Read some interviews with Albert King. He's a big proponent of playing with feel, with soul as he puts it. There's a great interview with him and SRV where he slates technical twiddlers who shred but can't play a note with any meaning. He then goes onto say he loves SRV because he can do both.
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Or also there's a great set of podcasts on Rick Rubin's podcast channel (broken record) where he interviews Frusciante (of RHCP) - another great example of a player who really appreciates the value in playing with feeling
As to someone who manages to do both I find Buckethead to be a good example of extremely technical and creative playing but still with a great feel, checkout his most popular track "Soothsayer" or actually a less well known track that I really like the playing on is called The Way to Heaven... wonderful playing
As to someone who manages to do both I find Buckethead to be a good example of extremely technical and creative playing but still with a great feel, checkout his most popular track "Soothsayer" or actually a less well known track that I really like the playing on is called The Way to Heaven... wonderful playing
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Man... Soothsayer is so rich with emotion. There's a particular live recording on YouTube that I never get tired of.
For me it exists in a trilogy or four songs though, that started with Maggot Brain. That song's 50 years old now and still amazing. Then there's Soothsayer. Then for me, Wayne which is a song John Frusciante recorded when a member of the RHCP touring crew died. What ties these all together is the theme of death, whether it's in concept (Maggot Brain) or specifically being written for people who've died. I quite often end up listening to one of these after one of the others comes up somewhere.
The fourth song is Before The Beginning by Frusciante. Also a ten minute piece of gentle but so emotive guitar work.
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Totally agree with all 4 
Them being instrumental adds something too, although there are other songs that spring to mind that have a similar vibe but aren't - like Brothers in Arms (Dire Straits)
Them being instrumental adds something too, although there are other songs that spring to mind that have a similar vibe but aren't - like Brothers in Arms (Dire Straits)
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I'd say slightly nerdy guitar music is probably a niche of mine, uncle_rufus just triggered a particular memory there
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Give them a listen, think you'll be in for a treat, here are the full titles to help in searching:
Maggot Brain is by Funkadelic, Eddie Hazel on guitar, great track, the album it's from of the same name is also pretty cool
Soothsayer (a tribute to Aunt Suzie) by Buckethead
Wayne by John Frusciante (of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, but it was during one of his long absences from the band)
and Before the Beginning also by John Frusciante (again during one of his long hiatus's)
All four tracks are ~10 minute long instrumentals that are more or less set to just a couple of fairly simple chord progressions and then the whole track is created and carried by the lead guitar part. Wonderful songs and personally kind of my ultimate aspiration to be able to improvise well in those styles and with that kind of level of feel and phrasing. I can happily improvise along to all of them but I find going the whole ~10 minutes it becomes hard to keep coming up with stuff that doesn't sound like I'm just repeating or going through the motions as it were
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Eh? it's Eddie on the studio recording of the original track... or are you talking about live versions or something else?
Yes. I love eddies playing.
I do find that some rightly famous guitarists can be overly dismissive of technical twiddlers - it would be a bit limiting to require every note of every solo to peaking out emotion. Sometimes, it’s just the sound or vibe of a collection of notes that works. Or even a musical mode used that gives a certain vibe and emotional feel.
I find a lot of twiddly music to be very exciting and thrilling. Surely that counts!
There’s room for it all
I only tend to be turned off a little when a solo feels it’s deliberately a bunch of ‘overly clever’ passengers tied together without ‘building’. One such solo is the Petrucci solo from ‘Under a Glass Moon’. Never dug that one particularly.
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I would say it's not technicality vs. lack of that is what makes it it's very much more about contrast. Some of the uber technical players feel like they just blast out 100s of notes and it's all very impressive but after an 8 minute song of nothing but that it starts to feel tiresome. Having the ability to really shred like crazy but using it more sparingly to create some fast parts amongst other slower parts
since Petrucci was mentioned...the Another Day solo is a great example of contrast, Images and Words is prob the only Dream Theatre album I've listened to in full, after hearing Another Day...
aaaand reminds of this recent vid from Stevie T...one of my fav Slash solos...
www.youtube.com
aaaand reminds of this recent vid from Stevie T...one of my fav Slash solos...
End of 'November Rain' be like...
The end solo of 'November Rain' always gives me the SHREDS!!!!! #steviet #steviet #steveterreberry #shorts
www.youtube.com
Turns out is was part of a 1983 TV concert. Youtube FTW
the video is garbled it has the clip in 3 different places and I've not even finished watching it yet.
56 minutes has it linking in to Pride & Joy which is the clip I recognise.
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Bah I’m super keen to play but I can still feel some tension in my arm / wrist after having a couple of days’ rest.
I have a habit of playing myself into injury, so just need to go slow and heal up until I’m more ‘conditioned’… considering I’ve been ‘dormant’ for a couple of years.
Frustrating but probably sensible!
I have a habit of playing myself into injury, so just need to go slow and heal up until I’m more ‘conditioned’… considering I’ve been ‘dormant’ for a couple of years.
Frustrating but probably sensible!
yes! People can, and have, given themselves long-term wrist bone problems by not taking it easy when they needed to.
Edit, I'm thinking of Steve Morse as an example. He has permanent stress fractures in his wrist that have caused him to change how he plays, and wear wrist braces etc. At first they thought it was carpal tunnel/arthritis but in a recent sky documentary he said something about irreversible weakening of the bones! He did play for scarily long amounts of time with a weird pick grip though so hopefully not something us regular folk will have to worry about for ourselves.
https://www.musicradar.com/news/guitars/steve-morses-12-tips-for-guitarists-642571
Deep Purple's Steve Morse Explains How Unusual Picking Style Gave Him Exceptional Clarity, But Damaged His Hands
'For about 50 years, I played with my thumb and two fingers on the pick.'
www.ultimate-guitar.com
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I practiced Troy Stetinas Speed Mechanics for Lead Guitar to the point of injury ages ago...couldn't fret a note with one of my fingers without feeling an electric shock type feeling going through it, was petrified! thankfully went away, eventually
Steve Morse is great...remember not being too bothered about lockdown when Throw My Bones came out, trying to learn the solo...never did tho!
Steve Morse is great...remember not being too bothered about lockdown when Throw My Bones came out, trying to learn the solo...never did tho!
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On the theme of people playing with feel, Julian Bream does it for me. There are definitely better technical guitarists, but his feeling is just magic.
Every single note, and pause, is considered and executed with feeling.
Here's one of his 1970s masterclasses, which demonstrates just how good he was. His dissection of the first guy's technique is both forensic and brutal. Ouch.
Every single note, and pause, is considered and executed with feeling.
Here's one of his 1970s masterclasses, which demonstrates just how good he was. His dissection of the first guy's technique is both forensic and brutal. Ouch.
Wow! Brutal is right. The "student" is reasonably well accomplished and the orange shirt guy is so exasperated with him. There's a room full of people watching. I'd be mortified. Glad it wasn't me!
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To be fair, Bream is right, but that poor guy probably never recovered from that.
He is much nicer to the woman playing sevilla, but still picks up a few points.
All those Albeniz pieces are horrifically difficult, to be fair.