While I have to agree with HUNGRYMAN's most excellent shout out for Yngwie J. Malmsteen, I don't believe you can give him props without giving just desserts to John Petrucci of Dream Theater. The guy can play perfect 16th notes at 220 beats per minute! That's frightening.
IMHO the greatest guitar solo ever is in the song, "Under a Glass Moon" from "Images and Words" by DT. The solo has lightening speed blues, jazz, arpeggios and the most intense whammy bar pyrotechnics you'll hear anywhere...and it's not a solo-song like Yngwie...it's a full minute solo in a 7 minute song. The solo fits like a glove...It will blow your mind...especially the final 16th note chromatic run across 3 octaves.
And if you like the guitar/keyboard pyro, listen to some of the amazing runs in "Metropolis-Part I" off the same DT album. The solo is also #2 in my book (All keyboard/guitar harmony). And if you're into bass guitar there is a 10 second, 8 string thingy that John Myung pulls off right before the solo that will snag you undivided attention.
Originally posted by Zayne E. While I have to agree with HUNGRYMAN's most excellent shout out for Yngwie J. Malmsteen, I don't believe you can give him props without giving just desserts to John Petrucci of Dream Theater. The guy can play perfect 16th notes at 220 beats per minute! That's frightening.
IMHO the greatest guitar solo ever is in the song, "Under a Glass Moon" from "Images and Words" by DT. The solo has lightening speed blues, jazz, arpeggios and the most intense whammy bar pyrotechnics you'll hear anywhere...and it's not a solo-song like Yngwie...it's a full minute solo in a 7 minute song. The solo fits like a glove...It will blow your mind...especially the final 16th note chromatic run across 3 octaves.
And if you like the guitar/keyboard pyro, listen to some of the amazing runs in "Metropolis-Part I" off the same DT album. The solo is also #2 in my book (All keyboard/guitar harmony). And if you're into bass guitar there is a 10 second, 8 string thingy that John Myung pulls off right before the solo that will snag you undivided attention.
Yngwie plays with a LOT of feeling: passion, rage, fire, and fury. These are all "feelings". Ones a lot of people can relate to.
One doesn't have to be sad, blue, and depressed to play guitar.
That sounds like my grandmother saying that rock isn't music because it doesn't relax you. Music has different purposes for different artists and listeners. There is room for everything.
Can you relate to rap?
Can you relate to blues?
Can you relate to jazz?
Can you relate to speed metal?
Can you relate to classical?
Why or why not?
I can't relate to country and I admit it. I stay clear of pickup trucks, budweiser, and chew.
Jimmy Hendrix was unreal. Not just because of playing ability, but his song-writing, his stage presence, his clothing. Everything. Total package in a rock musician.
Eddie Van Halen often gets overlooked. There's a guy with a clearly defined style. You hear a rhythm guitar part and you know immediately, Eddie. Same with his guitar solos. Always tasteful.
Originally posted by Colin Yngwie plays with a LOT of feeling: passion, rage, fire, and fury. These are all "feelings". Ones a lot of people can relate to.
One doesn't have to be sad, blue, and depressed to play guitar.
That sounds like my grandmother saying that rock isn't music because it doesn't relax you. Music has different purposes for different artists and listeners. There is room for everything.
Can you relate to rap?
Can you relate to blues?
Can you relate to jazz?
Can you relate to speed metal?
Can you relate to classical?
Why or why not?
I can't relate to country and I admit it. I stay clear of pickup trucks, budweiser, and chew.
Hi Colin,
I am of the opinon that if you want someone who really "feels" there guitar playing Yngwie is NOT the peron to listen to.
BB King is no guitar virtuoso but he can OWN a single note guitar solo better than Yngwie ever could. The hallmark of a good guitar solo doesn't HAVE to be blazing speed or the ability to use guitar trickery to exact emotive energies from your listeners.
I relate to all of the above music. I relate to country too....though I don't particularly like it...there are some guitar players that I can relate to and appreciate for their ability.
I think the most moving solo I have ever seen personally was at a Santana show in the early 90's when his bass player played Little Wing on a 6-string bass.
Originally posted by Colin Jimmy Hendrix was unreal. Not just because of playing ability, but his song-writing, his stage presence, his clothing. Everything. Total package in a rock musician.
Eddie Van Halen often gets overlooked. There's a guy with a clearly defined style. You hear a rhythm guitar part and you know immediately, Eddie. Same with his guitar solos. Always tasteful.
All that follows is just opinion, so disagree all you like.
I'm a guitar guy myself, and I have a short list (never just one) of guitar gods. Jimi, for reinventing electric guitar (kind of a sloppy player sometimes, but he was also pretty high on somethingorother). Still, that solo in All Along The Watchtower (written by Bob Dylan!!!) is unforgiveably great! Eddie Van Halen for innovation and taste (that neck tapping style still eludes me). Most enjoyable solo: Eruption.
Jimmy Page gave us possibly the greatest rock solo of all time in Stairway to Heaven (a song which has somewhat silly lyrics). In this one, it's not speed, it's taste and structure. It's a little symphony, with an opening movement, a body, and a denouement. The perfect guitar solo, if ever there was one.
They used to scrawl grafitti in England that "Clapton is God," and there are way too many solos to show that "Old Slowhand" (quickness has never been his forte) had taste and style out the wazoo: Crossroads and White Room come to mind.
I've loved David Gilmour's guitar work, especially on the album A Momentary Lapse of Reason.
Mark Knopfler's solo on The Sultans of Swing is a dead-bang classic.
For sheer versatility and joy of playing (and insanity): David Lyndley.
Carlos Santana is another one whose style is personal and unique. I somehow never really appreciated him in my youth. Now, I'm in awe of the sheer beauty of his lines. What a musician!
Blues guitarists with way too many jaw-dropping guitar solos to pick just one: Gary Moore, Buddy Guy, Johnny Winter, to name just a few. Dave Hole, the Australian electric slide guitar phenom is a must-buy if you don't have him in your collection. Start with Short Fuse Blues.
And how could I overlook Stevie Ray, who was on his way to being the surrogate Jimi Hendrix when he was so suddenly removed from our lives?
In that twilight land between rock and jazz, Steve Morse reigns. Maybe Joe Satriani and Steve Vai belong here, too. They seem to be a bit beyond rock in their technique, harmonies, and lines, but the rhythm section remains rock-oriented.
BB King influenced all blues and rockers to follow, to some extent.
In classic acoustic blues, there's Robert Johnson. Once again, his whole oevre has to be referenced. It's ALL great. And pretty much no solos, just steady guitar playing.
Then there are the guys who are so perfect they literally ARE gods, because it's inconceivable any mortal could play so perfectly: Leo Kottke and Ry Cooder.
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C'mon guys...i can't believe how many people are overlooking the guy who made finger tapping and pull-ons/pull-offs mainstream? Before 1978 how many people were doing shit like that? Sure Hendrix and Clapton definetly used some of these techniques but not finger tapping...it took some young atomic punk to pull that shit off...NOW look how many great guitarist's use these techniques all the time! Eruption surely opened up alot of new ideas to the guitar world...not to mention all the other solos on that album..
Anyways, Eddie gets my vote for best guitar soloist....as far as best solo? Too many to choose from...
Now don't get me wrong...I love Vai, Malmsteen, Satriani, Hammett, etc...I was just surprised that so few people mentioned Eddie..
Okay I gotta get back to work or my boss is gonna catch me posting on here.. ;)
the Kerry King solo from "Angel Of Death" is the all time hottest, most aggressive solo ever....man, does he give that whammy bar a beating....I also have a softspot for the guitar solo from Nitro's Michealangelo on "Freight Train"
on a more biased note, my guitarist in Black Christmas pulled an amazing solo out of his ass on a little ditty we wrote called "Feel Like (Fucking) A Corpse Tonight" (I'll have to pull that baby off the cassette tape and encode it to MP3 one of these days )
Here's a name some of you fans of speed picking might not know; Jimmy Bryant. He was a country/jazz crossover artist, made his best recordings in the 50's with a steel guitar played named Speedy West (who was also a total monster). Check out their collection called "Stratospher Boogie" that came out a few years back - a MUST for fans of ripping guitar. No overdubs or drop-ins, either; the man just sat down and burned.
Also, for fans of solo guitar, you have to hear this unbelievable player out of New Orleans (well, Metarie, technically) named Phil DeGruy (pronounced "degree"). He plays a 7 string with 10 harp strings on it, and stretches the harmonic range to previously unknown territory. When I heard his version of "Claire De Lune", I fucking fell out of my chair. Unfortunately, DeGruy is a total recluse, the only album I know of by him is called "Innuendo, Out the Other"
Another solo guitar genius, also very hard to find - Ted Greene. He has two chord books that are incredible, too. One is called "Chord Chemistry", and it has just about every substitution and inversion you could ever imagine.
Yet another solo guitar god, Tuck Andress (stay away from that crap he records with his wife though - far too schmaltzy jazz)
As for my personal favorite guitar solo, it's a toss up between Frank Zappa's "Inca Roads" solo and Neil Young's "Cinnamon Girl" (no I'm not kidding - anyone who can make the same one note sound so freaking big like that has got my vote.)
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Hendrix was perhaps the greatest. Those of you old enough to remember think of what there was before. He re-invented the electric guitar and found notes that previously had not existed.
For me his best has to be Stars & Stripes, played at the Isle of Whyte. I had dropped acid and "floated" over the crowd.
Clapton, Santana, Jimmy Page, BB King and the guy from Ten Years After are all great, but they followed. Jimi led.
You really dont know what you are talking about... Yngwie's solos are all based on the same scale using sweep technic every time...
I must fully agree with You
Yngwie is motor machine, therefore i like his solos, but it's absolutelly something else like John, John has very great ideas in his solos
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Originally posted by charly Some tell me the name of the guy in Ten years After ot I will not sleep.
I can remember he died young, drugs or car crash?
Alvin Lee was his name. Not sure how he died.
Not to be confused with English country guitarist Albert Lee, who is a monster in his own right, especially all those pedal steel riffs he's copped.
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