Who cares about guitar technique?

[Paul Inglis]

Charlie - I think you're right re.Dire Straits. I can't think of a more recent pop group who have achieved any success whose raison d'etre was the guitar playing. Guitars were important to the Britpop crowd, and in that they were a reaction against the synth drenched 80s, but the songs and singers still outranked the guitarists and the guitar solos (just about).

I seem to recall that Pearl Jam had some guitar solos (in the 90s). Their first two singles made the Top 20 in the UK and had guitar solos.

However, now I see where I've been going wrong. No wonder no one buys my stuff - I use too many guitars!

[Adam Blake]

I seem to recall that Pearl Jam had some guitar solos (in the 90s). Their first two singles made the Top 20 in the UK and had guitar solos.

Yes, but Pearl Jam were not primarily about the guitar playing.

[DavidM]

There is a similar kind of debate goes on in the visual arts, where over the last 40 years or so the Conceptual Art school has largely pushed aside any idea of technique. Often what you get are artists going through hoops NOT to use any kind of manual skills, because it's not considered necessary, i.e."that's been done". Instead, the art becomes contrived, and, to my eyes at least, it looses much of it's poetry, or lyricism, to use a more musical term. In the search for something NEW, the contemporary art world has become deeply suspicious of technique.

[NormanD]

Adam and others, I wonder where you would place a guitarist like the late Derek Bailey? He was a skilled player who initially worked for years with big bands, knocking out the chords and rhythm changes. Then, pursuing his own solo work, he moved into the avant garde of free jazz. He was - at least to my cloth ears - a player you admired rather than enjoyed, studied rather than listened to, and had to sit down to with no foot a-tapping along. Following David M's art analogy - he was a modernist, and innovator, but an overwhelming one, not on any spectrum of comparable personal experience.

Derek Bailey must have known what he was doing, but - as the listener - did I? Is it because I have expectations of a guitarist - even a jazz one - that he was not meeting? I can cope, relatively easily in comparison, with, say, Albert Ayler or O Coleman, but somehow free jazz guitarists have lost me.

[Paul Inglis]

I seem to recall that Pearl Jam had some guitar solos (in the 90s). Their first two singles made the Top 20 in the UK and had guitar solos.

Yes, but Pearl Jam were not primarily about the guitar playing.

Well, no one would confuse their lead guitarist, Mike McCready, with Mark Knopfler!

I suspect that Dire Straits wouldn't have been very successful without good songs though!

There were a bunch of "hair metal" American bands in the 80s that featured guitar - but again their appeal was perhaps something other than just the guitar. After Eddie Van Halen played the over-the-top solo in "Beat It" it seemed that every American hard-rock or heavy-metal guitarist just wanted to play a million notes a minute instead of playing with any actual feel. All that tapping nonsense which, incidentally, is extremely easy to do - badly (like most of those who followed in EVH's wake).

It's been mentioned lately in books by Malcolm Gladwell and Geoff Colvin that it takes 10,000 hours of practise to master any skill to the point of being "world class". Of course, there are occasional "one in a million" prodigies who can just pick up a guitar and master it more quickly than that, but the reality is that for most people the humdrum reality is "practise, practise, practise". I suppose many people pick up a guitar (or other instrument) and then give up quickly after they realise that there is no easy path to virtuosity (or even competence).

On a related theme - it seems to me that in past eras instrumentals were often hits. Certainly this was definitely the case back in the 60s. When did that die out? When was the last purely instrumental hit? I recall a discofied version of the "Star Wars" music back around 77 or 78 that was a big hit, but that was obviously riding on the coattails of the movie. Then I suppose there was that "Axel F" theme from "Beverly Hills Cop" and also Herbie Hancock's "Rockit" ... which was 1983.

After then ... what? I just had a quick flip through the handful of instrumental hits in the US since then and almost all of them were by Kenny G. The last was in 1999:

http://tunecaster.com/charts/music/inst ... -10-4.html

So are guitar solos like instrumentals in the eyes (or ears) of the pop consumer? Something only for snobs or fuddy-duddies? Of course, I can remember that even back in the late 70s many people dismissed bands like Steely Dan and even Dire Straits as being "boring" because of their emphasis on instrumental skill.

Speaking for myself, although I appreciate virtuosity I certainly need it to be combined with interesting ideas, otherwise it's just an empty display. A band with "interesting ideas" can also triumph, even if their instrumentals skills are fairly average.

[Adam Blake]

I couldn't agree more, Paul, with pretty much all of this. Your question about when was the last purely instrumental hit is a fascinating one. I have no idea but I daresay there are folks here on the forum who could answer it.

Virtusosity is a funny thing: for some folks it is an end in itself but I would argue that that isn't TRUE virtuosity. Take Little Walter, for example. I don't think anyone would argue that he was a great virtuoso but if you listen to what he actually plays, hardly any of it is "flashy licks". It's his timing, his tone, his sense of absolute mastery of the instrument. Charlie Parker - same thing. Parker's a bit more flash as the occasion demands but you never get the sense that he is just showing off - as you do with many lesser players whose technique may well have been superior. In African music - Franco Luambo will sometimes play the same riff for twenty minutes whilst singing or talking, and just as you've given up on any guitar fireworks, will unleash a couple of licks to blow you away and leave you panting for more. To me, that is TRUE virtuosity. But then again, maybe it's just semantics and someone else would argue that what I'm calling virtuosity is just good musicianship - taste, style, understatement etc. BUT... the guys I've mentioned: Parker, Walter, Franco were all capable of extraordinary technical brilliance - the like of which takes many years of hard practice to develop, assuming you have the talent for it in the first place. Acclaimed guitar virtuosos such as Yngwie Malmsteen, Joe Satriani and even Steve Vai (who I have a sneaking affection for) seem to miss the point in my opinion. Somewhere along the line they have confused music with athletics. But they make a lot of money and impress a great many people so maybe I'm just a snob. Go figure...

Norman: where would I place Derek Bailey? Hmmm... I think Bailey was a bit of a genius, a sculpture of sound who happened to use a guitar as a chisel. Whether or not you like his sculptures depends on you. He's going to sculpt them anyway. Me, I can take it or leave it alone but I'm glad they exist and that people like him and Fred Frith and Ralph Towner (?) were or are out there on the perimeter's doing it.

[David Flower]

Listeners may not care whether or not they're hearing virtuosity, but rest assured they are a lot of the time. Or at least damn fine playing, which as Adam says comes almost without exception through hard graft. The trick is often to hide it, to avoid it becoming show-off. If you trawl around the globe most traditions and styles require years and years to learn properly. Any Latin musicians I can think of, horns, percussionists, pianists etc, most Africans I've come across (sometimes deceptively simple sounding), almost the entire history of jazz, most soul, old style R'n' B, motown, you name it, were brilliantly sung and backed by top session guys, flamenco, more folk traditions than you'd expect, I suspect most Asian styles, klezmer, Balkans, Irish, Celtic, Middle East, Turkey... on and on and on

until you get to good old rock and roll and pop where often the DIY approach works perfectly. It's one reason we love it so much, we can all have a go and might just come up with something that works. Somehow a lot of the world's styles can be listened and danced to by their audiences even though they require huge technique to perform. For us we're not fussed, and styles have developed which can be mastered relatively quickly, and audiences can still make the most direct and profound of emotional connections regardless. It's brilliant how the 3 minute song can do this and how a band like the Arctic Monkeys can be masters of their craft by the age of 22 (though they are one of the more technically accomplished of groups). While some of the world's stylists will say you haven't even begun until you're past 40. Which rock or pop players can you say that about?

[Charlie]

It's brilliant how the 3 minute song can do this and how a band like the Arctic Monkeys can be masters of their craft by the age of 22 (though they are one of the more technically accomplished of groups). While some of the world's stylists will say you haven't even begun until you're past 40. Which rock or pop players can you say that about?

Buddy Holly was 23 when he died, having perfected the technique (and it was a technique) of combining rhythm and energetic attack in his guitar playing - although a second guitarist was brought in for live tours, as a recording unit The Crickets were the first power trio.

Did Chuck Berry (almost thirty) ever record as the only guitarist in a trio format? If he did, his appeal was never about guitar technique.

[Adam Blake]

Did Chuck Berry (almost thirty) ever record as the only guitarist in a trio format? If he did, his appeal was never about guitar technique.

I think Chuck always recorded with a piano, and sometimes horns as well, but interestingly enough, I don't think ever with a rhythm guitarist - certainly not on his classic 50s recordings anyway. You say his appeal was never about guitar technique but he was surely the first guitar hero of the rock era and arguably the single most influential guitarist of all time.