Seltzer

Look. Aside from the fact that your criteria for judging musicians according to technical ability is completely shallow... Petrucci isn't even near the top based on technical ability.

Bireli Lagrene is a gypsy guitarist who can play circles around Petrucci. One example of many.



Petrucci's soloing is a joke. It's almost guaranteed that if I skip to any random place in a DT song, lo and behold, Petrucci will be fretwanking right there in his formulaic 'choose a pattern, play it as fast as possible and climb up the fretboard' style.

__________________

Piss Me Off

To reference a pretty nice blog though, i doubt many could play this with the speed and damn right coolness that this guy could

http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...tml#post708234

__________________


Last FM
Rate Yr Music
Muxtape

Rickenbacker

Can I say I love you for the inclusion of Billy Zoom? One of the most underrated guitarists ever right there.

__________________

last.fm
rym
Talk About the Passion - R.E.M.'s Discography Reviewed

boo boo

Anyway, I think Petrucci's technical ability is rather overstated, playing fast and all over the place is not the only factor in technical chops, a great understanding of melodicism and the ability to apply your skills in a tasteful way is also a big part of it.

Take even less technically skilled guitarists into consideration, like Gilmour or Santana for example. To do so much with so few notes isn't as easy as people make it out to be, it takes a great understanding of melody and structure. Gilmour and Santana could do more with 4 notes than Petrucci can do with 100.

There's a lot of great technnical players out there, and a lot who also know the difference between showing off their ability in a creative and tasteful way, and just plain wanking a whole song to death.

Petrucci is not one of those players, I've never heard him do anything that he didn't run into the ground with tiresome guitar gymnastics. I'd say he's ridiculously high as it is and that mainly has to do with his influence in the shred guitar wanking community.

Compare Petrucci to most other prog guitarists. Like Robert Fripp, Steve Howe, Andy Latimer, Jan Akkerman and Steve Hackett. Sure they liked to show off and play really complex, over the top stuff. But they also knew how to craft melody and suit a song perfectly, as well as not steal all the spotlight from the other band members. They could also play catchy riffs or really simple, beautiful parts when they needed to. I have yet to hear Petrucci prove himself capable of doing such a thing.

Then again, Petrucci is far from being a progressive guitarist, I quite hate it when people refer to him as such, he's a generic metal shredder in a so called prog band, that's it. I think it's just plain idiotic when people claim he's better than Gilmour and Page. But when people try and put him on the same plain as Robert Fripp, I just find it offensive, Petrucci is an insult to everything that prog rock is supposed to be about.

That's one thing I hate about DT fans, most of them are metal fans who wouldn't know prog if it bit them in the ass. So yeah, if you only listen to DT and Symphony X, don't call yourself a prog fan, I can't stand that.

Sorry, prog elitism overload, I need to cool down.

__________________
It's only knock n' knowall, but I like it

http://www.last.fm/user/kingboobs

Tuneman1

your idea of prog is so skewed. you just keep proving you don't listen to DT, and are completely ignorant on what they do. They pull elements of classical, jazz, world, arabic, and every other form of music. They play atonally, they constantly switch time signatures, and do things that no other bands have done. They have produced several concept albums and continually exersize deep knowledge of music theory.

They use every mode, every scale, every piece of knowledge in their musical arsenal.

Now if you want melodic playing, that is not fast, like I mentioned, Petrucci has produced more of those solos than Hendrix. Now also, to say that you can't be fast and melodic is stupid. You can have the same melody, but simply add in extra notes.

So instead of giving lets say and A a whole beat (quarter note for this example), you could play 4 16th notes where you play the A maj arpegio and then end on an A. Melodically, this would have the same effect as just playing an A, but also add more color.

The idea that playing fast and playing melodically are mutually exclusive, is stupid.

Also if influence on other guitarists is an important factor on your list, where is Segovia, Carcassi, Sor, Tarrega, or Paco de Lucia?

No if you have an opinion that is fine. However, that opinion has to be based on logic in order to not be subject to objective critique

Oh ok so under that logic Daughtry is a better guitarist. His image is twice as big as Page's. This is the problem, you equate image to ability. Huge mistake.

Just realize that your puny brain is hindering every second of your life.

dac

...And they still can't write a halfway decent song.

__________________

gunnels

Uh oh...

__________________
Let's Play TF2 Sometime.|Unrepresentative Last.fm.|Puns, Pokemon, and Miscellany

boo boo

How does this make them different from any other prog band?

Oh yeah, they're not actually doing anything progressive or worth listening to.

DT stick to the same tired prog metal formula over and over. They don't take risks and while they're certainly talented, they have the ability to reinvent themselves and do something fresh and interesting, they simply choose not to, which I think is even worse than not being able to do it in the first place.

They have stayed pretty much the same for over 20 years. For them not to try and free themselves of the creative shackles they have limited themselves with, it's not very faithful to what prog rock is all about.

Even the worst prog bands can do that, the important thing is how they use it.

Yes and sometimes you can do some great things with a lot of notes, but sometimes you can do a lot with very few.

I don't consider Petrucci to be a very melodic player, I'm sure he has material that is very melodic, but that just makes me think less of him, that means he chooses to do nothing but wank, rather than being incapable of doing anything else.

But either way, there's other highly technical guitarists who have a better understanding of melody than he does, Buckethead and Eric Johnson for example.

As for Hendrix, I have yet to hear Petrucci do anything on the level of melodic brilliance that Hendrix has done, especially with songs like Little Wing.

I never said they were.

If you want a fast AND melodic player. Try John Mclaughlin or Al di Meola.

None of them are rock guitartists.

__________________
It's only knock n' knowall, but I like it

http://www.last.fm/user/kingboobs

Unknown Soldier

I`m a big DT fan that actually got into them after being a big prog rock fan for many years, so not all are just metal fans first.

Symphony X never really liked them but I do like Fate`s Warning.

Astronomer

Adam Jones needs to be higher up the list :P

__________________