imo all these metal shredders have speed and technicality but they lack texture. if you dont know what i mean, check out some jazz guitarists, or better yet some jazz sax players like my namesake. another beef i have with yngwie is that he has no rhythm and is all about speed (most of the time). i could listen to john coltrane fiddle around with one lick forever, he knows when its time for speed and wankery and when its time to be swingin'. yngwie on the other hand, could play every scale and every chord that exists in music theory and still be boring as fuck.
i think alot of the problem with these metal shredders and what not is that they persist with the idea that musical technicality and musicianship only applies to how fast you play a string of scales, and are ignorant of all the other wonderful things that make great musicians great. being the fastest is great but playing fast all the time is fucking brain numbingly boring. coltrane could 'shred' faster than any guitar player ive seen, but you hardly ever see him do it because it sounds like ass all the time, its just used to build up tension for the release.
try some joe pass, ditch yngwie, and i guess if you want a decent rock style shredder, try al di meola
On October 29 2008 09:41 BlackStar wrote: HooHa!, I am talking about his improvised solos.
Also, what does 'soul' in music even mean? Emotion?
Music doesn't have a soul and music doesn't contain emotions. Music is all about different ways to organise sound in terms of harmony, melody and rhythm.
Even people don't have souls, while they do have emotions. Yeah, he can produce a song in a couple of minutes that's better than many other people in the business can. That's why I called out that other person. But that's not the issue here.
I don't say that like many other people Yngwie should try something totally different. But there is a reason why so many other musicians do that. They know they are humans. They know they need to refresh and reinvent themselves.
If you play guitar yourself you know it's a big problem for guitarists. The way they need to play is very mechanical, very much movement oriented instead of sounds/note oriented. Yngwie's solo playing for a long time has definitely degraded because of stagnation.
Now maybe last year or two he totally changed. I know he lost life and adjusted his life style. But if he did you would probably complain because you like the old Yngwie more than the new one.
Yngwie has been playing the exact same stuff for years. There's nothing inherently wrong with that. But think about what kind of attitude a musician must have to be able to do that.
I am just giving a fair analysis of Yngwie's strong points, weak points and limitations.
And no, you are misunderstanding. Someone claimed Yngwie is just a 'wanker' and his music has no 'substance'. I think both you and I defended the musical integrity of Malmsteen. And now he's asking for 'evidence of substance'. So I ask what he even means by that. Is he just going to say: "His music has no soul." which of course is a totally meaningless and subjective statement. Or is he going to make a musicological argument? I mean, I would say music by definition has no substance but music. It's just that. And that's what makes it the most amazing artform. It excels at being abstract and still very emotional. And how would a 'musical proof' look like? I know about Schenkerian analysis and all that stuff. But how do you proof something about the quality of music?
I really respect your analysis(even though I didn't want this to become that type of thread at all), which I have done as well, maybe I have not written it down here exactly, but I do look at the hard concrete notes. And everyone has their opinion of what quality is, or what it should sound like, the music speaks in different ways to people.
I think yngwie continues to make the music his way because thats what he likes to do, he wants what makes him feel accomplished. I think he just is really passionate about making music that moves him and challenges himself and also is sort of a revelation to him. Thats probably a small bit of the attitude behind him, he figured out a long time ago that he never is 100% happy when someone else gets in his musical making process. Now, he probably referred to the odyssey album, which I have to say is one of my favorite albums of his. Or also Steeler. He wasn't getting the feel of that stuff. although I like the steeler album too, its alot of fun.
People have souls though. Come on, thats ridiculous, don't be so robotic. You know you feel it whenever you hear something moving. I know we can get into some big ole debacle about souls and God or whatever, But lets not. This is NOT the place for lame boring robotic, we are just multi celled organisms that just reproduce crap. And to define soul, cause I guess you asked for that, its like a separate entity of the body. Its like our actions feelings thoughts. Its the spiritual part instead of the physical part. Whether you believe or not about all that stuff, but it certainly carries people far when they really really want it, just look at Steve Vai and Satch, and SRV, and Jason Becker, you know the list.
And as a guitar player, well, its my blog. why don't I talk about that a bit!?
Yeah I started off playing stevie ray vaughan and like some of the popular stuff at the time. And really learned quite a bit of the blues. I always loved rock, like eddie van and Steve Vai when I heard of him. So I learned just about the formula of most of SRV's songs, you can pretty much figure out the rest.
Learned alot of theory while I was taking lessons for about 2 1/2 years. During then,. I played in the jazz band of the music store, learned alot of chords and playing in the pocket. improv. helped alot.
Then I started wanting to learn yngwie stuff, and -even though my guitar teacher wasn't really much of that kind of player, he could pull it off though. And yeah, eventually had to move and such.
Now, could I expand myself and play other stuff...yeah... I could, but I really like this classical stuff, because its challenging and you can basically make any sound you want.
I like both old Yngwie and New Yngwie for the record. The first four or 5 albums are awesome. And also the later albums are awesome.
Tim ripper owens is a great singer too, he's perfect for this album. hes got a good aggressive voice. I never heard of his stuff before this.
On October 29 2008 11:55 JohnColtrane wrote: imo all these metal shredders have speed and technicality but they lack texture. if you dont know what i mean, check out some jazz guitarists, or better yet some jazz sax players like my namesake. another beef i have with yngwie is that he has no rhythm and is all about speed (most of the time). i could listen to john coltrane fiddle around with one lick forever, he knows when its time for speed and wankery and when its time to be swingin'. yngwie on the other hand, could play every scale and every chord that exists in music theory and still be boring as fuck.
i think alot of the problem with these metal shredders and what not is that they persist with the idea that musical technicality and musicianship only applies to how fast you play a string of scales, and are ignorant of all the other wonderful things that make great musicians great. being the fastest is great but playing fast all the time is fucking brain numbingly boring. coltrane could 'shred' faster than any guitar player ive seen, but you hardly ever see him do it because it sounds like ass all the time, its just used to build up tension for the release.
try some joe pass, ditch yngwie, and i guess if you want a decent rock style shredder, try al di meola
All good players, I wouldn't ditch anyone I consider my heroes though. I still love SRV even though I don't really learn his stuff anymore. never really got into al di meola, I know hes a great guitar player and does amazing stuff on it.
Coltrane is awesome. I loved playing his stuff....Didn't he do Cold Duck Time? Jazz is great stuff.
Ritchie Blackmore is one of my favorites, I started listening to him after I knew alot of yngwie's stuff. He's great, hes got speed, feel, and just pulls out exotic stuff out of nowhere! I love his solo in the california Jam of 74, in mistreated. Wowee. Great song.
On October 29 2008 09:41 BlackStar wrote: HooHa!, I am talking about his improvised solos.
Also, what does 'soul' in music even mean? Emotion?
Music doesn't have a soul and music doesn't contain emotions. Music is all about different ways to organise sound in terms of harmony, melody and rhythm.
Even people don't have souls, while they do have emotions. Yeah, he can produce a song in a couple of minutes that's better than many other people in the business can. That's why I called out that other person. But that's not the issue here.
I don't say that like many other people Yngwie should try something totally different. But there is a reason why so many other musicians do that. They know they are humans. They know they need to refresh and reinvent themselves.
If you play guitar yourself you know it's a big problem for guitarists. The way they need to play is very mechanical, very much movement oriented instead of sounds/note oriented. Yngwie's solo playing for a long time has definitely degraded because of stagnation.
Now maybe last year or two he totally changed. I know he lost life and adjusted his life style. But if he did you would probably complain because you like the old Yngwie more than the new one.
Yngwie has been playing the exact same stuff for years. There's nothing inherently wrong with that. But think about what kind of attitude a musician must have to be able to do that.
I am just giving a fair analysis of Yngwie's strong points, weak points and limitations.
And no, you are misunderstanding. Someone claimed Yngwie is just a 'wanker' and his music has no 'substance'. I think both you and I defended the musical integrity of Malmsteen. And now he's asking for 'evidence of substance'. So I ask what he even means by that. Is he just going to say: "His music has no soul." which of course is a totally meaningless and subjective statement. Or is he going to make a musicological argument? I mean, I would say music by definition has no substance but music. It's just that. And that's what makes it the most amazing artform. It excels at being abstract and still very emotional. And how would a 'musical proof' look like? I know about Schenkerian analysis and all that stuff. But how do you proof something about the quality of music?
People have souls though. Come on, thats ridiculous, don't be so robotic. You know you feel it whenever you hear something moving. I know we can get into some big ole debacle about souls and God or whatever, But lets not. This is NOT the place for lame boring robotic, we are just multi celled organisms that just reproduce crap. And to define soul, cause I guess you asked for that, its like a separate entity of the body. Its like our actions feelings thoughts. Its the spiritual part instead of the physical part.
He was saying that thoughts, feelings and emotions are all in the brain, which is true. When someone feels different emotions you can see it in a PET scan. Drugs that change your mood effect the brain, I wonder why?
Unfortunately I missed out on the buckethead concert here. because I chose yngwie's concert. But Oh well, I don't exactly know all of buckethead's songs, maybe next time though.
Funny thing about buckethead. I actually got that word filtered out on this other forum I went too.
I drove the creator mad, by always asking if he could get buckethead on his show.
lol about the forum censor. Good to see other Buckethead fans around. He does have some stuff that is a bit "out there," but he also has some great songs.
EPT
