The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #51

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    he thought Eddie’s experimental approach to music had more in common with Fred Frith and Derek Bailey than Vai...
    you're making me want to go listen to Van Halen albums now, for the first time ever! (I love Derek Bailey and have many fond memories of certain gigs of his. Wish I'd seen more of them, though I saw a fair few)

    Never been into widdly metal guitar at all. I dig metal for riffs rather than solos really. With one exception: I was a huge fan of Jane's Addiction when I was a teenager and Dave Navarro's playing on Jane's Addiction albums is just hardwired into my brain now.

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    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #52

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    Quote Originally Posted by Rob MacKillop
    I'll never forgive him for ruining guitar stores, with that kid (whatever town you are in) twiddling away with both hands on the fretboard, desperately looking for approval.

    Only kidding. He certainly got kids back into guitar at a time when the synth was killing it off. But I have to admit the only time a I really listened to him was in MJ's Beat It. Incredible.
    "MJ's Beat It. Incredible"

    Absolutely!

  4. #53

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    It’s a funny one but EVH was such a band guitarist and now the idea of rock guitar seems to be purely about nailing tasty stuff, or having chops or whatever; and someone gets really good at both like Guthrie Govan and this is great rock guitar now...

    So for me it will always be a band thing. I miss the days when you have someone who has perhaps limited chops but functions as the lead guitarist in the band and comes up with unforgettable lead parts as a second hook or foil to the lead vocal.

    For all his flash EVH actually fits into that mould for me, as of course does Slash etc, and in the UK John Squire and James Dean Bradfield (both Les Paul players, in JDB’s also a lead singer which is interesting) are the last players I really heard doing that in a traditional lead guitar way... maybe the grunge era guys, Billy Corgan, Navarro, Fruscante, the bloke from Soundgarden (name?), Tom Morello of course (not sure if Jack White counts.)

    The thing kind of shifted to textural playing. I think of Radiohead, Blur in the UK, the more riff thing in alternative rock and nu metal, even Morello got less ‘leady’ to my ears.

    JDB says players learn a certain way now and are very tame. I have to agree. There’s a way these band players cut through...

    Thats something I think has gone out of the music and that rock guitar has lost its context. There are plenty of great creative players these days, but that format has gone by and large I think.
    Last edited by christianm77; 09-26-2020 at 02:46 PM.

  5. #54

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    As someone who grew up listening to Eddie, I thought he was the greatest for a long time. However, his music really started to stagnate after 1984. I am not sure if was the breakup of the original band or if just his alcohol problems. He formed an incredibly original style fairly young and then didn't evolve much after it.

    I totally agree that in the end his catchy rhythm parts and songs are more impressive than his soloing, which is amazing in short bursts in a song but just strikes me as pyrotechnics when he takes extended solos.

    In the end, I think he is somewhat limited, but I guess you can say that about anybody. I know he was a big fan of Holdsworth and that he brought some of the legato ideas of Holdsworth to rock. But there is a recording of him playing with Holdsworth at GIT and it kind of shattered my opinion of him as a musician. He just played his riffs, completely ignoring the harmony. It just sounded so limited next to Holdsworth. Maybe an unfair critique, but before that I thought Eddie was some kind of genius who could play in the style of Holdsworth but just played rock on the albums.

  6. #55

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    Christian77,

    Yeah, Jack White counts.

  7. #56

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    Fair enough. When you write a riff that someone can play after a minute of instruction and yet is totally unmistakeable, you have earned your place at the table haven’t you?

  8. #57

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    Quote Originally Posted by charlieparker
    As someone who grew up listening to Eddie, I thought he was the greatest for a long time. However, his music really started to stagnate after 1984. I am not sure if was the breakup of the original band or if just his alcohol problems. He formed an incredibly original style fairly young and then didn't evolve much after it.

    I totally agree that in the end his catchy rhythm parts and songs are more impressive than his soloing, which is amazing in short bursts in a song but just strikes me as pyrotechnics when he takes extended solos.

    In the end, I think he is somewhat limited, but I guess you can say that about anybody. I know he was a big fan of Holdsworth and that he brought some of the legato ideas of Holdsworth to rock. But there is a recording of him playing with Holdsworth at GIT and it kind of shattered my opinion of him as a musician. He just played his riffs, completely ignoring the harmony. It just sounded so limited next to Holdsworth. Maybe an unfair critique, but before that I thought Eddie was some kind of genius who could play in the style of Holdsworth but just played rock on the albums.
    Interesting. I never got that impression of him being a harmonic improviser or a fusion guy. He was a blues/rock guy with a bunch of crazy tricks.

    The changes thing in rock lead playing is interesting. Aside from the obvious guys like LA session players with a bit of a jazz background, I feel a lot of great blues based players did actually express chords in their playing. I don’t hear the minor blues being the only trick.

    Obviously you have BB King... David Gilmour is to my ears extremely deft at navigating chords melodically, but then he wasn’t playing 8 million notes either and they are often quite set piecey solos. Clapton and Hendrix too, they were real ear players. I doubt they’d have been able to play tough Coltrane changes, but in the context of a song, they do to my ears often play changes. (A lot of the original blues guys as it has been mentioned had jazz chops but played it down, and that showed up in their playing.)

    Whereas by the 80s solos were usually in small, often separate vamp sections rather than the whole song progression.

    If jazz crept into 80-90s rock playing it was definitely in the ‘outside thing’ that you hear Holdsworth often doing when he goes into turbo mode (like on In the Dead of the Night) where it’s not so much scalic or arpeggio based as shapes based.

    EVH does this all over including in the Beat It solo and Eruption. I also hear it in the grunge era players. And metal players of course.

  9. #58

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    EVH was playing that stuff in the late 70s, when we all in middle school thought Ted Nugent was the shit

    Vai was a great player in the 80s but would write such cringeworthy cheesy material

    Yngwie was the next big rock guitar thing after Eddie, Vai and Satriani combined that scale and arpeggio technique with the more expressive Eddie thing

  10. #59

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    TBF I do think there’s a lot of Zappa buried in Vai; the liking for unusual modes and so on. (Flexable is obviously as Zappaesque as he got and doesn’t work for me TBH. He needs the cheese, it’s who he is, and he loves it haha)

    Not so much in the phrasing though, which I don’t think anyone has successfully emulated apart from Dweezil.

  11. #60

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    I really like Vai’s solo after Mike Stern’s. So much less obviously rocky than Mike’s lol but no jazz guitarist would think to improvise that way. It’s a different conception. I dig it.



    Listening to that it really drove home the difference in approach. I think jazz guitarists are primarily interested in pocket, groove and rhythm in soloing. Most shredders are more interested in texture and sound. So, a jazz player of fusion guy will make quite a conscious effort to lock the faster playing into the grid. I think this is particularly true of Allan and Frank Gambale, which is hard because both are using techniques that don't lend themselves to playing clear rhythms, unlike alternate picking.

    On the other hand with EVH and so, you often have a bit of drift or flat on those fast repeated patterns. They aren't metrical... the playing is much less concerned with the linear side of it. I don't think it's true of every rock player, but its something I hear from the EVH school. Satriani and so on. Satriani does not do the legato thing in the same way Allan does to my ears.

    I think there are more jazz trained shred players now who super on grid. But again, some of that drift is part of the charm, what makes those players wound the way they do. And Allan wasn't metronomic in that way.
    Last edited by christianm77; 09-26-2020 at 04:18 PM.

  12. #61

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    Unfortunately YouTube video is blocked in the US.

    Zappa doing Zappa is great, think Vai leaned on it too much and became more of a schtick

    interesting observation on rhythm and shred

    FWIW prefer Mike Sterns post 80s playing, after he got help for his chorus abuse problem

  13. #62

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    Eddie is a brilliant player. His playing has no boundaries. His playing broke new ground and influenced millions including myself. He is in my gallery of the greats!

  14. #63

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    Quote Originally Posted by charlieparker
    As someone who grew up listening to Eddie, I thought he was the greatest for a long time. However, his music really started to stagnate after 1984. I am not sure if was the breakup of the original band or if just his alcohol problems. He formed an incredibly original style fairly young and then didn't evolve much after it.
    This is what happens to most guys (if not all) who did similar epic things fairly young.



    Quote Originally Posted by charlieparker
    In the end, I think he is somewhat limited, but I guess you can say that about anybody. I know he was a big fan of Holdsworth and that he brought some of the legato ideas of Holdsworth to rock.
    I don't hear any Holdsworth in his playing at all. But yeah, he admired him.



    Quote Originally Posted by charlieparker
    But there is a recording of him playing with Holdsworth at GIT and it kind of shattered my opinion of him as a musician. He just played his riffs, completely ignoring the harmony. It just sounded so limited next to Holdsworth. Maybe an unfair critique, but before that I thought Eddie was some kind of genius who could play in the style of Holdsworth but just played rock on the albums.
    Eddie was a genius at what he was doing, a rock player, Holdsworth did his thing, and of course also a genius, more of a fusion/rock player. But completely different guitar players.
    Last edited by greveost; 09-26-2020 at 06:53 PM.

  15. #64

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    Oh definitely the three notes a string stretch legato things (like the Beat It stretch lick) and a few whammy nuances.... but yeah it’s his own thing.

    In a way the rock player who sounds most like Allan is Satriani, but a very specific era: Satch took his mid ‘70s Tony Williams era sound and approach (which was less intervallic and more scalar and bluesy at this point) and as far as I can hear basically appropriated it. He mentioned how important that album was to him in a recent interview....

    Allan evolved a lot after that so Satch was free to play in that style.... and it’s a great sound.

  16. #65

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    Quote Originally Posted by greveost
    This is what happens to most guys (if not all) who did similar epic things fairly young.

    Yes. I consider this true of Parker whose playing was fairly set by the mid 40's. Although, some guys like Miles, Corea, and Coltrane continued to evolve over their careers.

    Quote Originally Posted by greveost
    I don't hear any Holdsworth in his playing at all. But yeah, he admired him.
    To my ear, Eddie has a very legato style with very minimal picking except when tremolo picking for effect. I assumed that was inspired by Holdsworth. I recall reading an interview where he mentioned playing like Holdsworth when playing for fun, but couldn't find it, so maybe he never said it.

  17. #66

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    Quote Originally Posted by charlieparker
    To my ear, Eddie has a very legato style with very minimal picking except when tremolo picking for effect. I assumed that was inspired by Holdsworth. I recall reading an interview where he mentioned playing like Holdsworth when playing for fun, but couldn't find it, so maybe he never said it.
    Well UK opened for Van Halen on one of their US tours so he would have got to hear AH quite a bit. I stopped listening after Roth left. Never really liked the timbre of Hagars voice although TBF he’s technically a better singer than Roth. You can hear an evolution in Eds concept, if you check out out the outro solo on Drop dead legs off 1984, you can hear him trying to go outside the tonality on occasion which may be an AH influence.
    Yeah, I’ve also heard those GIT tapes of Ed trying to hang with Allan and Jeff Berlin doing some UK tunes. It is embarrassing, but what the hell, nobody can do it all. As a comparison, have a listen to AH trying to play on the Zappa plays Zappa gig, it’s almost like his approach totally doesn’t work for that type of almost modal type of vibe some of Zappa’s tunes require, which was an eye opener for me, as I’ve loved everything I’ve heard Allan on regardless of the quality of the music he has played on as a guest soloist.
    Cheers!

  18. #67

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    Quote Originally Posted by charlieparker
    Yes. I consider this true of Parker whose playing was fairly set by the mid 40's. Although, some guys like Miles, Corea, and Coltrane continued to evolve over their careers.
    Yeah, Parker was something else, I am not sure if he was even human, lol. Truly one of a kind.

    Corea, Miles, Coltrane kept evolving over the years, and they surrounded themselves with stellar players along their careers. Circumstances in Jazz are a little different than rock. Imagine if Miles would have played with for example Charlie Parker his whole career. In the shadows of Gillespie, would he have evolved within the bebop framework to the giant he became? Most likely not.



    Quote Originally Posted by charlieparker
    To my ear, Eddie has a very legato style with very minimal picking except when tremolo picking for effect. I assumed that was inspired by Holdsworth. I recall reading an interview where he mentioned playing like Holdsworth when playing for fun, but couldn't find it, so maybe he never said it.
    Yeah, their extended use of legato they had in common.

  19. #68

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    Quote Originally Posted by charlieparker



    To my ear, Eddie has a very legato style with very minimal picking except when tremolo picking for effect. I assumed that was inspired by Holdsworth. I recall reading an interview where he mentioned playing like Holdsworth when playing for fun, but couldn't find it, so maybe he never said it.
    I'm not sure about that. To me it seems his picking is his strongest point, he does some slurs in solos of course, but it's not extensive, and never relies on it for speed. So 'very minimal picking' is def not about EVH.

  20. #69

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jazzism
    .
    Yeah, I’ve also heard those GIT tapes of Ed trying to hang with Allan and Jeff Berlin doing some UK tunes. It is embarrassing, but what the hell, nobody can do it all.
    It's a fair criticism, but then again he's a kind of player who never felt like stretching out, and likes to stay in his comfort zone. Like Christian said, he's more of a sonic player than anything else. I'd call him more of a guitar composer than improviser. From jazz perspective, he's not much of anything, because really he plays the same licks how he plays them every time. But his composing is brilliant, and the whole concept perfect for a rock band. Mediocre improvisational skills is good enough for rocknroll, and in fact it's better that way.

  21. #70

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    Quote Originally Posted by Hep To The Jive
    It's a fair criticism, but then again he's a kind of player who never felt like stretching out, and likes to stay in his comfort zone. .
    It's not fair, it is comparing apples and organges.

    EVH is not a jazz/fusion improvisor.

    He is a rock guitar player.

  22. #71

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    Quote Originally Posted by Hep To The Jive
    It's a fair criticism, but then again he's a kind of player who never felt like stretching out, and likes to stay in his comfort zone. Like Christian said, he's more of a sonic player than anything else. I'd call him more of a guitar composer than improviser. From jazz perspective, he's not much of anything, because really he plays the same licks how he plays them every time. But his composing is brilliant, and the whole concept perfect for a rock band. Mediocre improvisational skills is good enough for rocknroll, and in fact it's better that way.
    That last sentence! Don't disagree, though I think it could easily be misunderstood.

  23. #72

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    Quote Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
    That last sentence! Don't disagree, though I think it could easily be misunderstood.
    Yea, what I mean improvising is not something a rock guitarist expected to do too much or be on the same level as a jazz or jazz/rock player.

  24. #73

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    Quote Originally Posted by greveost
    It's not fair, it is comparing apples and organges.

    EVH is not a jazz/fusion improvisor.

    He is a rock guitar player.
    Yea, I think you're right

  25. #74

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    Regardless of what we think, our counterparts on rock guitar forums think he is the greatest and most influential guitarist of our time. I can only presume he is doing something we do not appreciate, because it is not our kind of music.

  26. #75

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    TBH I think great rock guitar is always much more about sonics than jazz playing - although Jimmy Page said some interesting things about how he thought Django was trying to play feedback and stuff like that on acoustic.

    It’s interesting as well to compare the way rock and jazz players jam.

    Maybe that’s part of the reason why fusion guitar isn’t a genre I’m crazy about. It can often sound like rock constrained by the values of jazz, whereas some of my favourite rock players are incredibly basic players in the formal sense but are highly imaginative when it comes to sound. And some are head spinning virtuosos, too.

    Jazz/rock players I do feel have that heavy sonic element for me: Johnny Mac (Mahavishnu and Miles era), Pete Cosey, Henry Kaiser, Sonny Sharrock and Bill Frisell.

    I wish I could dig it up the interview, but I remember a rock player (not a super famous one) saying that the technique in jazz and classical players is usually ‘transparent’; that is it facilitates the music.

    In rock it’s use is usually more display or to create an effect. I thought that was very perceptive and certainly applies to EVH.