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RE: This is really weird
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Ricardo
Posts: 14822
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
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 RE: This is really weird (in reply to guitarbuddha)
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quote:
Ricardo likes Jimmy Rosenberg and he is well worth checking out though a little glib for my taste.
About the gypsy hot jazz guys. Yeah, amazing technique and melody and rhythm and feeling, true virtuosos, each and every one. But lets be honest, the originality of each is so subtle, it is pointless to compare them with artists of other genres. My point is, much like in flamenco, a player is described good or bad by how more or less "flamenco" his playing is, like wise, these hot jazz guys are ALL trying to be as "Django" as possible. The closer to django, the better they are. Right down to their guitar, technique, choice of songs, composing style, and even mustache. But I am not knocking anything about that, it is a cool genre. But within it, when i see guys playing like Birelli, Stochelo, etc, I see guys improvising essentially in a LINEAR fashion. Great, and nice and melodic, and they have speedy patterns like any shredder. But if you listen to Django a lot, you notice how much more "free" he was with improve, stretching out more harmonic, arpegios connecting and things. HArd to describe, but he is not "stuck" in those linear patterns, like you see Stochelo here, up and down. And for me personally, ONLY Rosenburg exhibits that same freedom IMO...he moves up and down harmonically really free, very few picking patterns. Anyway, that is how I see it.
About Becker. Yeah Air, and even that Serrana...he has a lot of depth. IN a guitar clinic, sure he is alone and showing his picking techniques and patterns, but when you hear his arrangements, all the counter point and stuff, it is really amazing. Serrana on record was AFTER he lost his ability to play guitar (lou gehrig's disease) and had a piano do those arppegios you see him do, and a whole orchestra doing the counter point in a really beautiful way. Hearing him play guitar on his early records, at 17 years old, it sounds like overkill all the guitars and speedy lines and crazy key changes and odd meters. But when you think that only shortly after he could not even feed himself, it seems appropriate he got so many notes down on tape before it was too late. "Too many notes" like in the mozart movie. Which "few notes" should he have cut out??
OK, no need to go on defending any more shred guys. My point is, there is value even in a seeming musical "exercise". It is all about taste, and not just the player's but the context of the genre AND the listener. What may be musical masturbation to one, could be pure profound genius to another.
Ricardo
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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Feb. 3 2008 20:50:31
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guitarbuddha
Posts: 2970
Joined: Jan. 4 2007
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RE: This is really weird (in reply to Ricardo)
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Hi Ricardo. I remember very well the first time I heard Jason Becker's 'Perpetual Burn' album and I was totally blown away. I had it on cassete and lent it to my ex-brother in law who sold it and claimed to lose it.
I downloaded it a few months ago and was amazed and pleased that I still could dig it and had a few hours of nostalgia and even went so far as to pick up my electric for a full half hour without being paid.
I loved exuberance and the wild pastiche leapfrogging from one style of harmony to another repeatedly in the one piece. On mature listening ( yes I am claiming to be mature !) I actually appreciated the breadth of his influences and really dug the surf sound elements, the unusual bending and strange approach notes. These are the same elements that I enjoy in the playing of Marty Friedman his partner in Cacophony ( I read in an interview that they shared the same teacher, I wish that I had had him ).
However I went on to watch the DVD with all of the footage that was remotely useable of him playing and it left me cold. Like that Serranno upload, loads of wrong melody notes, loads of lost time and indecicive playing. Yeah there were moments of inspiration like his cocky black star Jam but in general he lacked the intensity that was really required to deliver his stuff live. Now I am not sayng that he wasn't talented or capable of it, he was abviously a seriously gifted and conscientious fellow it is just that he lacked a tradition to force him to channel his talents (as a performer, I am not questioning his compositions-weird flaky and wonderful) towards real in your face no stops starts clangers losing time getting lost and pretending you don't care when you grind to a halt.
That is my problem with shredding. Whilst there were lots of talented guys they never really started a tradition of 'musical performance' but instead inspired people like me to play patterns real fast and make like it was music even though we weren't feeling any harmony. It is not surprising that one of the few from this era who can really deliver regularly is Steve Vai who honed his skills in a serious non-metal band (there are others of course but I am trying to describe what I see as the effect of the whole shred movement, I apologise for generalising but it is nessecary ).
I remember I had a pupil in a school who let me hear his demo tape and it sounded incredible, I was really looking forward to seeing him play and working with him. But he didn't know s#it. He couldn't play anything at all up close but he had sat at his computer hour after hour cutting and pasting, embellishing and tweaking. It sounded just like that shrapnel records from the eighties though , he sounded like a monster but in real life what a dissapointment.
Then there was the video with the three gods of shred Malmsteen, Vai and Satriani at the end they were trying to jam to little wing. What total ****, Vai was utterly uninspired but no wonder with Malmsteen playing the same sequence out of time over and over again cause he clearly cant improvise at all. Satriani played some dull left hand only sequence that had no ideas at all. Sounded like my first frunken HM band audition. I remember the day I realised that I could do what Malmsteen was doing and realised that since I dint't really know s#hit I had better go and find some new heroes.
About Jimmy Rosenberg, I've listened to quite a bit and none of it moved me but I respect your reccomendation enough to pass it on to where it may find more fertile soil. I agree with you about how different the note choice of the newer players is from Django, it is really interesting to watch him play he really had a one finger left hand approach for melody playing with his second mostly used for embellishment. This constant practice in shifting seemed really to allow him to mix up his scalar and arpeggio playing in a way that is really hard to imitate without commiting to the scary world of almost constant shifting. His transcriptions are much harder to play than any of his imitators who have left hand approaches which relate more easily to my classical background (I am not counting my shred era as I was so obtuse as not to really learn much of use then ).
In conclusion I would reccomend the gypsy guys for anyone who likes shred, there is a tradition of genuine musical endeavour here.
Regards,
D.
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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Feb. 4 2008 3:05:07
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Ricardo
Posts: 14822
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
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RE: This is really weird (in reply to guitarbuddha)
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About becker, I think he was just a shy kid for cryn out loud, you can't hold his lack of performance experience against him. He would have been there, playing with David Lee Roth, I mean follow the line, Van Halen and your Vai, no doubt that is where you lose shyness out of necessity. But the poor kid was stricken down precisely at that time. Forget about "burn". Get your hands on "perspectives" to see what the kid was capable of musically.
I would venture that alot of other young shrapnel shredders were as well "shy kids" used to playing in their rooms. For sure, the opportunity to play out live more and more, shapes your performance skills.
About Django 2 fingers. I transcribed some of his solos as a teenager. I knew the 2 finger story, so I deliberately tried to work out the fingerings that way. Guess what, it was much less awkward that way, it really flows easier, those swing lines, with the two fingers. Dim7 walking up, the arpegios where you dont' have to try different fingers, just one or the other, the choices limited, but obvious. Anyway, try it out if you can, just one of his orginal solos to see what I mean. I am really surprised none of his imitators have tried to "free" themselves the same way.
Having shared all that, I prefer playing with my other two fingers too. 
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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Feb. 5 2008 3:29:12
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