Guitars
 

i often find myself at odds with friends in the discussions over who the great guitarists are. the problem is, they value technical ability over creativity and innovation. i am on the opposite side of the spectrum, and cannot stand the van halens of the world, so i was wondering... what do you all value in a guitarist?

Technicality AND heart. The two I find, go together a lot more often than people give credit. Sometimes it seems like people look down on someone for actually knowing their craft, which disgusts me honestly. Like its a BAD thing to know what you're doing.

But just for the record, I don't like Van Halen :D

The ability to use one's phallus as a plectrum.

Both technical ability and compositional ability are both important in determining overall greatness

Guys like Jimmy Paige, John Petrucci, David Gilmour, Steve Vai, ect

a perfect balance of technical and compositional abilities, while still playing with massive feeling.

The guitarist better be able to play dirty and pretty. And it better not all be power chords.

The most important thing to me is just doing your own thing, and it dosen't matter how you do it. Weither it's miminalistic or complex, subdued or flashy, sludgey or polished, slow or fast, quite or loud.

I wouldn't confuse simplistic guitar playing with bad guitar playing, and too many people confuse simple playing with bad playing. Cobain is a great example of this.

All I can say is, whoever you look to for inspiration, don't let it be this guy.

Being Frank Zappa.

I only made it through 1 minute and 35 seconds of that nonsense. Anyway, I appreciate the technical skills of Vai and the likes of other shredders immensely, but generally it doesn't suit my taste in music. Subtly and nuance in a player's style that makes it their own is what I value most.

I disagree on the details there. Technical ability enables you to do more than you otherwise could... it augments your palette if you like. So I don't think technical ability is at all necessary if you can instrumentally say what you want without it. It's more of a tool than a means to an end.

Some non-technical musicians explore a much wider range of music than other technical musicians who could play almost anything they could conceive.