Guitar and shredding fetishist thread, originating from an ongoing private discussion between @Rivaldo and me. Note: This isn’t just about 80s hair metal. There are shredders in every genre including jazz and country. We worship at the altar of the most iconic instrument of our time and anyone who can rip the neck off of one. That said, for the sake of brevity I’m gonna lead with a classic 1st ballot HOF shredder appearing on the GOAT show with a beautiful axe: Mr. Scary himself on an ESP Kamikaze:
guitars in this song are just good in general, but the famous solo that starts at 5:04 of this video is great. lots of versions cut this out completely for some reason or fade it out.
i think some of the best guitar playing can be found in those 00’s era norwegian death metal bands like children of bodom. not a big fan of that style of music anymore, but my god, the guitars SHREDDED.
spreading out to different genres there have been some acoustic shredders. one relatively unknown one, that I think is due to his preference towards religious music and obscure bluegrass, is this guy:
I played this at a high school talent show one year. Knew it inside out and front to back at one point. The solo you’re talking about has some interesting banjo-roll-style licks. They’re a lot easier to do once you realize Knopfler is one of the few guys that doesn’t use a guitar pick.
I started teaching myself how to play 10 years ago or so. Still have a decent acoustic but it needs to be restrung and tuned so I figured I’d probably just get a new one if I wanted to play again.
anyway I really preferred not using a pick either. dont know how common that is
There is a lot of modern metal I don’t listen to with fantastic shredding. It’s just not really a genre I get into. I’m a child of 80s hair metal with neon pink guitars and was completely captured by it from a young age.
@Rivaldo and I were just talking acoustic players over PMs. For flatpickers that are more in the bluegrass style, the guy that always comes to mind first is Tony Rice, who I was lucky enough to see live when I was younger. Billy Strings is a younger player working in that style now.
Depends. For electric guitar, it’s not common. Way more common in the acoustic world. There’s an entire genre of acoustic fingerstyle where people (mostly) don’t use picks, or will sometimes use a thumb pick. The classic example is Travis picking (Merle Travis) where you play an alternating bass under a chord/melody (the guy in your video does it). People have expanded on the idea extensively, for example Tommy Emmanuel the GOAT:
There’s also an entire sub-genre of “modern” fingerstyle that’s heavily, if not completely, influenced by the work of Michael Hedges. The landmark recording here is Aerial Boundaries released on Windham Hill Records in 1984. I’m linking an actual performance video because I think seeing what this looks like is important:
There’s a second guy, one of my personal favorites that I will shamelessly stan for forever, who followed Hedges and may be equally influential on the younger generation of modern fingerstyle players. That’s Don Ross.
There are a lot of younger players doing modern fingerstyle now, and I wanna say it must be close to 100% of them who pay homage specifically to these two guys. Don Ross’s contribution, other than being a great original composer with accessible music (it’s generally not that difficult to play), is altered tunings. He uses many dozens of unique guitar tunings across his catalog, not quite to the point where every song uses a unique tuning but almost.
Footnote: I didn’t mention classical guitar. Obviously that isn’t picked but I consider it almost a whole world unto itself. There are a few players I’ve liked: Ana Vidovic, Jason Veiaux, a few others I can’t think of.
Thing I dislike about classical though is that the players don’t compose original music. I can’t wrap my head around it and I don’t think I would play music at all if I wasn’t improving or writing original material.
i should pick up acoustic guitar again during my medical leave. i think it’s an incredible complex instrument that unfortunately has suffered from a low skill floor that allows every douchey fratboy wannabe pete townsend that woos chicks with horrible renditions of wonderwall to thrive, but the moment you hear a true master play the instrument, it’s really awe inspiring.
That’s why I started on electric when I really got into guitar. Stuff like DMB was popular at the time and there were tons of sappy dbags trying to copy it. Back then, everyone recommended starting with acoustic for reasons that aren’t clear to me. Acoustic guitars are generally way tougher to play than electrics. You should also never try to force yourself into playing something you don’t wanna play. Instruments are ridiculously hard, especially when you’re a beginner. I mean the rate of quitting / giving up on musical instruments must be astronomically high, and I saw plenty of people who were probably talented but forced into playing piano and shit by evil parents and they were basically traumatized by it. These days, teachers seem a lot smarter and encourage people to start on electric if they want to play electric.
Of course, a great setup goes a long way on any guitar, but especially a bad one with high action and/or other problems. Acoustics with high actions are basically unplayable for me. I’ve seen videos of pro players on Youtube playing fan guitars and they’ll usually say shit like “this guitar plays terribly.” Like, it’s probably not hard to believe that the guitars in all of the videos I’ve posted most likely have ridiculously low, even action and play like butter. I know for a fact that Tommy Emmanuel’s have super low and perfect action because he takes everything to Joe Glaser. So yeah, that’s an important first step. Get something that doesn’t break your hand.
I couldn’t tell you anything about the one I have. it was my dad’s. it’s very old.
yea, that’s true about instruments. From the age of 7-17 I played Bb clarinet, including solo performances I’d travel for, and then got into alto sax a bit but I was way more proficient with clarinet.
then I dabbled with flute/piano/guitar at that time and picked up guitar a handful of times since then.
I’d only prefer acoustic guitar at this point in my life because I like the sound and dont need to fuss with equipment.
I think I’d tend to prefer high action, but it’s been so long I honestly couldn’t tell you.
