Is technical ability everything?
 

I'm mainly talking about guitar playing. I tend to think it's not everything. I value creativity more than technical ability. I think a technical guitar player is a lot easier to come by than a really creative and innovative one. You can find young kids on youtube who are pretty technical, but you won't find one who is as creative and innovative as Hendrix. Technical ability is something you can learn. Creative ability is something that you can't learn from a book or music theory.

What do you think?

Hendrix was also technically good
 

Both are obviously helpful. Hendrix is usually considered the greatest of all time (he just won another such designation from rolling stone magazine), because he has both components. Joe Satriani is obviously technically amazing, but perhaps beyond the average listener's ability to comprehend, plus I don't find him that satisfying emotionally. Johnny Ramone could barely play, but The Ramones's fans totally got it.

Hendrix was also technically good? I think so too. I've heard a lot of people who know a lot about the technical side of music say that Hendrix was terrible, but I've also heard some knowledgable people say that he was great.

I agree, Satriani is definitely a very technical player, but I don't find his music very enjoyable. Some people just can't see anything good about a guitarist if they aren't extremely technical. I find that to be a little irritating.

musiclistsareus was probably right about Johnny Ramone. He wasn't technical, but he played in a way that people could relate to. And remember Richie Sambora from Bon Jovi? People absolutely loved them, but when you think about the actual guitar work, it's pretty easy stuff. "You Give Love A Bad Name" sounds incredible, but all it was was him using a double octave and a few power chords.

Most people are usually going to prefer the more simple playing. Ever since I started playing guitar I realized that some songs aren't as difficult as they seemed before I learned to play. But that doesn't mean that I lost respect for those songs, because they still sound great. And playing the song isn't nearly as hard as doing the actual creating.

Certainly not. There are more important elements that make music great than technical ability.

To quote Dickie Peterson of Blue Cheer - "Rock 'n' Roll is 10 percent technique and 90 percent attitude. If you can deliver one note with the right attitude it will do more than 60 notes with no attitude".

i can appreciate technicality but not when it's just mere wanking

cough cough hack Malmsteen

Satriani can obviously write a good tune, but. he. just. can't. sing

Short answer = No.

Tbh I would rather hear a great song than just a technical exercise played at warp speed for 3 minutes.

If I can hold John McLaughlin and Link Wray in the same class of guitarists... no.

they're both great in their own way

McLaughlin has some great melodic contours and tonal pallettes, if you can catch his notes - he's not just wanking

Link Wray basically invented punk and heavy metal

Personally I can't stand technical guitar playing, sure I can respect their talent but I just have no desire to listen to intricate guitar solos or any band like Dragonforce of Malmsteen...ugh. I prefer creativity or even not so great musicianship, gives the music the raw quality that I really like.

Hendrix was unorthodox...
 

Because of his lefthandedness, being self-taught and his devotion to blues masters (who were also usually self-taught), Jimi didn't always play the "right" way, but he played the right way for him. He doesn't have the same speed or precision of a classically trained player such as Randy Rhodes and others, but he had serious chops--he pushed guitar beyond the boundaries in ways few have been able to duplicate. I think the closest anyone has come is Robert Randolph with his lap steel.

I think personality comes into it greatly. I've played in a few bands, and everyone has something to project from inside with their playing. It's a very unique thing.

There seems to be a misconception here. I own Dragonforce's entire discography and have attended several of their concerts, and have never encountered anything much more than random running of the fingers up and down the frets. You are perfectly entitled to say that you don't like them (and props for doing so!), but please don't grant them the status of technical talent. The appalling nature of this comes through in one of their slower songs "Trail of Broken Hearts". It's not as unbearable as most of their stuff (although still very, very cheesy), but the guitar solo shows a total absence of any real ideas. They just seem to know how to vary pitch, but I've never found any evidence that they can make that into a tune.

The only technical ability a guitarist needs is to know how to plug the thing in and make some noise.

^ This, basically.

If I wanted to spend my time fawning over technical ability, I'd have studied music in college.

You're right. I'll take Mclaughlin over Satriani or Vai any day. I'll take Les Paul and Chet Atkins over Vai and Satch as well.

Buckethead is one technical guitarist that I find to be pretty interesting. Definitely more interesting than Malmsteen, Vai, and Satch. I think he has a lot more style and creative ability than those guys. He has the ability to play a million notes a minute, but he doesn't do it all the time, because he has some style.

I'm a bit worried that Sun Lagos Jew Sun Ra will turn up and start blaring about how good Keiji Heino is.

There isn't really anything interesting about playing a million notes a minute, to be honest. If you don't believe me, I'll defy you to point me towards an interesting Dragonforce track. Brian May in my opinion was one of the best for this, he would noodle when the time was appropriate, and the result was some very subtle but engaging sound. Buckethead may well be another for all I know, I haven't found time to check out his better albums you recommended, Blastingas.

I haven't seen the Jew Sun Ra in a while. Maybe he blocked me, I don't know. :laughing:

I agree, there is nothing interesting about playing that fast. All the notes just start blending in and there's really no distinguishable melody to it. Buckethead is one of those guys. He can shred extremely fast, but he doesnt do it all that often. He's more than just a shredder. His playing is pretty melodic. He has a lot of slow, melodic songs. i certainly put him above Satch and Vai.

Is technical ability everything?

The short answer: no. A lot of great music has been created by people who are not particularly technically proficient. On the other hand, technical ability does open doors for musicians to express themselves in a wider variety of ways. Plus there are some styles of music which just simply do not work unless the person making the music is fairly skilled with their instrument. I would put everything from jazz to flamenco to classical to most types of metal in this category.

Nicely said.

I guess what I was trying to say is, just because somone is more technical doesn't make them the better overall musician. Joe Satriani is certainly more technical than Jimi Hendrix, but i don't think he is better than Hendrix. There's more to music than just technical ability. Music is an art, and creative ability is important to any art. Were some of Picasso's paintings the most technically and conventionally good? No. But there was something abstract and creative about his work that went beyond conventions. Some people would look at his art and a lot of other art, and say "what is this crap?" They are the people who lack imagination and fail to see beyond the conventional side of things.

I doubt really fast guitar playing would be appreciated for dance music. In some styles people want just a simple melody and a beat to move to.

Pablo Picasso may not be the best comparison though because he actually was extremely skilled on a technical level. He's more the model of the highly creative artist whose skill level allowed him to express himself in a wide variety of ways. A better comparison might be Howard Finster, a self-taught painter of limited technical ability who nevertheless created some cool and distinctive artwork in his lifetime. Most people on MB would probably know him as the guy who painted the album cover for Talking Heads' Little Creatures.

That's true. But certainly he knew that there was more to art than just technical skill. You're right about technical skill allowing you to become more expressive. I find the Hendrix route to be more difficult. It's been easier for me to learn technical assets of the guitar than it was for me to just pick the instrument up and teach myself. I am self taught, but not really if you count the internet as a teacher, and it certainly is. Learning the technical side has allowed me to become more creative. And I find it to be pretty crazy that Hendrix taught himself and ended up being as good as he was.

I think it should always be about taste. The guitarist (and any musician in the band) using impeccable decision making skills throughout the song. Sometimes applied technical theory can get you out of a musical jam, and vice versa. Some of the best guys I played with knew no theory, just put their fingers anywhere on the fret board sounding good like a muthaf**k.

Absolutely. And for anyone who's curious about Picasso's technical abilities, take a gander at the painting below. He did this when he was just 14 years old:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ZF2TvtdrnP...529+-+1895.jpg

WOW. That's amazing.

No. Example: Kaki King. Technical wonder. Music has no soul.

Gee, that's a wonderful way to frame a debate: "The are hip people who are able to think outside of the box, and there are boorish ****s who can't - only the latter would dislike Picasso."

On that note:

LINK to Zing Magazine

&

LINK to Takimag

I was applying it to art in general.



That's not really what I said. I said nothing about being hip or boorish. I just said that some people don't have much imagination for that kind of thing. Think those kinds of people don't exist? They certainly do.

I'm guessing you're talking about that haino guy. Well I never denied that he was doing something that went beyond conventional music. I'm pretty sure my words were "I get that he's going beyond the conventions of music." I am open-minded enough to realize what he does, I just don't like him. Are their other avant garde guitarists that I like? Sure.


Sorry for getting off topic. Just had to clear this up.

And for the record Pablo Picasso isn't abstract art.

He was a pioneer of cubism. Although Cubism ultimately depends upon subject matter, it became, along with Fauvism, the art movement that directly opened the door to abstraction in the 20th century.

That may be true but it's doesn't make him an abstract artist.

You're right. I never said he was. But I think some of his work leaned more on the concrete side, like the picture you posted. And some of his work had a little more abstract qualities.

What qualifies something as abstract. I hear this word used all the time but I really don't have much of a clue as to what it means.

Obviously you have to master the technical ability because they're the basics, but to stand out from the crowd, you do indeed have to think outside the box as I like to put it.

I agree, as well Ben. Stage Presence is the key to success for any musician/artist.

Ive personally known a few guitarist that were just phenomenal, but on stage they seemed to resonate a boring personality.