Will I burn my guitars?

[D4niel]

Hi dudes ...
I'm just back from a festival in austria, where I (for the first time in my life) got the feeling, that I was doing something horribly wrong the whole time! (and I do not mean the beer&alc)
This happened, because I accidentally watched Rage (to be more specific Viktor Smolski) while buying some food. After noticing the extremely tight and fat guitarsound, I decided to take a closer look - just to see, that there is only one guitarist playing. And what a god he was! O.o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I48YPCAUCyw
long story short: I forgot to eat my burger, got my (under)pants signed and now still have to decide, wether to burn my guitars or just start from scratch?
What really put me off was the combination of tightness, dynamic range and control... not just fast playing (which does not impress me anymore) or the sheer display of skill (ofc he has plenty) ... just this difference between "he's playing a note" and "this is music". I just really fail to express this sledgehammerlike blow to my mind I got there, I fear...

Have you ever had such a moment?

[Twinfan]

Yep.

Davy Knowles, live in Manchester last year in a pub no bigger than I play.  23 years old, he's been alive fewer years than I've been playing guitar!

Superb voice, great tone and phrasing/note choice I wish I could equal.

Since then I've been really focusing on playing the *right* notes in my solos.  I've still a (very) long way to go, but the guy really inspired me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPlIIDsARPQ

[gwEm]

its no secret i'm a bit of an uli jon roth fanboy. he really made me re-evaluate the way i think about guitar when i first heard his stuff. its feel and note choice are quite something.

[horsehead]

I personaly have this happen to me on a regular basis, especially when I watch & hear people like Matt Schofield. I decide that I'm never going to be that good, how can I do anything like this etc. etc. So after a few teeth nashing sessions, I get back in the ring & decide to be better, hopefully I am & play more to suit the song and not my ego

[Modular1]

Not a fan of either of those first two clips. Granted they have technical talent that I certainly could never come close to matching, but its boring. They are just tossing off.

[Loomer]

For me, that moment was hearing Scott Hull play. At the time I was really fretting over the fact that I didn't have much going on in the lead department. I couldn't sweep or anything similarly impressive, and I was into some pretty techy metal stuff at the time.

But then I heard Pig Destroyer and went: "You know, $%&# this. This guy can't play a solo to save his own life, but the RIFFS! $%&#ing RIFFS!"

Since then I've been more or less like "Ah, sod it" in terms of thinking in solos, although I do dabble in Leon Macey-style soloing. Scott Hull opened my eyes completely to the fact that if you can't write an arse-kicking riff, and afterwards deliver it with all the fury of a herd of meth-blitzed Rhinos, you are frankly worth shite.

[Keven]

a lot of my students come to me to polish up their lead playing skills. but i usually find their rythm chops are utterly abysmal. no triplet, no speed picking, no brutal downpicking. and they want to play metal too! to their disappointment, we work on rythm chops and songs that make them squeal with arm pain, but after 6 months they're usually much tighter and their leads have so much more authority to them.

the lead is only 30 secs of a song at most. you need rythm, otherwise it's just wanking.

when i heard guthrie govan's awesome variety of techniques was a defining moment to me. that and brett garsed's hybrid picking. michael romeo of symphony x also always amazed me. he's dubbed a tapper, but that's his signature technique. he does all the sweep legato alternate stuff with his eyes closed.

[Loomer]

a lot of my students come to me to polish up their lead playing skills. but i usually find their rythm chops are utterly abysmal. no triplet, no speed picking, no brutal downpicking. and they want to play metal too! to their disappointment, we work on rythm chops and songs that make them squeal with arm pain, but after 6 months they're usually much tighter and their leads have so much more authority to them.

the lead is only 30 secs of a song at most. you need rythm, otherwise it's just wanking.

I hear you on that. The cool thing is, that focusing so squarely on rhythm has made me a better lead player, more or less without trying or knowing about it  :lol:

It kind of just... Went that way. All of a sudden I could play some fairly convincing leads without having practiced it!

[Keven]

to lead with conviction, you must first be able to pound that low E into submission!

I've found a new respect for Lamb Of God these days. i don't like them so much, but they make single notes sound huge. i try to make the kids who want to play LOG capture that feeling. wether they play single coiled beginner guitars or EMG loaded beasts.

i mean, i came across a very skilled and schooled player who had quite the weakness in any scale run involving the E and A strings. the guy ripped.... on 4 strings. he got that fixed of course after a while, still, it,s funny how so many people forget the song that made them want to pick up guitar.

[Modular1]

Mark Morton from LOG is an awesome guitarist. I don't listen to their albums that much really but they did a great tour film and his playing owns.

He's also a really nice down to earth guy refreshingly lacking in the whole dumb-ass "yeah metalz brootalz" teenage posturing which really puts me off a lot of metal players.

[Roobubba]

I must say, I'm consistently bored when I hear guitarists soloing on stage.

Largely because the vast majority of them scoop out the mids and the lead simply doesn't cut. The other members of my band just point at the stage, look at me, and say "that's why we don't have solos." It took a while for me to appreciate it, but they're right - unless the sound of the band requires solos, the sound of the guitar cuts through really properly, and the player is unfeasibly good, it just detracts from the music. You can play some pretty epic, technical riffs without them being solos, and for me that shows a greater degree of musicality and musicianship - after all, a band is very much a team!
And I used to be a lead guitarist in my college band, too...

[Modular1]

Sometimes technical talent is wasted by poor taste. OP video is prime example.

[tomjackson]

a lot of my students come to me to polish up their lead playing skills. but i usually find their rythm chops are utterly abysmal. no triplet, no speed picking, no brutal downpicking. and they want to play metal too! to their disappointment, we work on rythm chops and songs that make them squeal with arm pain, but after 6 months they're usually much tighter and their leads have so much more authority to them.

the lead is only 30 secs of a song at most. you need rythm, otherwise it's just wanking.

when i heard guthrie govan's awesome variety of techniques was a defining moment to me. that and brett garsed's hybrid picking. michael romeo of symphony x also always amazed me. he's dubbed a tapper, but that's his signature technique. he does all the sweep legato alternate stuff with his eyes closed.

I'm completely with you that rhythm playing is the most important.

But speed picking and brutal downpicking are not the be all and end all.  In fact you could say they are just Rhythm Wanking

[Modular1]

In fact you could say they are just Rhythm Wanking

Is there any better way?

[Keven]

a lot of my students come to me to polish up their lead playing skills. but i usually find their rythm chops are utterly abysmal. no triplet, no speed picking, no brutal downpicking. and they want to play metal too! to their disappointment, we work on rythm chops and songs that make them squeal with arm pain, but after 6 months they're usually much tighter and their leads have so much more authority to them.

the lead is only 30 secs of a song at most. you need rythm, otherwise it's just wanking.

when i heard guthrie govan's awesome variety of techniques was a defining moment to me. that and brett garsed's hybrid picking. michael romeo of symphony x also always amazed me. he's dubbed a tapper, but that's his signature technique. he does all the sweep legato alternate stuff with his eyes closed.

I'm completely with you that rhythm playing is the most important.

But speed picking and brutal downpicking are not the be all and end all.  In fact you could say they are just Rhythm Wanking

of course they aren't. but when their focus is metal, it sort of is XD