I consider it more important to learn BOTH aespects of guitar playing, both teh Kurtz aespect (feel and emotion projection), and the technical aespect. The best players, at least in my mind's eye, have both. Take for example, Elliot Easton of The Cars.......just look how many hat's that guy wears just in that band alone!
- My Best Friend's Girl - Country Chickin' Pickin' and Fingerstyle on a Tele
- Just What I Needed - Radio Friendly Rock ala Boston
- Moving In Stereo - Textural Ambience ala, Andy Summers
- Nightspots - Elliot rips a little 2-hand hammer-on ala Edward Van-Halen
- Since You're Gone - Robert Frip E-bow type effects achieved via ingenuity
- Shake It Up - Bits of Jazz type rhythm stabs with standard Rock Soloing
- Magic - Elliot goes 80's Arena Rock on this one, complete with Marshalls and Locking Tremelo
- Drive - 80's Soft rock, you don't even hear that it's Elliot playing little parts in the back on a synth guitar setup and a very low eq'd guitar
- Tonight She Comes - Elliot goes into hair metal mode, whammy bar, and even a few pick squeals and harmonics
- Fine Line - Bluesy soloing, very atmostpheric
- Door To Door - Punkish Nutso Noise
So far that guy, all in one, covers styles of Country, Jazz, Blues, Reggae, a few different shades of metal both glam and not, new wave, underground, and even a little "frippertronics" type stuff. All in a lil' Boston based New Wave band. Now THAT is a guitar player. The key is elliot played for the song, but used the teqnique to do it. And some of those solos were improvised, such as the rare outtake Take What You Want, that's Elliot improvising. However, you have Elliot composing them too, such as the one on "Touch And Go", which is an incredible solo, all played on a little Fender Lead I guitar from 1979 (a STUDENT guitar of all things).
That is how I view an excellent guitarist, one that can use musical sense, keep with the song's feel, and not limit themselves out of laziness or lack of confidence in their abilities. Steve Vai can wank out 6 million notes a minute, but I've seen him play as slow and soulful as SRV. Every guitarist of course, will also be different. There's no way in heck, no matter how hard I try, I could sound exactly like Billy Gibbons or Edward Van-Halen. I can always come close, but it's never going to be the same as the genuine article. The best idea is to learn from the masters, forget, and come up with your own thing, that's how I see it, and most of those guys did that. Who'd guess that Edward Van-Halen cites Eric Clapton as his biggest influence. Even then, I consider Billy Gibbons mine, and I sound NOTHING like The Rev Willie G.
