieve. That is what all of us metal heads aspire to become. Some get there, but most don't. And another thing, the pressure is really on when you get there because it only gets harder and harder to stay on top of your game. I started with Ace, Nugent, Perry and when I mastered them I thought it would be easy from then on. Then came Rhoads, Roth, Schenker, Lynch etc... I practiced until my fingers bled and after I figured them out and I thought it would be easy from then on. Then came Malmsteen, Macalpine, Vai, Satriani, Petrucci etc.. well.. I am still learning their styles and may never be able to master them and my fingers are still bleeding after 27 years. Of course I have my own style but it is just a combination of all of theirs with Lynch and Macalpine having the most influence. When you consider the guitarist who play rock/metal, most of them aren't shredders although I would bet that they all aspired to be at one time.

[markb]

Re: To all you shredders...

I dont think Vaughn belongs on your list of simpler old style players...he was pretty technically advanced. He wasn't a shredder (thank god...anyone who thinks blues and shredding go together needs an immediate b*tchslapping) but he was an advanced player. Shred the highest level???
I half agree with you. I loved shred when it came out, but I'm disappointed in most of the players. Most of them seemed to repeat themselves into obscurity, and overall the songwriting was weak.Really weak.Eric Johnson , who can shred anyones face off, is the only player who seems to have it all - shred, tone, dynamics, melody, etc. but even his songwriting is mediocre, so he hurts himself. I don't shred, I'm too lazy and thats that. But I'd like to see someone bring shred to a higher level for it to be worth anything. Petrucci isn't the answer. In terms of musical value, has anyone topped Rising Force?? Even the best shred seems to be from 20 years ago.

[charvelguy]

Re: To all you shredders...

True, I still listen to Akkerman who I consider a pioneer in the shred/sweep style. You just did not hear guys doing those things in the early 70's to his degree in mainstream and I think he still kills on those recordings mistakes and all.
Does he play that way today? It's still him, he still has plenty of speed, talent, and the evident style but a different slant musically as he's evolved.

I recall reading there was a time when Gilmore aspired to play fast..he just decided it wasn't him, and that is how he evolved.

So I do not believe talent is something you can take away from a person regardless of whether they hone themselves to play shred. Maybe I'm missing the point, but I look at guys like Junior Brown and think they tear it up. Do I think they are lesser of a player because they didn't evolve themselves to be like Al Dimeola? (who was starting out trying to imitate Doc Watson, a folk country player...and his muting was to keep the volume of his playing low during his practice, he eventually developed it into a trademark, like Yngwie developed his Paganinni effect into a trademark)


There was a time when SRV got booed offstage by people who didn't like his style or when he was so coked up that he didn't play his best. Ever see the video of him playing a slide verson of the Star Spangled Banner at a Baseball game opener?..pretty rough, I even cringed.

How about Satriani when he first played his demo's to his bandmates in the early 80's and the lukewarm if not negative response he got?
"never go anywhere, not marketable" He's certainly proved them wrong and is on top.

Take guys that had it together and lost it all and had to rebuild with the Cmajor scale all over again.. Esteban. (to much late night TV here)

Talent isn't something anyone is going to take away from someone. How you hone it and how much time you invest into developing it and where you take it is up to you IMO. If you flat out lose ability or fire within you, that is something you have to deal with on your own level, it's not like everybody else hasn't been there to a degree at some point in time.

I think Shred takes alot of talent, not to mention dexterity and endurance, practice.
But it's a matter of taste.I do not think Michael Angelo would play SVR licks all day all the time and do them the same as SVR.

If you were to give me a choice with voting for 3 players I had to listen to for 5 minutes and I had vote one off. The choice being between Michael Angelo, David Gilmore, and Paul Gilbert in a 60-70's tribute band. I vote off Michael Angelo right away.

As far as developing speed. You're taking the right steps, using a metro is a great tool. I personally never practiced to take myself past 16th notes at 144bpm..that's clipping! But if you can do it..more power to you. You can't tell Nascar to slow down either and they just kept getting faster and faster. Tis the thrill I guess.

[countandduke]

Re: To all you shredders...

Shawn Lane.........fastest shredder of them all. I just saw the Namm video with vai, satriani, timmons, beach, gilbert and Shawn blew them ALL away!!

[Newc]

Re: To all you shredders...

The one thing the major shredders have that makes them better than the everyday shredder is melody. Yes you can build up 256th note sweeps but if it's not melodic, you'll always be known as a guitarist who can play fast but who doesn't play anything interesting.
I personally do not aspire to make music for musicians, but for myself and music listeners. I started out listening to music, and that is the only audience that matters. What other guitarists/musicians want you as a musician to do is irrelevant. Learning is great but try to keep what you've learned in perspective.
But if you wanna be just another senseless shredder with no melodic direction, that's your choice.

Newc

[llexileon]

Re: To all you shredders...

If shred is the highest level then wahey...i can shred... woopie do, i can play fast and clean, but you know, it doesnt mean anything, so could anyone else who played with a metronome and jammed for like 6-8 hours a day, with the technique now, i find myself bored with what im playing, and bored of watching guys like angelo rip up a loada basic scalular crap. Its about phrasing and melody and expression... if i knew that from the start, i would be a much much better all round player now, instead im going back to basics and learning to play some real music, and learning to express myself through the instrument, rather than just rip through scales and pre rehearsed licks/tricks

Llexi.

[Shawn Lutz]

Re: To all you shredders...

You can still play fast and be melodic. What sucks is a lot of shredders can rip it up but what they can't do is play tasteful within a song structure that one would like to listen to. Speed and technique is a tool, if that is the only tool in your toolbox then you can't build anything of value. Just my opinion [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[countandduke]

Re: To all you shredders...

I couldn't agree more. I don't particularly care for Michael Angelo or Chris Impelliterri (spelling). I am the first to admit though, that I have not heard many songs by these guys but when I think of senseless shredding I think of these two guys. Shawn Lane and Allan Holdsworth are the two perfect extremes. Shawn has probably the fastest picking hand I have seen but he is very melodic and tasty...Allan Holdsworth does NOT have the fastest picking but he has the smoothest and fastest legato technique. I can't stand mindless shredding although I can appreciate it on a technical level although I agree that chops are FAR less important than a good sense of melody. Kurt Cobain is a perfect example, crappy guitar player, good sense of songwriting skills and melody.

[taxistationary]

Re: To all you shredders...

Shawn, your post hit the nail on the head! [img]graemlins/headbang.gif[/img]

[charvelguy]

Re: To all you shredders...

Yes, it did. It's just one aspect of playing, some just choose to exploit it more than others. One tool or color on the palate. You gotta let it breathe sometimes. I remember seeing Shawn Lane in Black Oak with Tommy Adlridge when I he was 15-16. (were almost he same age) Never heard any more from him for a long time. Then in his early twenties (23)..he pops up in Mike Varney's spotlight. I still had not heard any of his other stuff. Now I'll have to check him out again.
It's really a matter of taste as to how you use it, art is a very broad catagory, just about anything goes.

[ August 18, 2003, 07:36 PM: Message edited by: charvelguy ]

[MetalChef]

Re: To all you shredders...

Shred is NOT the highest level of guitar playing!


Making good music is!!!

nothing wrong with playing fast, oyu just have to know how to use it!

and if you want to play slower, bluesy things...that is good!!! Do it right!

SRV was a example...he did nothing new..but he did it right! He played with fire and soul..and made good music.

The MUSIC IS WHAT MATTERS!