Jimi Hendrix vs. Eddie Van Halen
 

Who's the better guitarist?

The more mpgs of Hendrix I d/l off the Net, the more my respect for him grows. Classic!

Jimi. There is no question. Even Eddie will agree.

:thumbsup

I'm watching Jimi's version of "Like a Rolling Stone" ... man, this man can smoothly meld the human soul with the electricity sweetly flowing from his guitar.

Without a doubt Jimi.

His version of Like a Rolling Stone at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 is amazing. the whole concert is amazing. One of the best recorded gigs of hendrix ever.

I think Van Halen's credibility was destroyed when he did "Jump"

Actually I think Eddie Van Halen is a better guitarist than Jimi Hendrix.

In not only Technique and higher learning about the instrument but creatively speaking as well.

Take a good listen at 1984.

"Hot For Teacher" opens up with one incredible piece of sound that demonstrates the dynamic of Eddie Van Halen taste with sound.

Another guy that is totally underated with the guitar is Prince.
But if ya wanna talk about a guy that cleans them all up take a look at Kirt Hammet.

Kirk Hammett is pretty damn good. Very nuanced style.

isn't that obvious?! no one beats old jimi! :thumbsup

Angus Young...nice and simple.

Hammett is a 4th rate guitarist. We both took lessons from Joe Satriani at the same time. I can think of dozens of Berkeley boys that were better but out of the East Bay crew that studied under Joe the following were the most terrifying:

Alex Skolnick http://www.alexskolnick.com/
Geoff Tyson http://www.geofftyson.com/
Danny Gill http://www.buy.com/retail/product.as...p=1&queryType=

Hendrix at Monterey is HYPNOTIC. I'm trying to find the whole video. Can't get tired of watching it. Amazing this stuff is more than 30 years old.

Just goes to show you... the real definition of CLASSIC is that it is AGELESS.

Well if you are trained in Guitar then you should know Jimi was better with sound than technique. Its true he is one of the few that played by actually hearing tonal changes AT THE MOMENT and finding a place at the right moment to parallel with the primary tone.

If he spent more time understanding his instrument than I would side with you. But basically Jimi was a sloppy guitarist. Thats not a bad thing but he only explored 1/2 his potential.

I've played Guitar since I was 16 and a slave to Jackson's and I have read most of Jimi Hendrix stuff. The reality of it is that he explored no further than Cobaine with the 6 string.

MOntery festival is that the one where he used lighter fluid?

Both had interesting sound.

Kirt Hammet 4th rate!

OMg...

Your retarded.

Tough to say. It's like saying who was the best drummer. You cant compare really. :2 cents:

Jimi could play very clean. Listen to his material with the Isley Brothers and his lesser known session tracks. Jimi took huge risks as a player and a composer. His contribution to music is much, much greater than Hammett. All Hammett does is run through the tonal cycle changes: Satriani 101. Jimi explored multiple tonality, used distortion as an instrument exploring 2nd and 3rd generation harmonic overtones, and extended harmony with free jazz Coltrane-like dissonance. Jimi took risks, Hammett plays arpeggios. Jimi played "sloppy" on purpose. He had chops, major chops.

Secondly, a Jackson isn't a guitar. It is a toy.

He is comparing two specific guitar players which is a much easier chore.

What are you some sort of Muffled Gibson guitarist???

HAhaha!

Jackson is the only guitar that truly opens up...

Go home...

First of all it's Kirk .. and secondly I have to agree with him.

Hammet is a one trick poney. He's got a couple techniques under his belt that sound impressive but he just can't seem to get out of aeolian and phrygian.

He uses the same motifs just arranged differently in each one of his solos... and he does everything to show off with very little phrasing behind him.

I bet you can't play clean - no distortion. You're probably some GIT sweep picking clone. Jacksons are horrible guitars. If you are going to use a modern guitar, I would pick a Paul Reed Smith custom.

jimi hendrix but eddie van halen is a close second... man if only i can do that too

"He uses the same motifs just arranged differently in each one of his solos... and he does everything to show off with very little phrasing behind him."

Thats not true at all...

Ya wanna tell me that
That the same rift's from to "Kill em All" are the same rifts as "Justice for all"?

Ya neophyte...

Listen carefully you will know that a There is alot more than Arpegiated scales involved in several different modes...

And going to Arpegiated Myxolydian scale's as well with perfect tone.

Jimi didnt do those things...
He was to stoned on drugs to even think about it. Albeit many of the fills on Metallica's albums are throw together's they can't be repeated no matter how good you are.



I would take a Les Paul and break it over your fucken head.

Both are fantastic guitarists. Depends on what you rate as 'better' guitar playing.

Eddie Van Halen would be able to run scales, shred, and cut dizzying fast solos with precision.

Hendrix wouldn't be as fast or be able to play a single scale well, but the music he makes playing the guitar is like no other. You're in awe of where he plays certain notes and the combinations he creates, it's as if the human soul really is within the notes he's playing. "Redhouse" is a good example.

I'd say a closer comparison is Clapton and Hendrix. Both have an ear or knack for blending emotion into the guitar.

For Eddie a better comparison would be between him and Hammett and guitarists of that 'school' of playing. It's sophisticated, learned, and air tight guitar playing.

Jimi... how could you even ask?!

You summarise the exact reason why Eddie Van Halen beats Hendrix.

Hendrix never had a chance to study any of Randy Rhodes work.
Ya goto remember that the creation of rock was at the core but the fine tuning of Rock didnt happen till the mid 70's.

The knowledge of (Acid) Rock Music playing was lacking in the 60's are experimental.

Or even Jimmy Page and Hendrix would be a better comparison. Eddie or Kirk could whip Page and Hendrix running scales or repetitive trills that sound amazing but aren't oeverly difficult to produce, but neither can create emotive, moving, cascading pieces of guitar playing like Page or Hendrix.

I appreciate both "styles" if we can call it that. Hammett is just amazing to listen to in Metallica. But I think his work would be easier to repeat or imitate by other schooled guitarists than Page or Hendrix.

Jimi Hendrix used a Squire Strat...

Nuff said.

Todays Guitars such as Jackson's have modifications that are unbelievable from Floyd Rose Wammies to Ice Strings and double Hummbucker's.

The potential of the 60's guitar is limited to the 60's in technical ability alone.

Solid state Amps brought a whole new school of sound in itself.
Hear GK amp's in Metallica and listen to the fuzz of the old school amp's and there is no comparison.

You're saying that today's guitarists are aided by technical advancements made to the guitar itself? Does that make them better guitarists then or worse? A better comparison would be to see what they could do with the limitations you say existed on guitarists in the 60's

Thats already been done...

If you want to hear what old school players do with tech does listen to Pink Floyd!

Now there you have somthing truly magical that transcend's the mind.

"Us and them" man...

Ya ever heard Pink Floyd Play "Us and Them" Live when they came out with "Momentary Lapse of Reason" Tour?

Holy god's fuck!

Infact Pink Floyd took it further and even showed the beginning of what today's "Trance", "Ambient" music is all about.

Jimi is the greatest rock/blues guitarist of all time. Period.

To rank them properly, the next guys on the list would start at 10.

And I am talking Clapton, Page, Knoppler, SRV, May, Blackburn, Richards, etc. etc.

Cool, I'll give those tunes a listen to. I never could stand most of Pink Floyd's stuff. It's too bland, it always seemed to be lacking the blood and guts that makes me enjoy Zeppelin or Hendrix so much. So I'll listen to it but I doubt it will persuade me.

Btw,I think the best guitarist to put heart/soul AND techincal skill into the guitar simultaneously is Slash.

Double

Now your talkin about Styles:)
Pink floyd is very passive and non agressive with exception of a few tunes like "The Wall" or "Dirty Woman".

Zepplin is blood and guts from "Dyer Maker" to "Battle of Evermore". Again not a fair comparison. Zepplin had the knowledge of what made Hendrix a monster in the first place and set up ground breaking rifts on there own.

The saddest thing about todays rock is there is no understanding of what music is.

Sorry but things like "Limp Bisquit" or "Blink 182" make rock look stupid. Progression of the art of shred and great composition ended with Nirvana.
There is no Comparison between Nirvana and the rock of yesterday like Zepplin.

Infact...

The first day I heard Nirvana's "Nevermind" is the day I put the guitar down and decided to never pursue professional playing.
I knew the record label's cashed out true musicians for stupid retards.

Jimi, now excuse me while i kiss this guy:GFYBand

Do you even know what an arpeggio is ?

First off .. I never even mentioned anything about arpeggiating ... secondly can you explain to me what an "arpeggiated scale" is ? Or do you just mean playing arpegios within a single mode ?

I really don't see what that has to do with what I said though ..

Kirk uses the same motifs during solos .. which is all I said. And I'm not talking about his riffs, intros or what-not .. I mean, for example, listen to the tapping solo in One and then listing the fast solo for Master Of Puppets .. with the tapping aside he basically just reharmonizes the phrases he uses in the master of puppets solo. Listen to fade to black and it's the same type of phrasing. I'm not saying they're exactly 100% the same .. but they give the exact same feeling. I get that impression from everything I've ever him do. He just doesn't add any variation to anything he does.

If you think you've got a good, diverse, opinion of the great guitarists out there you're going to have to stop pushing names like David Gilmoure lol. Not to downplay him.. I think he's the best example thus far of an amazing phraser. But you're neglecting all the guitarists out there who really know how to mix it up.

Listen to some Vai, Petrucci, Satriani, Jennifer Batton, Ynwie Malmsteen, Michael Angelo etc. (though I must admit angelo isn't the greatest example of a phraser either .. he's just a fast as fuck picker and sweeper but that's besides the point.)

But what really strikes me as off about your post was this:

"And going to Arpegiated Myxolydian scale's as well with perfect tone."

Huh ? Who mentioned myxolidian ? I sure as fuck hope you're not trying to claim that Kirk prefers Myxo .. or has even ever used it at all. It's a major mode and I can't think of a single Metallica song that done using a major key signature... though I must admit I don't listen to that much Metallica so I will certain admit the error of that statement should someone bring forth an example.

Kirk loves phrygian and aeolian like I said. I've never heard him use anything different.

No. Van Halen in a yellow Lycra bodysuit made rock look stupid.

The first day you heard Nirvana was the day you heard substance retake the podium over wank. Nirvana has a lot more in common with 60's rock than Van Halen, for a starters songwriting taking the front seat again instead of technical wank for the sake of itself.
There is a reason why Jimi Hendrix and Led Zepplin continue to find a new audience and continue their legacy and Van Halen is limited to fans at the time, wannabe virtuosos and humourous 80's references to hair metal.

If you think Nirvana and "grunge" was any less of a musical gimmick and record company manufactured product than hair metal then you are being naive.

Ps I don't think I even own a Nirvana album (which is a feat considering the hundreds of albums in my collection) So it's not like I'm a fan. Just that like Hendrix, Cobain could generate more emotion with ten notes in a minute than Halen could with 573 in 10.9 seconds.
If I want virtuoso I listen to Al Di Meola.

I don't know an iambic pentameter from a wa wa bar, but I'll take this moment to mention a few of my other favorite power-guitarists. You guys can comment as you see fit.....


Tom Scholtz (Boston)
Peter Frampton
Karlos Santana
Brian May

We're on a similar Page here (fine, pun intended) for the most part. I hear small bits from groups like Hoobastank (sp?) and Blink182 and others and turn to another station because it's just simplistic playing with distortion on overdrive.

While Nirvana was no Zeppelin there was an honesty and integrity in Cobain's style. I think he's closer to Hendrix in some ways than Halen or these new pseudo-rock bands. Fine kill me, I own all of Nirvana's albums. There is real purity there, check out songs on the In Utero album if you want to skip what you heard on the radio from Nevermind.

From a strictly guitar playing standpoint, yes, it all ended with Nirvana. There were other bands like around during that time like Pearl Jam that were still much more rich and versatille when it came to the guitar.

I'm a fan of the band Tool (at least their first 2 albums) and they do something similar (it actualy works well with their style). Their guitar playing is very rythmic. When you break it down much of what they do is a lot less complex than it sounds. It's interesting how they will add a progression but underlying that progrssion is the same/similar rythm as the previous parts but maybe in a higher scale and it all combines together. They blend in and out of this type of playing in much of their songs. Creates some very heavy sounding songs.

Garet sorry your speaking out of your ass...

Ionian. = C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C
Is the standard phrasing in Metallica.

And is Ionian VERY motifical of Metallica...

Myxolydian scale is Massively common in Rock and if you do not hear Myxolydian in Metallica your retarded and tone def. Hammet also Favors Dorian but there is tons of Myxolydian phrasing in his work.


For example "Ride The Lightening" as the most simple example.

Oh god...
You fucking with me right? LOL!

There were LOTS of groups from the grunge scene who had guitarists that new what they were doing.

Most of the guys in the grunge bands came directly out of the 80's hair metal groups .. so they could play.

Kim Thayle of Sound Garden, Jerri Cantrell of Alice In Chains, you already mentioned Stone Gossard (pearl jam).

Hell, Pearl Jam originally started out as Mother Love Bone who was basically trying to be the next big 80's "glam rock" band. They had a major deal and everything .. was about to record their first studio album when their lead singer OD'd and they regrouped with Eddie Vedder to start Pearl Jam.

And I like to argue that Cobain was a pretty decent guitarist himself. Nevermind wasn't exactly known for it's great licks, but as you pointed out yourself, their other albums had some decent chops on them.

Songs like Aero Zepplin, School, Serve The Servant, Radio Friendly Unit Shifter, Vs Chorus Vs etc. had some very decent riffs and solos in them.

do you fags like sitting around and comparing things like dead musicians? Do you think they would want you comparing them? do you think they could even begin to conjur up such a perverted idea?

Anytime anyone newb posts a "Who's the best guitarist of all time?" thread in the future, this thread should be posted and that thread closed. Period.

This is like the bible of guitarist threads.

I wish Nirvana had not been termed "grunge" and there was never a "grunge" or "alternative" movement in the 90's. It created generic sounding rock, all watered down versions of Nirvana/Pearl Jam/Soundgarden. Nirvana was simply a rock band that should have been called a rock band in the long tradition of rock bands. With the grunge tag other 'grunge' bands took center stage over other bands that played unique styles of basic rock music. But yeah, it was marketing. Maybe sales were down or sales were up but they thought they could milk it for more by creating grunge/alternative.

"grunge" went mainstream even boybands go "grunge"

Garett, absolutely. The bands you mention (Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains, and Sound Garden) are virtually the only bands to come out of that "movement" worth listening to. What we hear on radio is suppose to be an extension of these bands but it's not, it's garbage. But Nirvana was a hard rock band and punk band, not a grunge band. Alice in Chains was a metal band, not a grunge band. Sound Garden was a hard rock band as was Pear Jam which was the best of them all as they could do hard and soft rock meticulously and beautifully. "Grunge" never meant anything to me then and doesn't today. It's a term used to describe bands that have nothing in common except for being around at the same time in music history.

So your saying the Music Industry didnt go quality musicians for more cheaper musicians?

There is no comparison between Nirvana and any of the below.
Nirvana had nothing they were pure trash pushed on people.

White Snake
Pantera
Def Lepard
AC/DC
Bon Jovi
Van Halen

Fuck sakes even Halloween!

The Music Industry cashed out true talent for washed up non playing fiddler's in the mid 90's to score out rape style deals and pushed trash on the ears of people like you that bought it...

I'm fucking with you!? Sorry but I'm getting the same impression from you're posts .. because they make no fucking sense.

"Ionian. = C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C
Is the standard phrasing in Metallica."

Ok first of all... I'm going to give you a theory lesson because you're either high/drunk or you don't know what you're talking about.

Ionian is the major scale. It is the simplest scale in music theory because it contains no flats or sharps. In fact.. Ionian is the first thing you learn when you begin to study music theory because EVERYTHING relates back to Ionian. I was assuming that you already knew that but after reading your post there it's obvious that you don't.

It is a diatonic scale (which means each note is different.. ie: you can't have F and F# in the key .. otherwise it's chromatic, not diatonic).. which means it has 7 notes .. which also means it has 7 modes.

The 7 modes are Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian Mixolydian, Aeolian and Locrian.

Now if you understood that.. and you read what I said.. I said that Hammet prefers aeolian and phrygian. The only thing that has to do with Ionian is that the key signature is the same. They are completely different tonal centers to be playing in.

Now listen to what the fuck you just said .. 'cause I'm still trying to figure this one out:

"Ionian. = C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C
Is the standard phrasing in Metallica."

Derr.... huh ? Ionian is the standard phrasing?! That makes no sense.

By phrasing I mean how you construct your melodies. Not what key signature you're playing in. Of course if you're playing in Aeolian you're key signature is the same Ionian .. that has nothing to do with with phrasing!

I won't get into a debate about whether or not Mixo is played in rock or not. In my opinion and experience I wouldn't really chose Mixo to play a metal tune because of it's natural 3rd .. but whatever .. if you say so ...

But this doesn't really matter anyway. Technique doesn't really make the guitarist. I guess when I originally made my post I was trying to describe how limited Hammet was because he loves to limit himself to 2 out of the 7 major modes.. especially when you can break out of Ionian all together. I've never heard him play in a harmonic key .. or do any kind of aharmonic comping .. but whatever.

The point was phrasing .. not his understanding and application of music theory.