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Without any specific prompting, I simply asked "apply 10 qualitative and quantifiable parameters to 10 best known rock/fusion shredders and 10 best known Jazz guitarists" to see how they may compare. And yes, of course I realise that you can prompt it in such a way as to see a totally different outcome, still, it was interesting to see what it came up with. If you were hoping for a different outcome, then perhaps you could try asking it, I'm sure it'll end up agreeing with you eventually!
* (you may need to scroll to the right to see totals?)
Rock / Fusion Shredders (Highest ? Lowest)
Player Picking Throughput Articulation Timing Stability Harmonic Complexity Voice-leading Melodic Entropy Motivic Development Structural Planning Long-duration Consistency Tone Independence Total Allan Holdsworth 8 8 9 10 10 9 8 8 8 8 86 John McLaughlin 9 8 9 9 8 8 8 8 8 8 83 Al Di Meola 10 9 9 7 7 6 6 7 7 7 75 Shawn Lane 10 8 7 8 7 7 6 6 6 6 71 Steve Vai 8 8 7 7 6 7 7 8 7 5 70 Frank Gambale 9 8 8 7 7 6 5 6 6 7 69 Paul Gilbert 10 9 8 6 6 6 5 5 6 7 68 Joe Satriani 7 8 8 6 6 6 6 7 7 5 66 Eddie Van Halen 8 7 8 5 5 6 6 7 6 4 62 Yngwie Malmsteen 10 7 7 5 5 5 4 5 5 4 57
Jazz Guitarists (Highest ? Lowest)
Player Picking Throughput Articulation Timing Stability Harmonic Complexity Voice-leading Melodic Entropy Motivic Development Structural Planning Long-duration Consistency Tone Independence Total Pat Martino 7 9 9 10 10 9 9 9 10 9 92 Jim Hall 5 9 10 9 9 9 10 10 10 10 91 Joe Pass 7 9 9 9 10 8 9 9 9 10 89 Wes Montgomery 6 9 9 9 10 8 9 9 9 10 88 George Benson 7 9 9 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 81 John Abercrombie 6 8 9 8 8 8 8 8 8 9 80 Kenny Burrell 6 8 9 7 8 7 7 7 8 9 76 John Scofield 7 8 8 8 7 8 7 7 8 8 76 Grant Green 6 8 9 7 7 7 7 7 8 9 75 Mike Stern 8 8 8 7 7 7 6 6 7 7 71
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02-09-2026 06:42 AM
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I added 'self taught, no lessons' to your criteria... and it gave me back Dave Veltri.
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hehe, at least it didn't come back with this guy :
Originally Posted by Rodney Gene
I added 'self taught, no lessons' to your criteria... and it gave me back Dave Veltri.
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So you gamed it to give you the responses you wanted, most of which are players no normal person off the street could name, and much of which is just techniique oriented and so doesn't reflect what actually makes the greatest, which is musicality, not technicality which means Hendrix would've beaten all those rock dudes.
I bet if I asked Chat GPT if you could do something better with your time it would say yes.
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What is Melodic Entropy? It sounds bad?
What is Picking Throughput?
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I also wanted to ask, but didn’t want to sound dumb. Originally Posted by Christian Miller
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Um, no, I didn't "game it" at all, I don't know what "melodic entropy" is either! It's just what it came up with, with minimal prompting. It's not the response I wanted, but sounds like it's the response you didn't want! Of course it didn't include criteria like "emotion", but then why would it, it's a fucking bot! Originally Posted by DawgBone
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Throughput means efficiency, I think?
Melodic entropy would hint at unpredictability, but I'm not sure why Stern would score low there...
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Maybe it's forgetting what you meant to play? Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
I'd actually rate Allan quite highly on that scale. He's a man who digresses. Mike sticks the course OTOH.
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I can't answer, but I'll let Chat enlighten us: Originally Posted by Christian Miller
Picking Throughput
Operational Definition
Picking throughput = the maximum sustained rate at which a player can produce clearly articulated notes using right-hand motion, measured as:
Notes per second (NPS)\text{Notes per second (NPS)}Notes per second (NPS)or equivalently converted to BPM/subdivision.
It evaluates the motor output bandwidth of the picking system.
What it measures- Alternate-picking speed ceiling
- Synchronization between hands at velocity
- Stroke efficiency and economy of motion
- Clarity retention as tempo rises
This is fundamentally a biomechanical parameter.
What it explicitly does NOT measure- Musical value
- Harmonic sophistication
- Phrase construction
- Legato technique (unless combined with picking)
Why “throughput” is the correct term
“Speed” is ambiguous.
Throughput implies:
- sustained note stream
- clarity maintained
- timing stability preserved
Example distinction:
Case Throughput Short burst run Low relevance Sloppy fast run Low Clean sustained line High
Conceptual analogy
Think in signal-processing terms:
- Picking hand = data transmission channel
- Notes = packets
- Throughput = packets/sec without corruption
Musical Entropy
This one is more abstract but analytically useful.
Operational Definition
Musical entropy = the degree of informational variation and unpredictability in melodic output over time
Borrowed from information theory.
It measures how repetitive vs varied the note stream is.
High entropy playing- Interval variety
- Rhythmic diversity
- Register shifts
- Phrase transformation
- Low pattern reuse
- Unpredictable continuation
Listeners perceive:
- freshness
- evolution
- narrative motion
Low entropy playing- Repeated scalar sequences
- Fixed licks reused
- Predictable resolution patterns
- Limited interval palette
Listeners perceive:
- pattern cycling
- mechanical sequencing
Quantifiable proxies
You can approximate entropy from transcription by measuring:
- Pitch distribution variance
- Interval diversity
- Motif recurrence rate
- Rhythmic subdivision variability
- Phrase similarity metrics
These are used in computational musicology.
Why entropy matters
It correlates strongly with:
- improvisational sophistication
- real-time generative thinking
- cognitive processing load
It captures something raw speed cannot:
How much novel information is being produced
Important distinction between the two
These parameters sit in different domains:
Parameter Domain Picking throughput Motor execution Musical entropy Cognitive generation
That’s precisely why comparing genres on only one dimension produces distorted conclusions.
Concise summary
Picking Throughput
? How fast and cleanly the hands can transmit notes.
Musical Entropy
? How much informational novelty the mind injects into those notes.
- Alternate-picking speed ceiling
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Ah yes, Allan Holdsworth, that well known picker.
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And just where is Mr. Geoffrey Arnold Beck ?
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Any list that excludes Larry Coryell, the godfather of jazz-rock fusion, is a deficient list.
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Though tbf he only got an 8
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Turns out you were right re the definitions, but it's interesting how it has ranked players the way it has. I mean, it has access to more raw data about these players than all of us mere humans put together can hope to have, so maybe it might be able to quantify esoteric apsects like "musical entropy" better than we like to think it can? An LLM is never gonna know which player can make you cry, or give you a hard on, but maybe it can discern, better than we can, just how adventurous, daring, unpredictable or how truly "improvised" one's playing actually is? Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
Maybe they can be better judges of artistic merit than we thought, so if they were judging, say, in an ice skating competition, why wouldn't the bot be a fairer judge than any human? Sure it's a sport, but there is an artistry component, no? Besides, some might say there is a sport component to the way some players play Rock, or even Jazz! ...
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Haha, yes, points lost there, for sure. (for the bot, I mean) Originally Posted by Christian Miller
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Ah, you know, actually maybe I did game it by asking about Rock/fusion "shredders"- which forced it to focus the analysis on more technical players. This would explain glaring omissions like Beck, and the other notable Rock gods... Originally Posted by Doug B
And just where is Mr. Geoffrey Arnold Beck ?
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princeplanet
*posts meaningless list spewed out by a clanker*
JGO
"WHERE'S MY FAVOURITE PLAYER???? INCONCEIVABLE!!!!!"
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Originally Posted by Christian Miller
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On the third day of the second test, the Jazz Guitarists defeated the Rock/Fusion shredders by an innings and three semiquavers.
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Is enjoyability one of the parameters? I might have missed it.
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bro if you can’t enjoy a little timing stability and picking throughput I don’t know what to tell you Originally Posted by lammie200
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I think AI is just making shit up.
Here's the AI definition of...
Picking Throughput is a key performance indicator (KPI) in warehousing and distribution that measures the number of units ,lines, or orders a picker(or system) successfully picks and prepares for shipping within a specific amount of time.
AI does not seem to be talking about guitar pickers here. geez....
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I didn’t care enough to look it up. But this is just … *chefs kiss* Originally Posted by ScottM
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