Shredders vs. "feel players" - an observation

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Light said:
Or Pat Metheny - he'll play fast, slow, or anywhere in between, but no one on the planet has his phrasing. I swear he must grease his strings, because his playing is slippery!


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
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Metheny is in a class all his own. He's one of those guys I don't think of as a guitar player -- he's mastered music, which is a whole different thing. I wore out a copy of "Traveling" featuring his synth-guitar horn lines. Amazing guy.
 
famous beagle said:
Why is that you think? Why are feel players such haters when it comes shredders?

Discuss
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Jealousy. Feel players are usually older, fatter, and way more boring, and they know it. I'm neither kind of player so I can say with 100% certainty that if I had to listen to either form of playing, I'd rather it be shredding than some old fashioned slow paced blues shit wankery. I don't care about open mindedness or feel or expression or any of that gay shit. I just wanna rock.
 
Why can't we all admitt it, we've all heard shredders who impressed us and we've all heard feel players who have impressed us as well. On the flip side we've heard plenty of "wanna-bes" who couldn't impress their grandmothers. For me it depends a lot on the mood I'm in at the moment, if I'm wound up give me the fastest shred and I'll love it, if I'm in a mellow mood then it's blusey licks all the way. I find it easy to respect any musician who takes his (or her) craft seriously enough to become good at it. I didn't say I liked it all, but I do like it if it is done with taste and style. I'm only a moderately fast player and most of the time I'm pretty happy with what I do, however if I was younger I'd probably devote more time to speed, but only if I could do it without sacrificing technique and expressiveness.

Maybe my internal metronome runs best at below 160 bpm, if thats the case, I'll never be a shredder.
 
famous beagle said:
Take a solo like Steve Vai's "For the Love of God," for example. To me, that solo is dripping with emotion. I honestly don't see how someone can argue with that. It's got some very fast playing, but it also has lots of melody, and all of it is played as if his life depended on it, IMO. It's triumphant, sad, tragic, sweeping, pointed, and incredibly cathartic sounding to me.
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Playing with emotion is about eliciting emotion from your audience, not necessarily experiencing emotion yourself when you play. I daresay that by the time one practices a passage until he can play it smoothly and flawlessly, whether it be shred or feel, the genuine emotion is frequently all wrung out of it from the player's perspective. There's nothing wrong with that; performance is about what the audience is feeling, not what the performer is experiencing.
 
Greg_L said:
Jealousy. Feel players are usually older, fatter, and way more boring, and they know it. I'm neither kind of player so I can say with 100% certainty that if I had to listen to either form of playing, I'd rather it be shredding than some old fashioned slow paced blues shit wankery. I don't care about open mindedness or feel or expression or any of that gay shit. I just wanna rock.
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I just went to the Home Depot and was thinking about this while looking for masonry anchors.

I'm wrong in what I said earlier. Sort of. I guess I do like "feel" players, but a different kind of feel. I like power and aggression. I don't need/want super fast shredding or tired old blues licks. I need raw power. That's what I want to hear and feel in the music I make and the music I listen to. I'm perfectly happy with a single bend or blazing powerchords.

So I guess, for me, any form of wankery sucks if it cheesey and unnecessary. Keep it simple and make it rock.
 
Wow- I'm reminded of Andre Segovia, the original "shredder". Classical compositions were written for him because he was the only classical guitarist on Earth who could play them. His rendition of "Flight of the Bumblebee" is nothing short of amazing. Did he play that series of 128th notes to show how fast he could play? No. He played it that way because it was written that way. Was he "operating a machine"? Yes.

In the end, it's about taste. I can't tell you why I like what I like. The fact that it is fast, or difficult, will not make me like it. The fact that it is original will not make me like it. The fact that it expresses emotion will not make me like it. What *will* make me like it is that it is *appropriate*. It is the right lick, in the right place, at the right time. I am also more likely to like it if it simply does not contain obvious errors, in other words, it is well executed.

I'm not as concerned with tone and mix, as listening to vintage wire recordings, you just won't get that.

The fastest guitarist I have ever heard was John McLaughlin, at the end of his electric phase. I saw "Birds of Fire" done live with extensive improvisations. He shredded Indian classical scales with required bent notes as fast as Alvin Lee could play a blues pentatonic scale. It was scary fast, very difficult, and *appropriate* to the piece. For originality, my vote goes to Charlie Christian. Want to hear him? Just listen to Wes Montgomery, he stole most of it. The difference is, Charlie played it in the 1940's, with Benny Goodman, and there was no one to steal it from, because he invented it. I bet that means Light likes him. Is that why I like him? No. I like him because it was *appropriate*. I think that's why Benny liked him.

I guess that means I don't care how fast you can play, or how fast you do play. I have the perspective of a rhythm guitarist. I spent years learning to play The Who. I can't play lead to save my ass. I actually played lead on one song on my album, and it isn't fast, because I can't do that, and anyway, it wouldn't have been appropriate to the piece if I could. I'm not a lead guitarist, I *work with* lead guitarists. I've been blessed to work with some pretty good ones, too. The best of them is a guy from Portland, Oregon named Christopher Woitach. He has a background in Delta Blues (think Skip James and Robert Johnson). He is a classical guitar teacher, a professor of Music, and a jazz master. What he really loves to play is "cool" jazz, basically lounge music. Go figger. He can play anything from Bach to Bo Diddly, but he can't play The Who! He has his discipline, and I have mine. But- what he plays is *always* appropriate. He shows up ready to play, almost always does the whole piece in one take, and always makes the song better than it was before.
Occasionally, that might even involve some shredding. What the hell?-Richie
 
ggunn said:
Playing with emotion is about eliciting emotion from your audience, not necessarily experiencing emotion yourself when you play. I daresay that by the time one practices a passage until he can play it smoothly and flawlessly, whether it be shred or feel, the genuine emotion is frequently all wrung out of it from the player's perspective. There's nothing wrong with that; performance is about what the audience is feeling, not what the performer is experiencing.
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Well ... ok.

This is entirely subjective, isn't it?

I guess you're one of those people that believes a tree doesn't make a noise if it falls when no one is there to hear it. :)
 
I agree that you can lose a bit of emotion when you play something a thousand times...but you don't lose it permanently. When you are just practicing to get the riffs worked out, you really are not going to be playing with much emotion anyway because it's more about working out the mechanics.
The extensive practice and learning of the licks is what then allows you to play WITH emotion later on because you are not going to be thinking about the mechanics...you will be just playing...and that's when you can get "in the zone" and let your emotions flow out through your playing.
IMO...playing is about eliciting your own emotions first...the audience then feeds off of that.
If you have no emotion...how can you ever elicit emotion from the audience...?

And I think that’s where the shredders can at times fall flat. Sure, there are some who are able to elicit emotion, but too often it is moslty about the mechanics. Yes, there is something exciting/emotional about speeding along at a hundred miles per hour…but IMO, it’s not as emotionally “deep” as taking a more mellower cruise which allows you really take in the scenery…where as with the speed, well, it’s just about the speed, and you are mostly focused on that, and certainly not the scenery! :D

I’m not saying that playing s-l-o-w-l-y is better than playing fast, and “feel” players can and do also play fast licks, but too many shredders (especially the “unseasoned” ones) seem to put way too much emphasis on the speed/mechanics….THAT is what they focus on showcasing, and there is often very little emotion in their playing….basically, they are moving too fast to take in and enjoy the scenery.

Most non-players are temporarily awed by a shredder…but IMO, few will “connect” on an emotion level with shredders as well as they do with more melodic “feel” players.
But I have nothing against shredders…everyone should play how they like.
 
Semantics...

Maybe it's just a question of defining what you mean by "feel" players . I love to hear some guy like Y or ( insert name ) playing ALL the notes as fast as humanly possible. That's "feel"
Nothing but feel is being expressed. No interactions, no reflections, no human context...just feel
When a player only plays "selected notes" with regard to duration and spacing they are creating "melody" which is half the equation for musical communication. (melody+lyrics= song).
 
speed can be LEARNED... "Soul" and "Feel" are in ya' or not. I for one am sick to death of walking into the Guitar Center down the street and hearing some juvenile wanker shredding his brains out. The other day I heard a Jazz dude playing pristine clean and he was just amazing to listen to... I walked around a few rows of amps and found him - probably 65 years old (I'm 57) and fat, but the boy had "Feel". Even the young'ns were listening to this MASTER. :cool:
 
I think I'm going to put a bass whammy bar . . . on my guitar! You don't see those too much anymore :confused: Now that is REAL feel + shred. Bass whammy. YEAH!

I am putting a trem on my So-Cal, I routed the cavity the other day and although I was terrified (not of the router, but screwing up) it went OK. Alright, I will have to cut a custom cavity cover, I missed that by 1/4", but the trem will work just fine :o
 
I will argue that shed guitar does have feeling. It's the feeling of going 200 mph with your hair on fire. If you aren't the type of person that likes that sort of thing, the feeling will not speak to you and you won't like/get it.

Some people like jumping out of airplanes, others enjoy gardening.

There is nothing wrong with either, but the people that jump out of airplanes will have a hard time understanding the people playing in dirt. And the gardeners will have a hard time understanding why anyone would jump out of a perfectly good airplane.
 
famous beagle said:
Well ... ok.

This is entirely subjective, isn't it?

I guess you're one of those people that believes a tree doesn't make a noise if it falls when no one is there to hear it. :)
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There is no way to tell for sure if a musician is feeling anything when he or she plays an "emotional" piece; variations in timing, volume, attack, etc. can all be implemented with no feeling behind it at all. You're right - it's entirely subjective from the listener's point of view; it makes no difference if the musician is feeling anything or not. If the musician can convince you that he is emotionally involved, then that is what matters. It's what performance is all about.

I do sound designs for local theatre. In a play, a character may cry or get very angry; some actors are "method" players and must drag themselves through the emotions their character is experiencing to be convincing, and to others it's a craft thing and they can be totally convincing while remaining intellectually and emotionally detached. My point is that it makes no difference from the audience's POV which is which. The performance is the thing.
 
Farview said:
I will argue that shed guitar does have feeling. It's the feeling of going 200 mph with your hair on fire. If you aren't the type of person that likes that sort of thing, the feeling will not speak to you and you won't like/get it.
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While that may be true for the person doing the playing....how does it translate to the music and to the listener?
There's playing fast...and then there's just the "how many notes can I play in one second" mentality that some shredders go for...it's all about the multi-note speed and little else for them.
Playing isn't just a physical "thrill"...mmmmm...there's also the music, right? ;)

Oh...I use to like skiing at 60-70 mph in my glory days and did my share of serious racing, and I also liked going 130 mph on my bike...but I was never into shred all that much, preferring more melodic and "sparse" playing. :)
Maybe it was about the ying/yang thing...maybe if I didn't do the other "speed" things, I would have taken it out on the guitar! :D
 
ggunn said:
In a play, a character may cry or get very angry; some actors are "method" players and must drag themselves through the emotions their character is experiencing to be convincing, and to others it's a craft thing and they can be totally convincing while remaining intellectually and emotionally detached.
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Yeah...it is possible for you to play well and "fake" some feeling...though I don't think that playing an instrument and acting are quite the same thing.
With acting you learn how you are *supposed to feel* during a particular line or scene.
You don't ever get those instructions when learning how to play...there is no script saying "plays angrily" or some such thing. :)

And I do think that a good audience can sense/see when a player is giving a good "performance" and when he/she is really feeling every note.
We don't necessarily chastise a good "performer"...but I think when a player is "in the zone", there is a certain "vibe" they exude, though it may or may not always be picked up on by all of the audience. Sometimes the "zone" that a player is in is not the same "zone" that a listener ends up in...but it's all good, as long as the music hits home in some way.
 
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