i don't like guitar that much as an instrument, but probably most of the music i have listened to in my life is guitar based although not as much of it recently.

anyway, if i had to pick a favourite guitar player it'd be john frusciante but i don't like him because of how he plays guitar. i just like the way he writes and the melodies he comes up with. a whole lot! i'd like him just as much and probaly more if his primary instrument was piano or synths or whatever. really, he's just my favourite musician.

i thought i had a lot to say when i started this post but i don't. this is the stuff about music i don't like to talk about. i don't get why it's interesting, "ooh man listen to this guy! impressive technique!!!", that's not what music is. if people are really into that kind of thing it doesn't have much to do with the music. they are either just a little juvenile and will grow out of that kind of thing or they are just stupid. i think you said that but a little nicer in the first post chef.

shred durst none is better

heh I tend to do this with drummers a lot

but with that there is so much more to the best drummers out there than technical ability so I guess I dont even know what I'm saying here

my favorite guitarist is probably Wes Montgomery or the guy in my band though.

I do hate this question as well though because sometimes I get tripped up by it and say something stupid like John Petrucci haha

have you actually asked people their fav drummer and they RESPONDED WITH SOMETHING?

because really most bands let alone music listeners tend to use drummers to keep time and that's it.

oh god i almost thought THAT GUY FROM RATATAT ISN'T BAD but i think he's the guitarist from dashboard confessional as well.

yeah, this is how i feel about frusciante.  but you know, i don't think it's bad to care about technique.  like, being interested in the guitar as an instrument doesn't in any way preclude being interested in the music.  i LIKE that he's a really technical player and that no one else really plays like him in a lot of ways if you count his original stuff and not when he is just doing hendrixish solos, and that he comes up with really interesting songs if you just look at how they're played and not how they sound.  i still prefer him as a musician but yeah, i care about that stuff because i care about the guitar as an instrument, and i'm sure if you asked him, he probably would too!  i don't really see why you're making it sound like it is somehow the INFERIOR CHOICE to care about technical shit like playstyle or REVERSE POLARITY PICKUPS or tube amp engineering or any of the other really non-musical aspects of guitar.  that shit's perfectly legitimate and i'm sure a lot of musicians you like care about it a lot and use that kind of knowledge to actually get the sound they do.  like i said, it doesn't in any way preclude their being musicians.

well that's not really what i meant. i was talking about the guys who when talking about their favourite music the first thing they bring up is how fast a musician plays, or how they switch time signatures 20 times in one song or whatever. i'm sure a lot of musicians do care about the technical stuff, because it's what they've decided to do with their life so of course that's going to be part of it all, and for fans who are also interested in music or doing it as a career, learning about that stuff is inevitable and there's some fun in playing around with the toys you can use to make things sound different and stuff like that. it's all technical though, it's only interesting if you are truly trying to learn why music sounds the way it does. most people, if not all, who i know have spent months doing nothing but learning solos and letting me hear their favourite virtuoso moments, are just interested in the spectacle of some "rock god" playing fast as fuck and basically getting a big hard on for what seems to me to be the musicial equivalent to a die hard movie or something.

it's like, a very specific kind of stupidity all my friends in high school had about music. maybe i'm being too harsh, but it just seems boneheaded and boring to me. technique though is definitely not just playing fast and doing wacky tricks on stage though, that's just showmanship and it's not for me.

the kind of actual technique and skill involved in making good music, while it's important for a musician to have, isn't really so interesting to me. i guess i could compare it to filmmakers - the size of the lense, the arcane details of set lighting and so on - aren't what attract me in the end. they all help, but it's background. there have to be good intentions to start with, the execution comes after that. i'm more interested in the first part i guess, but that's just because i am kind of impatient with small details.

so i didn't mean to say heh, technique? for mere philistines. reading about that stuff bores me, but i can see why it might be important and it would probably let me become better at making the sounds i want to if i knew about it. i suppose what i'm talking about is theory and not technique. but even as i type this i'm realising this isn't really that relevant now because i'm out of high school and i don't actually have to talk to people who are like this anymore so this is mostly leftover crap that i just never talked about.

I'm going to call it with Andy Mckee or John Butler, who i think are the best examples of emotion and virtuosity combined, which seem to be the buzzwords of choice here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4Igb5Yors4 <- Very few nicer guitar tunes. I'd like to think it was this piece that drove me in the kind of direction i've taken my guitar playing.

If i'm going to listen to shred then i want it to be over the top and ridiculous but also to compliment the over the topness and ridiculous...ness of the rest of the song.
As a general rule, i'm not a fan. There was a Dragonforce song on in Gamestation the other day and, god, it was just dull.

(John Butler: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qih1HC-S7YE&feature=related the whole thing reeks of class. I wish i could play like that).

have you actually asked people their fav drummer and they RESPONDED WITH SOMETHING?

because really most bands let alone music listeners tend to use drummers to keep time and that's it.

I guess you have a point, that kind of shit only ever comes up when I talk to other drummers, but since I'm in a band and pretty steeped in the 'local music scene' or whatever (mostly just the psychedelic, jazz and jam bands around though, because they tend to be the dudes we play with) and who is your favorite drummer has come up fairly often in conversations about music for me heh

but yeah I think a lot of the music I listen to is influenced by how good the percussive element to the music is. if it is boring as shit and uncreative (or something I was doing when I was 13) then I tend to not like it as much. hence why I have been listening mostly to jazz, latin and afrobeat anymore (I dont know how to explain all the country I've been listening to lately heh)

What is your favourite bandoneonist?
What is your favourite nyckelharpist?
What is your favourite [instrument] ist?

Also is liking virtuosism the same for every instrument or is it better to like virtuoso piano players than virtuoso guitarrists?

I actually would have said Elliott Smith too, Chef. I really like his textural chords with picking intermixed.

I stopped being impressed by "guitar god" guys a long time ago. Few of them have any innovation and musically speaking I get really bored with it.

However Jaco is still my favorite bass player. So I'm just a contradictory bastard I guess.

isnt that the guy from foo fighters ilove them

lol irl

I really like john frusciante's early solo albums when he was slamming junk into his arm and being a fucking weirdo, but RHCP is one of the most boring bands ever. Poppy Man is one of the coolest guitar instrumentals

have you actually asked people their fav drummer and they RESPONDED WITH SOMETHING?

because really most bands let alone music listeners tend to use drummers to keep time and that's it.

NEIL PEART BITCHES

my faves are michio kurihara (ghost) and jason simon (dead meadow)

i'll take this:

this:
or this:

over this any day:


frusciante is without a doubt my favorite guitarist, but it's certainly not for his MAD CHOPS!! or whatever (even though he certainly has them.) hendrix, page, clapton, zappa, and eddie hazel come close, however. i don't give two shits about how fast or how technical a guitarist is, however I do appreciate ability to improvise and create melodies.

couchfiend