The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #26

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    so would faulkner be "literary shred?"

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  3. #27

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    Quote Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
    so would faulkner be "literary shred?"

    Nah, he's actually too good to be considered shred. Maybe some of his juvenalia would qualify?

  4. #28

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    So guys. I was thinking about the Joe Pass vein of this argument from earlier in this thread. I'm sort of changing my opinion on that. Not a flip flop, but I said that it really comes down to jazz guys don't think jazz guys shredding is bad and rock guys love it when rock guys shred. But I was thinking. Jazz guys don't necessarily think that shredding is ok just because it's in a jazz setting. A lot of people love Joe Pass because when when he's "shredding" he still swings and when he's not "shredding" he's playing his chord solos and I think a lot of people love Joe for the chord solo. On top of that there are a bunch of guys on the "Players you just don't get" thread that say they don't like jazz guys because they're too busy. A couple I remembering hearing were Mike Stern and Allen Holdsworth (even though they're more fusion), Bireli Lagrene (who plays gypsy and straightahead). So it definitely is taste in music. Jazz guys don't tend to be into progressive shred rock and vice versa. But also there are a lot of players (me) who appreciate it and even like it, but just prefer ballads and swings with some nice melodic solos as opposed to pedal to the metal 64th notes (even though as Mr. B said earlier, when used correctly those balls to the wall solos at 200 bpm can really get the job done).

  5. #29

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    So guys. I was thinking about the Joe Pass vein of this argument from earlier in this thread. I'm sort of changing my opinion on that. Not a flip flop, but I said that it really comes down to jazz guys don't think jazz guys shredding is bad and rock guys love it when rock guys shred. But I was thinking. Jazz guys don't necessarily think that shredding is ok just because it's in a jazz setting. A lot of people love Joe Pass because when when he's "shredding" he still swings and when he's not "shredding" he's playing his chord solos and I think a lot of people love Joe for the chord solo. On top of that there are a bunch of guys on the "Players you just don't get" thread that say they don't like jazz guys because they're too busy. A couple I remembering hearing were Mike Stern and Allen Holdsworth (even though they're more fusion), Bireli Lagrene (who plays gypsy and straightahead). So it definitely is taste in music. Jazz guys don't tend to be into progressive shred rock and vice versa. But also there are a lot of players (me) who appreciate it and even like it, but just prefer ballads and swings with some nice melodic solos as opposed to pedal to the metal 64th notes. As Mr. B said earlier, when used correctly those balls to the wall solos at 200 bpm can really get the job done, but even in a rock/ blues setting, I'll take Jimi or Derek Trucks or B.B. King over Satch or Vai any day of the week. Some people just identify differently with the way the music is played.

  6. #30

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    Frankly, I find shred incredibly BORING. I have been a big Satriani, Patrucci, Steve Morse, et al fan for a long time. Saw G3 with Ywngie, and was bored after 10 minutes. Satriani is at least melodic. Seen Patrucci with Dream Theater a few times, loved it. His trio was boring to me, because it was all about him constantly blowing.

    As John pointed out, speed for the sake of speed is just musical masterbation. See Dragon Farce as an example. Using speed as you would any embelishment is great. Would you want to bend every note, or put vibrato on each one? Why would you want hear or play fast all the time?

    I just don't get the worship of speed. Frankly, if anyone locks themselves in their room for a couple of years and just runs scales, licks for hours on end, they too can shred. Not musical. Guys like Jimmy Bruno get dangerously close at times to the melodic vs masterbation thing imo. I guess we each have a threshold where it becomes tedious.

    Imo, Steve Vai's legacy/influence has as much to do with being a sideman with the iconic Frank Zappa, the ever in your face David Lee Roth, the Devil's guitarist in Crossroads, G3 with Satriani, and his Favored Nations Label, as it does with his own recordings.

  7. #31
    i couldt agree more on petruccis trio being boring, its pointless, altough he does explore some beautiful melodies its a steve vai style situation...he just DOESNT interact with the band like he does in Dream theater,

    and it just dawned on me

    DRAGONFORCE is shred for shreds sake.... but bands like protest the hero? (check bloodmeat - actually all of fortress)
    its not worth listening to unless its technical....speed is pointless...complexity does it FOR ME

    listen to shoenberg and the other vienese school of atonal composers, its mathmatical, it PUSHES boundaries

    check some Ron Jarzombek

    a headache and a 64th - bar of 4/4 followed by a bar of 1/64 this puts your internal clock at unrest

    two thirds of satan - all of the bars are 6/4 + 6/4 the notes are used in 2 sets of 6 (E,A#,B,G,C#,D, and C,F,Gb,G#,A,D#) each cluster contains a tritone which has 2 notes 6 half steps apart, the clusters move up (or down) 6 half steps

    gimmie 5 - all quintuplets, in 5/4, 5 measures per phrase, theme 1 in bmaj (5 sharps) theme 2 Db (5 flats) there are only 5 pitches used in each theme....

    this is musical exploration...

    the man has his own compositional devices (the circle of 12 tones)
    surely he is achieving much more for music than say...freddie green or tal farlow ever did? or the countless artists that just release version after version of jazz standards.....

  8. #32

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    You must thrive on controversy.

    12 tone music had its time. It came and went. Too limiting.

    Have you listened to Art Ensemble of Chicago? Sonny Sharrock? James Blood Ulmer? Ornette Coleman. Have you ever experimented with free improvisation? no key, no time. just blow. It's not for everybody. Most of the musicians following this calling survive on arts grants.

    You look like you want to compare "artsy" music to jazz guitarists so lets compare music to other arts. Lets say around the cool period in jazz. (I'm most familiar with this period history wise)

    There are countless innovators who pushed the envelope at one time or another. Jack Kerouac, William Boroughs, William De Koning, Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollack. All radical thinkers and artists who started out 'coloring in the lines" up until they had an idea.

    . Doesn't mean they were any more explorers than any other painter or writer. They just followed a different school of thought. Mark Rothko always painted portraits and landscapes except his were based on different colored rectangles rather than identifiable faces or nature scenes. still, it was a landscape or a portrait. And with all the writers it still came down to conflict. Man against 'something'. Nowadays all this abstract and 'beat' generation stuff gave birth to new movements but along with these movents people are still painting portraits and landscapes and writers are still writing 'normal' novels.

    You mention Tal and Freddie Green. But you're not looking at their contributions in terms of "when" they were plying their trade. You can't compare them by todays standards. They were yesterdays pioneers. There time also came and went. Their art, at least in Tals case, was spontaneous compostion better known as improvisation. Doesn't mean it wasn't extremely fresh and "new school " when he started playing it.

    Today a maj9th is pretty tame. Back a few centuries it was radical. today we're used to tone clusters and super close voiced chords. Playing the inside of a piano is passe. "Prepared" guitar has been around a long time. whats next?


    As far as countless players contiunualy playing standards, it's because some like to, and some like eat and have a roof over their head. doesn't mean they don't experiment and push the boundry on their off time. It's just the nature of the beast.

    One more example (and I'm sorry for being long winded) Vic Juris. Vic has some really excellent CD's of original compositions. some in different settings like piano and guitar and others with quartets. Some a bit "out". I haven't had the opportunity to asked him but I bet his best selling CD's are the ones where he covers standards rather than his own stuff.
    Last edited by JohnW400; 07-30-2008 at 08:43 PM.

  9. #33

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    Quote Originally Posted by MissMisstreater
    now come on guys shred isnt music

    ITS F**KIN AWESOME!



    I love this post spawned such a deep conversation about art. Nice.

    This has become quite an interesting conversation though.

  10. #34
    dont apologise for being long winded, like you said, its turned into a very interesting conversation

    atonal isnt dead, shoenberg just ran out of ideas! i beg you to read and (if you dare) experiment with the following two articles

    The Circle Of 12 Tones
    The Circle Of 12 Tones

    iv tried the free jazz approach, but i find it hard to distinguish between mastery and incompetence, when i first started learning to play guitar, and i took long solos, i had no knowledge of keys scales and arpeggios so id play it safe, moving around a little, finding motifs i liked and shifting them about etc....DONT confuse that with free jazz...it was incompetence, a monkey could have done it, its only when you start to learn rules that playing becomes more consonant (remember learning ii-V changes then what scales fit over then and more importantly WHY)

    to me, free jazz is the oposite of atonality, it may not have a tonal centre at times, but it has no rules...therefore you cant get it wrong...

    whereas with tone row manipulation you can do it wrong as threre are a strict set of rules

  11. #35

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    Finally! I've been a guitar player for nearly 40 years, but when I kept seeing all theses references to shredding and shredders on the net, I never knew exactly what they were talking about. My teenage students throw the word around a lot, but I've gotten more from the context then the actual word. Now it's becoming clear. So let's see, with a city-for-city criteria, Godzilla would be more of a shredder say, then King Kong, right? But not as big of a shredder as ... mmm... a fire-bombing? Attila was a huge shredder compared to Gandhi? And Hunter Thompson definitely moreso then Walt Whitman. How am I doing?

  12. #36

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    Just as I wouldn't dis say, Malmstein as compared to Vai, I meant no disrespect to Gigantor or his fans, nor Mothra and his (her?) fans for that matter. Am I correct in thinking Alec Baldwin is a much bigger shredder then Laurence Olivier?

  13. #37

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    Quote Originally Posted by MissMisstreater
    i find it hard to distinguish between mastery and incompetence,
    well, there's a fine line between clever and stupid

    and bonus points to whoever names the shredder who said that.

  14. #38

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    MissMissTreater,

    I took a quick glance at your links. Very interesting stuff. Almost like I Ching. Is this your work? When I have more time I'm going to check out the links. Interesting concept.

    It is similar to some theories Pat Martino was talking about years ago. I never really studied what he was talking about (other than his ideas about the diminshed chord as the starting point rather than the maj7th). But I think his ideas and what is listed in your post are along similar lines.

  15. #39
    sadly not, i have used the concepts however, this is the work of guitarist Ron Jarzombek, like i say i highly recommend checking out his work with blotted science or spastic ink or his solo album Solitary Speaking Of Theoretical Confinement....(assuming you can enjoy heavy music!)

    an mr beaumont....of course iv seen spinal tap!!! lol

  16. #40

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    Quote Originally Posted by DMatthewsBand07
    hahaha... that's a quote. I'm sort of with you on that. I use to really like Steve Vai and Joe Satriani. I've never been a big Malmsteen fan, but hey, he's a big enough fan of himself that he doesn't really need all of us. Ever since I've been getting into jazz I've lost a lot of my love of shred. I think the defining moment when jazz totally kicked my love of shred to the curb was the moment I saw the youtube video of Joe Pass and NHOP playing Donna Lee. I mean come on, faster tempos, more complex harmonies (by a lot), no distortion to hide behind, and (in Niels' case) no frets. I prefer the virtuosity of a guy like Jim Hall or Wes Montgomery that is more suited to the jazz genre. That being said, those guys really do know what they're doing. Satch and Steve Vai, in particular, are top-notch musicians. I really don't like a lot of flamboyant "shred for the sake of shred" players (ala Malmsteen) but there are definitely guys out there that are genuine phenomenal musicians that just prefer the "high octane" energy rock music provides as opposed to the more subtle energy and drive of swing.

    To Mr. B. If you want to listen to some genuinely musical shred, then check out Steve Vai's "For the Love of God". Very melodic and musical and then of course he builds it up to an all-out, eight finger tapping, shred-fest. That kind thing still isn't my bag a' chips but I can definitely appreciate it more than some of the other shred.
    Wow, we may have had the same exact experience...Joe Pass showed me that jazz could shred, only it's much more complex. Jason Becker does shred amazingly though, and so does Steve Vai, who attended Berklee and knows jazz.

    I don't like Mathew's Band though, so sorry...

  17. #41
    +1

  18. #42

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    Catch me sessions. Intense. Joe. steamin he is. But, it swings like f**k and is bouyant and effortless. Harmonically naughty, clean as a whistle, fat sound. Have a listen. Way beyond shred.

  19. #43
    the mighty lane

  20. #44

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    Quote Originally Posted by mike walker
    Joe. steamin he is. But, it swings like f**k and is bouyant and effortless.
    And that's where it's at. They do have the chord solo thing in common, but for the most part Ed Bickert is the total opposite of Joe Pass's stlye... slow, and deliberate... but it "swings like f**k" so it's cool.

  21. #45
    who can deny their excitement the first time they nailed a rapid gambale style succession of arpeggios?

  22. #46

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    Quote Originally Posted by MissMisstreater
    i think it works well, but real shred does exactly that, it builds up to an orgasm. an explosion....show me that in smooth jazz
    that doesn't happen in smooth jazz. that's the point of smooth jazz. it goes good with box of wine and a dentist's office.

    in real jazz that happens all the time.

    mistreater, have you heard coltrane's "ascension" yet? if not, you need to.

  23. #47
    Quote Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
    that doesn't happen in smooth jazz. that's the point of smooth jazz. it goes good with box of wine and a dentist's office.

    in real jazz that happens all the time.

    mistreater, have you heard coltrane's "ascension" yet? if not, you need to.
    coltrane is bebop...which sets clumped in with shred, i mean its technical mastery of their instrument right?

    i love him and all bop

  24. #48

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    Quote Originally Posted by MissMisstreater
    coltrane is bebop...which sets clumped in with shred, i mean its technical mastery of their instrument right?

    i love him and all bop


    Coltrane doesn't fall into bebop all the time. I'm a fan of his modal stuff too... particularly A Love Supreme. I'm usually not a modal guy but I do like Coltrane's stuff. Although you should check that stuff out if you haven't. CRAZY.
    Last edited by DMatthewsBand07; 08-03-2008 at 10:46 PM.

  25. #49

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    I come from a strait up heavy metal and hardcore background, so I have been desperate to shred for along time. I can't do it yet. And every time almost every time i see shredding i go and scream at my self for not being able to do it and going "i wish i could shred" over and over again.

  26. #50

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    Quote Originally Posted by MissMisstreater
    coltrane is bebop...which sets clumped in with shred, i mean its technical mastery of their instrument right?

    i love him and all bop
    "ascension" is about as far from bop as it gets. seek it out. multiple "orgasms" (and that's probably enough of that metaphor, now, huh? )