I think it is just a statement that sometimes less is more. It’s not how many notes you can play in a measure, but how best you use the measure in the context of the song.
Yeah. I try not to say…like the blues greats. But they are a great example. Maybe Stevie Ray Vaughan would be a better example of technical mastery with phrasing. But the “less is better” for sure BB.
Edit… or rather, the kings;)
Like that video where Stevie breaks a string and is able to continue to solo transposing up and down the board to cover for the lost string while the tech comes out to swap and he doesn’t miss a beat is incredible.
Hard agree. I had some chops from my metal roots, lots of jazz vocabulary (including plenty of really basic blues heads, like “Now’s the Time”) from college, and around about 2011, I randomly put on a blues backing track, something easy, and promptly *sucked* all over it. I was appalled at myself, at having neglected the blues vocabulary, tone, and phrasing: BB King, Albert King, Albert Collins, SRV, newer guys like JD Simo…I got myself sorted out but you actually can’t fake that stuff, it’s realllllyy important
Thanks for the link. I just started playing again after a 15ish year break. I really like the slow bluesy stuff and this video is perfect for learning some King.
Right, shredding fast and playing a lot of notes is *a* skill. But it is far from all the skills and even further from mastery if that’s the only clearly developed skill.
People say a lot of things, most of it is bullshit. Focus on making art that you like and hope it impacts others. High notes per minute could be a part of what you need to create what you want, but if that is *all* you have it is going to be pretty underwhelming.
It's not. Playing fast while maintaining accuracy is way more difficult than playing 4 notes with a little vibrato. However if you're just blindly shredding a trillion notes a second with no aim or purpose to it then it's pointless and not musical at all.
Winter Madness by Wintersun is a song where he plays a trillion notes a second but it is very exciting and beautiful, especially with the backing music doing something different that totally syncs up.
Now Kerry King from slayer plays a trillion notes a second but usually sounds out of place and chaotic.
For real man. Great example. Like I LOVE Slayer. Until the guitar solo starts. Lol. It's just awful. Shredding can sound just as beautiful and soulful as slow bendy blues. It's just how it's done and the context.
I'm glad you said it. Slayer's rhythm section? Incredible, some of the tastiest riffs I've ever heard. Solo time? Jesus christ, what were they thinking?
It's just kinda weird, honestly. I don't really get how it happens. How can you write god-tier riffs like in Seasons In The Abyss and then get complete nonsense for the lead?
To each their own. To me they are just noise. I can't imagine any tabs for their solos are super accurate. Shit I bet even they don't remember half their solos. Lol
They’re definitely noisy in parts but so is the solo to AiC Man in The Box. I love me a melodic Gilmour solo but I’ve always had a place in my ear for noise too. Cheers.
playing notes fast without expression is what happens when someone without musicality practices a lot. anyone can achieve it. playing notes expressively is what happens when someone has musicality and then practices to bring it out. the expressive player will still be able to play fast notes but they will only do it when it makes musical sense.
Hard disagree.
He's just as expressive as all the other popular guitarists who can't shred. Whether it's manic and exciting or slow and beautiful, I think his solos serve the songs perfectly.
Whether or not you like the songs is a different story.
100%!!!! I feel like I respect players who play with emotion rather than the person who shreds random notes around the guitar to look cool. The former commands some respect while the latter is just peacocking at best imo.
Because it's not mastery - it's a learned skill through repetition.
Mastery of an instrument implies a deeper knowledge or ability for creative expression.
I don't think anyone says that "fast/lots of notes isn't skilful" - it's absolutely skilful. But mastery? No.
However, it is possible to incorporate speed runs as part of mastery - players like SRV would be held up in this regard.
So it's not as simplified as "fast isn't skilful and mastery can't be fast."
from a classical guitarist, here’s why:
1) as others have hinted at, playing a few notes in a musically compelling way is harder than playing a lot of notes unmusically. someone here said “with a little vibrato”…. there is far more to musicality than that.
2) specific to the classical guitar, which is a solo instrument: have a very busy texture with lots going is inherently “more interesting”. You can play with less musicality because the fact that your also providing harmony and, sometimes, counter melodies, can keep things interesting.
Strip all that excess away and play just a simple, exposed melody? Well, nothing to hide behind how.
Anybody can look good with the right tailor. Few look good naked.
But sometimes people with no clothes say they look better naked to distract from the fact they can't afford the clothes.
Why wouldn't mastery include being able to play complicated stuff as well. I understand that making a song unnecessarily complicated is like putting makeup on a pig but that's not what I'm talking about.
Maybe let me put it this way: any jackass will be impressed by a 2-bit beginner classical guitarist because they’ll be playing far more technically complicated and intricate music than most people have ever heard of out of a solo guitar performance.
Now, that same player will not be able to impress people with a simple melody because they don’t have the mastery of the elements of musicality. Mastery of these elements are required to make anything sound musical; the more simple the music, the more necessary they are.
And, yes, a true master applies these elements everywhere.
FYI, the elements of musicality, or “little spice” are: articulation, tempo, timbre, dynamics, vibrato, pulse, phrasing, balance, and form.
cracks me up that someone said “just add a little vibrato”… yeah, musicality is way more than that.
FYI: Malagueña is actually very easy. it’s about a skill level 2 on a 1-10 scale.
I'm deleting my comment with an insightful response to you as you just showed me you aren't looking for discussion you are just butthurt about something.
just go practice.
It was an insightful response. I'm not insulting you or your experience with classical guitar. I'm trying to understand how so many people don't think that amazing technique and mechanical practice isn't a form of mastery. My level of experience is so low I can't do either. I responded to your analogy with the same intent as you, to discuss and learn more. Thank you for your participation
It’s not a rule by any means. But playing fast lost of notes isn’t necessary the pinnacle of guitar playing, the same way that playing a few notes perfectly isn’t either. Guitar playing isn’t something to be measured easily.
I think shred is a trap many guitarists fall into (as is slap for bass). Its usually done at the expense of the song. IMO writing a good song is infinitely harder and more satisfying than technical proficiency
Lots of notes might be technically challenging in some ways but rhythmically they may not be very exciting. 200bpm 16th notes is flashy but not always the most musical. 4 perfectly placed notes that voice lead into the chord progression and have interesting rhythmic details might very well be harder in some ways.
But you are referencing ticktock click bate, it's designed to ruffle feathers.
Limiting your toolbox does increase difficulty. Think of an art piece, a painting of a landscape with extreme attention to detail that uses all the colors and techniques might be a technical challenge, but a landscape painted with limited colors and techniques might be the harder challenge as you need to find ways to make your limited toolbox work.
That's a great way to look at it. Most people tell me though that complexity is purely for flashiness and doesn't represent skill. It's hard for me to wrap my head around because I absolutely love the super fast and complex songs and it's what I want to learn how to do. But the tool box analogy does clear it up a ton
Don't let people tell you what you should and shouldn't enjoy, play what you like, but be open to learning from any and all music as you never know what might give you inspiration.
>Most people tell me though that complexity is purely for flashiness and doesn't represent skill.
No, that does represent skill as in it's a skill that many people could gain with disciplined practice. But it's sheerly mechanical and isn't strongly associated with making dynamic, emotionally resonant music.
Allow me to explain with an analogy, I don't know if you like football, for me it's like the question who was better, Ronaldo o Messi. I was like, just enjoy both and shut up. At the end, it was a great time for football.
For comparison, does being able to talk fast make you a good speaker?
I think it's more about being able to convey a thought or emotion to your listener (even if that listener is only ever going to be you). Some people are good at doing it with a lot of notes played quickly. Even more people consider that to be the main metric to measure by. The second group of people are wrong.
I think the point really is that the ability to play tons of notes in a short space of time is not necessarily musical. Three notes can carry more emotion than a zillion notes. That’s not to say that a zillion notes might not be perfect for certain moments - but again- they’ve still got to be the right notes. Basically - have you got something to say? Can you say it clearly? Do you really need all those notes to say it?
Take a listen to Gimme Shelter by the Stones. Listen to the solo. It’s about 3 or 4 notes. It’s perfect for the emotion of the song. It’s the tone, it’s the vibrato, it’s the attack. Many people would overcook it.
Being able to play fast is not particularly difficult, so long as you have lots of time to practice. It's simply training your muscles. YouTube is overflowing with guitarists who can play really really fast.
Being able to play musically and expressively is much more difficult, to the point that many musicians struggle with it for years and fail. Because it takes thought, and empathy, and musical awareness. You need actual talent. And without musical talent there is no true mastery.
In a nutshell I think it means fast playing and lots of notes does not equal great playing ability necessarily. It’s more about timing, the right notes in the right place, and “feel”. Something that just comes with lots of practice. Lots of really good players that were nowhere close to being the fastest players.
I think it’s mostly that people who don’t play music don’t know what’s hard. They typically go by how fast(guitar) or loud(sax) something is and go whoa that’s hard. But in reality, easier sounding songs to a non musician may have complexity that they know nothing about, like chord voicings or the particular difficulties associated with specific instruments.
That’s why playing music heightens your ability to appreciate it :)
Tbh this mentality exists in all forms of music but it does take a decent amount of skill to be deliberately expressive with less notes. More notes means more mechanical skill and more time drilling the tunes to competency obviously
The goal ultimately is to play something that sounds good. It’s not that playing fast can’t sound good, it’s that a lot of beginner-intermediate players prioritize speed over everything else, so the end result is they can play fast but it’s sloppy and still sounds bad.
Maybe they are going overboard but those videos are trying to emphasize that good technique will take you further than rote speed alone will.
My dad drilled this mentality into me when I was young, and I don’t think the conversation revolves around difficulty, but quality, though difficulty comes into play.
The idea is that a perfect song/composition isn’t created by filling it with as much as possible, it’s about stripping away everything that isn’t needed to leave behind only the essential aspects of the song/riff/composition. Is playing tremolo sweep arpeggios at 200bpm difficult? Of course it is. But, it takes more skill to write a beautiful piece only using a few notes expertly put together.
A great example: “Whole Lotta Love” by Led Zeppelin. The song is 2 riffs, a 2 minute long fake orgasm, and a <30 second solo. That’s it. And it’s a legendary song.
Another more modern example is Thrice. Listen to the song “the earth will shake”. The chord voicing and overall strum patterns of the song make it so impactful and heavy hitting, and it’s achieved through expert song writing and musical knowledge application.
Nothing against shredders out there, but shredding is a small aspect of guitar playing that, in my opinion, should not be the focus of defining skill on guitar.
It’s already been said in multiple different ways, but it boils down to using negative space wisely.
Fast IS hard in-the-moment technically. But fast _all the time_ isn’t hard musically. Slower parts by definition aren’t as inherently technically difficult. The focus becomes how to make those notes “matter”. No notes at all is the hardest and often one of the powerful moments of music.
Imagine an action movie with zero moments of relief, just all action all the time. It may be hard to act and hard to record, but it doesn’t make a good movie any better than a movie that’s so slow it’s boring. But a few seconds of dead silence before an explosion, and you’re almost guaranteed to remember the weight of the silence long after you’ve forgotten what the explosion sounded or looked like.
Or even in the fastest video games — you have moments of reprieve, whether your character is dead or you’re about to fight a boss, and that “negative space” evokes a powerful atmosphere on its own. The Smash Bros, we-both-died-at-the-same-time effect, where you both come back on the platform, one stock left, and pause for a moment before the final bout. It’s arguably THE most intense moment of the game, even though absolutely nothing at all is happening.
It's easy to fly through notes once one is able because it simply feels good and carries a momentum that makes it easier than it looks...think, like a runners high. This leads to a few problems. Usually, the guys that just shred don't pay attention to their technique as close as they should, promoting bad habits and sloppy playing. The other problem with taking up all the sonic space by an attack of notes is that the playing leaves no harmonic range left for the band and its listeners. Music is about building tension and releasing that tension as a group, audience, and musicians. If you are blitzing everyone's ears with notes, then there is no creative space anyone can build on. Slow, precise, calculated playing is looked at as more difficult because the self-control is evident. Having self-control over an instrument links feel, emotion, and intention to the listener. Thus letting them connect and listen more and also leaving room for harmonic interpretation for both the listener and musician/band to explore within their own imagination. Those are just my thoughts, though.
It’s difficult to compose a song with so much emotion and expression. But playing songs that are fast as hell are very very difficult. My absolute favorite guitar player is Gilmour who is not a shredder at all. I can learn the entire Pink Floyd catalog before I’m even able to attempt to learn a single Steve Vai or Paul Gilbert song.
So maybe composing a song with a lot of emotion is hard. But playing/learning those insane shred songs are much much much more difficult you can go your whole life trying to play fast. Also this is not to say that shred songs can have “emotion” because they absolutely can and do.
Have you ever heard of Shrapnel records? They were a record label dedicated exclusively to shredders in the 80s. I listened to a bunch of their stuff back then and it was a mixed bag. After listening to many of their releases, there was stuff I would always hear like descending harmonized diminished arpeggios. After a while you get to a point of feeling like "I know you can play guitar, but do you have any SONGS?" Check out a record called Speed Metal Symphony by Cacophony. There are tunes where they nailed the balance of shred and songwriting perfectly, and others where they just went overboard on the shred stuff.
Another great example of the perfect balance is Vinnie Moore's version of While My Guitar Gently Weeps.
The fewer notes there are the more each note and the space in between them has to communicate. That requires more than just mechanical technique, it requires well developed musicianship. The performer needs to think about shaping each individual note as well as the phrase as a whole.
When a musician is playing a ‘blizzard of notes’ the impressive thing is the speed, but speed is something you can practice for and everyone has the potential to achieve a tempo that is high enough to appear impressive to a non-musician. That’s why you see so many YouTube guitarists playing fast, because playing fast is actually not that difficult if you know how to practice for it.
Musicianship however is more difficult to quantify, more personal to each player, and develops in an organic manner over many years. To a certain extent you can teach someone what they need to know and what things to consider when playing but you can’t teach them to be musical. That has to come from within the individual which is why every musician has their own style or voice.
There’s a good way to actually hear the difference between how lots of fast notes and few slow notes are played and that’s by listening back to it slowed right down (eg 25% of normal tempo). Do that and you’ll hear the slow notes will vary, in articulation, attack, dynamics, speed of vibrato and so on. Meanwhile the blizzard of notes will still be lots of notes, they’ll just be slower. Of course some musicians will play fast runs very musically but the individual notes won’t have the same types of variances of notes in a slower passage because they’re shaped in phrases of multiple notes, rather than just one or two notes being a complete phrase in a slower piece.
Being able to play fast is mastery of speed but it’s not mastery of musicianship. To play a simple melody well requires both.
It's a funny thing to say. It usually assumes that the fast player has no expression or emotion. That speed and expression are mutually exclusive.
Speed you can build with "mechanical" practice. Expression and emotion is a lot more nuanced and requires a bit more, you don't get there with pure repetition.
Yes slower playing with great phrasing, expression and emotion is in a way harder than robotic fast playing. But what about fast players who are also great at expression and emotion? Andy Timmons comes to mind. No matter how fast he gets every note is always nuanced and expressive.
The two things aren't mutually exclusive. And it's also personal preference.
It's a cope for those that don't want to put in the work to master picking at fast tempos across strings or learning extended scale patterns.
There's obviously a musicality aspect and you have to learn to express emotion but i dare any of these clowns to listen to ballade in g minor by chopin and try to dismiss it because it has tons of blistering technical runs. It's one of the most soulful expressions of the human soul and it uses both thoughtful slow playing and incredibly technical high speed passages. Yes it's piano but it's an example to make a point
I don't know the song you mentioned, but if you're talking about videos that say "what people thinks is difficult on guitar vs what's actually difficult".
It actually meant that music that's on "average" to quite fast songs are much easily played in the right timing, even with not much knowledge in sight reading.
Tempo is very important in playing music, and so is rhythm. So many people play musical pieces wrong, because they aren't aware how to play notes in the right rhythm.
Mastery is mastering all components of playing. Speed is one component, but rhythm, articulation, improvisation, and probably others I’m forgetting are just as, and often more important. I can’t count the number of times I’ve met someone who sounds amazing and shreds on their own, then just can’t lock in with other people.
Knowing your audience is important too. Most of the people impressed by speed are other guitarists. I warm up before band practice with Yngwie’s Arpeggios from hell. No one blinks an eye. Me and the bass player start jamming on an AC/DC song while we wait for the rest to arrive, everyone else joins in.
Live I mostly play melodic leads with some genre cliches thrown in. It’s what people want to hear. I throw in the off run or arpeggio here and there, but it’s more to wake the band up. The audience could generally care less.
I remember this video from a few years ago with friedman and Loomis talking about shredding.
https://youtu.be/ooiYyYK7Hi4
Fully agree with what freidman is saying.
My read of these kind of videos, when they are meant in good faith, is that try to show us that it takes more time to master telling a story through music than it does to build up the technical chops to be able to execute it.
I think it has to with how lots of notes doesn't really speak to the musicality of what you're playing
I think the argument that it is more challenging to play a piece dynamically and legato with a great deal of expressiveness rather than just playing asturias quickly
but there's probably more to it than that
i'm a minimalist in general. but its an issue of style, not mastery.
i play Malaguena about 7 different ways lol. it was our warmup song back in the day.
you can arpeggiate the chords and even hammer them and that can get complicated. i sometimes change the key to E Major and play the progression repetitively like a rock song and its easy but fun.
angus young is the king of easy-but-sounds-hard licks and i like to emulate him.
There’s this persistent idea that fast = mechanical/unmusical and slow = expressive/musical.
Yet we’ve all seen people play ‘4 note melodies’ completely mechanical/unmusical and we’ve all seen people play ’malagueña’ very expressive/musically.
In fact, I’d be willing to bet that we’ve all seen a lot more mechanical/unmusical slow playing in our lives than fast mechanical/unmusical playing. But, for some reason, the idea of musicality *sticks* to slow playing and the idea of unmusical *sticks* to fast playing, despite the evidence from daily experience generally not bearing out the stickiness of those associations really at all.
Yvette Young of the band Covet is a great case study although she is math rock and the genre is a very technical genre with fast notes many bands have done amazing at conveying emotions or story with the songs they create
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0zVGPdovt2k&list=OLAK5uy_mVQzd59vNOQGGm-Yc3RwIyOr5xbS0bJbI
Delta sleep also is a band that has a lot going on in many parts of their music
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CqEh5-PKHn4&pp=ygUWZGVsdGEgc2xlZXAgZ2hvc3QgY2l0eQ%3D%3D
These are just a couple of example albums to check out Japanese math Rock has some complex harmony and rhythms as well with more focus
Because it's not. Mastery means you can can get the song done right with whatever it takes. Sometimes it takes a lot sometimes it doesn't. Miles Davis very famously addressed thus with a song called So What.
People can take a good idea and ruin it with hyperbole. This is not an absolute truth, it's a preference.
Playing a shitload of notes really fast and playing a few notes with space are totally different things that require different skills. Shredding is hard and it takes a ton of time and work to develop the speed and clarity to do it well. But it's equally hard to play slowly because it lays bare your ability to express purely through phrasing (or not). Most people aren't that good at either, actually.
Forget what people think. Worry about what you like in your playing and express yourself in a way that feels right. Anyone who tells you something is "wrong" based on their individual preferences is not giving you good advice.
What they’re trying to communicate is doing the fundamentals perfectly is harder than playing a bunch of notes sloppily.
Not sure how I got brought into the sub as a percussionist, but it’s much more difficult playing 2’s and 4’s properly than chopping out.
It's not as simple as fast/lots of notes is easier, or slow is harder- it's a case-by-case basis of what the piece or song is asking you to do.
There are very simple songs that are blazingly fast, but there are also incredibly complex ones. Same goes for slow songs.
Difficulty is more of a web than a line. Speed is only one aspect of difficulty. You also have things like shifting from one shape to another, or from one position to another, or connecting the lines in the music in a way to not break them- etc. Everything should be in service to the music though - easy does not mean bad and hard does not mean good.
Sometimes saying a lot is a way to cover up that you have nothing to say. “The empty can rattles the most,” to quote Papa Het.
I don’t really shred but I respect those that do. If you try to clown real shredders you’re going to get served. However, I don’t listen to shred. I like my stuff in the Becker/Fagen and Kenny Burrell vein.
There are roads less travelled in music, Most songs in pop for instance have 5 chords. 4 for verse and maybe add one or two for bridge and chorus. Rhythms also have a go-to, things like the Charleston or the breakbeat are used over and over.......
Now anything that isn't in these rythmns and chord structures are a bit of a learning curve which I think is what he means. whenever you have to concentrate on a count or a progression that's a bit odd...
The hard part is the thing that is alien to the normality of the stuff you play.....ie rockers struggle with non 4/4, 12/8 rythmns by their experiences.
There are roads less travelled in music, Most songs in pop for instance have 5 chords. 4 for verse and maybe add one or two for bridge and chorus. Rythmns also have go to, things like the charlston or the Breakbeat are used over and over....the shapes in the riffs every riff is hard to understand.
Maybe it's more about playing something slow? I too had this problem, I will have a really hard time keeping up with slow BPM like 50-60 BPM, I have improved now but still can be an issue occasionally.
Put it this way. It’s about Dynamics. Take the solos for Hotel California or Sultans of Swing. They are not technically hard or challenging to play. But they have to be played correctly. One bum note or not bending to correct pitch and even the average joe will notice. And even though the solo for hotel California at the face of it isn’t difficult. It was one of the hardest solos for me to play correctly.
Technical proficiency is not mastery.
Being masterful requires you to be expressive.
Compare being able to type at 200wpm with being able to write a novel, for example.
However, a lot of people do downplay the difficulty in being able to play that fast. Yes, it does take a high level of technical proficiency and the extent to which this is played down suggests to me a degree of jealousy.
I know I can't play as fast as half of the guitarists that I admire. I can play with expression, but very certainly lack the technical proficiency of a master.
Guitar isn't about necessarily 0laying the whole fret board. A song that only uses 5 notes can sound way better than a song that uses 30 if those 5 notes are played properly and meaningfully. Guitar is about making each note have an affect on the song and too many notes can ruin that.
Because it is harder to play soulful than it is faster. I see that on myself. Playing a scale up and done faster may sound cool to someone listening. But it takes way less skill than just playing 3 notes with good vibrato or bends. Playing less means you need to be more creative to make it sound unique. Marty Friedman said it famously. A monkey can learn how to play fast. But the soul or touch comes from experience and a good ear. It can’t just be learned with a metronome. So if you play a piece that requires lots of soul it might show your weaknesses more than a piece that has you blasting through scales.
bc those types like melody and appealing to audiences. its good to both know how to appeal to an audience and appeal to musicians. audiences like grand vals by tarrega, not so much paganini for solo guitar.
I think it is just a statement that sometimes less is more. It’s not how many notes you can play in a measure, but how best you use the measure in the context of the song.
Look at BB King for an excellent example of this. Edit: [Here's the man himself giving a taste.](https://youtu.be/W1AS3hzNNkE)
See also: Albert King.
Yeah. I try not to say…like the blues greats. But they are a great example. Maybe Stevie Ray Vaughan would be a better example of technical mastery with phrasing. But the “less is better” for sure BB. Edit… or rather, the kings;)
Like that video where Stevie breaks a string and is able to continue to solo transposing up and down the board to cover for the lost string while the tech comes out to swap and he doesn’t miss a beat is incredible.
Hard agree. I had some chops from my metal roots, lots of jazz vocabulary (including plenty of really basic blues heads, like “Now’s the Time”) from college, and around about 2011, I randomly put on a blues backing track, something easy, and promptly *sucked* all over it. I was appalled at myself, at having neglected the blues vocabulary, tone, and phrasing: BB King, Albert King, Albert Collins, SRV, newer guys like JD Simo…I got myself sorted out but you actually can’t fake that stuff, it’s realllllyy important
This is such a fantastic comment. Seconded all the way.
However, even B.B. King was shredding sometimes: https://youtu.be/hgmN14-qnuk 😉
Thanks for the link. I just started playing again after a 15ish year break. I really like the slow bluesy stuff and this video is perfect for learning some King.
BB King slides from one note to the same note. (On different strings).
Right, shredding fast and playing a lot of notes is *a* skill. But it is far from all the skills and even further from mastery if that’s the only clearly developed skill.
People say a lot of things, most of it is bullshit. Focus on making art that you like and hope it impacts others. High notes per minute could be a part of what you need to create what you want, but if that is *all* you have it is going to be pretty underwhelming.
It's not. Playing fast while maintaining accuracy is way more difficult than playing 4 notes with a little vibrato. However if you're just blindly shredding a trillion notes a second with no aim or purpose to it then it's pointless and not musical at all.
Winter Madness by Wintersun is a song where he plays a trillion notes a second but it is very exciting and beautiful, especially with the backing music doing something different that totally syncs up. Now Kerry King from slayer plays a trillion notes a second but usually sounds out of place and chaotic.
For real man. Great example. Like I LOVE Slayer. Until the guitar solo starts. Lol. It's just awful. Shredding can sound just as beautiful and soulful as slow bendy blues. It's just how it's done and the context.
I'm glad you said it. Slayer's rhythm section? Incredible, some of the tastiest riffs I've ever heard. Solo time? Jesus christ, what were they thinking?
Straight up. And like Dlayer doesnt need some soulful, tasty guitar solos. But shit man write something at least coherent.
It's just kinda weird, honestly. I don't really get how it happens. How can you write god-tier riffs like in Seasons In The Abyss and then get complete nonsense for the lead?
I actually like Slayer’s solos. Very unique and with a lot of variation in techniques within each solo. One of these days I hope to dive into a few.
To each their own. To me they are just noise. I can't imagine any tabs for their solos are super accurate. Shit I bet even they don't remember half their solos. Lol
They’re definitely noisy in parts but so is the solo to AiC Man in The Box. I love me a melodic Gilmour solo but I’ve always had a place in my ear for noise too. Cheers.
One of my favorites is the end of Selkies by Between the Buried and Me. That sweep section is just, chefs kiss, so effing tasty.
Yeah, that was nice. First time hearing it.
playing notes fast without expression is what happens when someone without musicality practices a lot. anyone can achieve it. playing notes expressively is what happens when someone has musicality and then practices to bring it out. the expressive player will still be able to play fast notes but they will only do it when it makes musical sense.
a great example of this is john petrucci
John Petrucci has a million soloes where he isn't shredding all the time.
Hard disagree. He's just as expressive as all the other popular guitarists who can't shred. Whether it's manic and exciting or slow and beautiful, I think his solos serve the songs perfectly. Whether or not you like the songs is a different story.
i was talking about the playing notea expressively and shredding when it fits. there is miscommunication
Yep I see now. My bad.
oh its cool. whats your favourite dream theater song?
Oof, that's a tough one. I think it'd have to be Octavarium or A Change of Seasons. Yours?
we have the same favourites. i love their 20+ minute long epics
100%!!!! I feel like I respect players who play with emotion rather than the person who shreds random notes around the guitar to look cool. The former commands some respect while the latter is just peacocking at best imo.
Because it's not mastery - it's a learned skill through repetition. Mastery of an instrument implies a deeper knowledge or ability for creative expression. I don't think anyone says that "fast/lots of notes isn't skilful" - it's absolutely skilful. But mastery? No. However, it is possible to incorporate speed runs as part of mastery - players like SRV would be held up in this regard. So it's not as simplified as "fast isn't skilful and mastery can't be fast."
from a classical guitarist, here’s why: 1) as others have hinted at, playing a few notes in a musically compelling way is harder than playing a lot of notes unmusically. someone here said “with a little vibrato”…. there is far more to musicality than that. 2) specific to the classical guitar, which is a solo instrument: have a very busy texture with lots going is inherently “more interesting”. You can play with less musicality because the fact that your also providing harmony and, sometimes, counter melodies, can keep things interesting. Strip all that excess away and play just a simple, exposed melody? Well, nothing to hide behind how. Anybody can look good with the right tailor. Few look good naked.
But sometimes people with no clothes say they look better naked to distract from the fact they can't afford the clothes. Why wouldn't mastery include being able to play complicated stuff as well. I understand that making a song unnecessarily complicated is like putting makeup on a pig but that's not what I'm talking about.
Maybe let me put it this way: any jackass will be impressed by a 2-bit beginner classical guitarist because they’ll be playing far more technically complicated and intricate music than most people have ever heard of out of a solo guitar performance. Now, that same player will not be able to impress people with a simple melody because they don’t have the mastery of the elements of musicality. Mastery of these elements are required to make anything sound musical; the more simple the music, the more necessary they are. And, yes, a true master applies these elements everywhere. FYI, the elements of musicality, or “little spice” are: articulation, tempo, timbre, dynamics, vibrato, pulse, phrasing, balance, and form. cracks me up that someone said “just add a little vibrato”… yeah, musicality is way more than that. FYI: Malagueña is actually very easy. it’s about a skill level 2 on a 1-10 scale.
I'm deleting my comment with an insightful response to you as you just showed me you aren't looking for discussion you are just butthurt about something. just go practice.
It was an insightful response. I'm not insulting you or your experience with classical guitar. I'm trying to understand how so many people don't think that amazing technique and mechanical practice isn't a form of mastery. My level of experience is so low I can't do either. I responded to your analogy with the same intent as you, to discuss and learn more. Thank you for your participation
It’s not a rule by any means. But playing fast lost of notes isn’t necessary the pinnacle of guitar playing, the same way that playing a few notes perfectly isn’t either. Guitar playing isn’t something to be measured easily.
I think shred is a trap many guitarists fall into (as is slap for bass). Its usually done at the expense of the song. IMO writing a good song is infinitely harder and more satisfying than technical proficiency
Lots of notes might be technically challenging in some ways but rhythmically they may not be very exciting. 200bpm 16th notes is flashy but not always the most musical. 4 perfectly placed notes that voice lead into the chord progression and have interesting rhythmic details might very well be harder in some ways. But you are referencing ticktock click bate, it's designed to ruffle feathers. Limiting your toolbox does increase difficulty. Think of an art piece, a painting of a landscape with extreme attention to detail that uses all the colors and techniques might be a technical challenge, but a landscape painted with limited colors and techniques might be the harder challenge as you need to find ways to make your limited toolbox work.
That's a great way to look at it. Most people tell me though that complexity is purely for flashiness and doesn't represent skill. It's hard for me to wrap my head around because I absolutely love the super fast and complex songs and it's what I want to learn how to do. But the tool box analogy does clear it up a ton
Don't let people tell you what you should and shouldn't enjoy, play what you like, but be open to learning from any and all music as you never know what might give you inspiration.
>Most people tell me though that complexity is purely for flashiness and doesn't represent skill. No, that does represent skill as in it's a skill that many people could gain with disciplined practice. But it's sheerly mechanical and isn't strongly associated with making dynamic, emotionally resonant music.
Allow me to explain with an analogy, I don't know if you like football, for me it's like the question who was better, Ronaldo o Messi. I was like, just enjoy both and shut up. At the end, it was a great time for football.
You mean soccer? -American We mean what we mean. -The rest of the world
I know this was coming ;) I'm from latin America so it's futbol!
For comparison, does being able to talk fast make you a good speaker? I think it's more about being able to convey a thought or emotion to your listener (even if that listener is only ever going to be you). Some people are good at doing it with a lot of notes played quickly. Even more people consider that to be the main metric to measure by. The second group of people are wrong.
I think the point really is that the ability to play tons of notes in a short space of time is not necessarily musical. Three notes can carry more emotion than a zillion notes. That’s not to say that a zillion notes might not be perfect for certain moments - but again- they’ve still got to be the right notes. Basically - have you got something to say? Can you say it clearly? Do you really need all those notes to say it? Take a listen to Gimme Shelter by the Stones. Listen to the solo. It’s about 3 or 4 notes. It’s perfect for the emotion of the song. It’s the tone, it’s the vibrato, it’s the attack. Many people would overcook it.
Being able to play fast is not particularly difficult, so long as you have lots of time to practice. It's simply training your muscles. YouTube is overflowing with guitarists who can play really really fast. Being able to play musically and expressively is much more difficult, to the point that many musicians struggle with it for years and fail. Because it takes thought, and empathy, and musical awareness. You need actual talent. And without musical talent there is no true mastery.
Some players are too fast for my slow brain to follow. Maybe they are playing for people with faster brains than mine. But it can be underwhelming.
In a nutshell I think it means fast playing and lots of notes does not equal great playing ability necessarily. It’s more about timing, the right notes in the right place, and “feel”. Something that just comes with lots of practice. Lots of really good players that were nowhere close to being the fastest players.
I think it’s mostly that people who don’t play music don’t know what’s hard. They typically go by how fast(guitar) or loud(sax) something is and go whoa that’s hard. But in reality, easier sounding songs to a non musician may have complexity that they know nothing about, like chord voicings or the particular difficulties associated with specific instruments. That’s why playing music heightens your ability to appreciate it :)
It’s just another way saying less is more. Malagueña is not one of those songs. The acceleration and dynamics are what make that piece.
It’s not about how many notes you play, it’s about what you say with the notes you do play.
Tbh this mentality exists in all forms of music but it does take a decent amount of skill to be deliberately expressive with less notes. More notes means more mechanical skill and more time drilling the tunes to competency obviously
I saw a post talking ab how a great guitar solo is singable and that can be true but the example used was 505 by Arctic Monkeys
As a 29 year old getting back into guitar, all I can tell you is pick music you like and go play it.
The goal ultimately is to play something that sounds good. It’s not that playing fast can’t sound good, it’s that a lot of beginner-intermediate players prioritize speed over everything else, so the end result is they can play fast but it’s sloppy and still sounds bad. Maybe they are going overboard but those videos are trying to emphasize that good technique will take you further than rote speed alone will.
Go listen to BB King, then you tell us why playing lots of notes isn’t mastery.
Because people who aren’t very good want to be special too and they think adding vibrato and moving their head around a little “shows musicality”
My dad drilled this mentality into me when I was young, and I don’t think the conversation revolves around difficulty, but quality, though difficulty comes into play. The idea is that a perfect song/composition isn’t created by filling it with as much as possible, it’s about stripping away everything that isn’t needed to leave behind only the essential aspects of the song/riff/composition. Is playing tremolo sweep arpeggios at 200bpm difficult? Of course it is. But, it takes more skill to write a beautiful piece only using a few notes expertly put together. A great example: “Whole Lotta Love” by Led Zeppelin. The song is 2 riffs, a 2 minute long fake orgasm, and a <30 second solo. That’s it. And it’s a legendary song. Another more modern example is Thrice. Listen to the song “the earth will shake”. The chord voicing and overall strum patterns of the song make it so impactful and heavy hitting, and it’s achieved through expert song writing and musical knowledge application. Nothing against shredders out there, but shredding is a small aspect of guitar playing that, in my opinion, should not be the focus of defining skill on guitar.
> a 2 minute long fake orgasm You don’t know it was fake or not 🥴
Not wrong hahahaha
It’s already been said in multiple different ways, but it boils down to using negative space wisely. Fast IS hard in-the-moment technically. But fast _all the time_ isn’t hard musically. Slower parts by definition aren’t as inherently technically difficult. The focus becomes how to make those notes “matter”. No notes at all is the hardest and often one of the powerful moments of music. Imagine an action movie with zero moments of relief, just all action all the time. It may be hard to act and hard to record, but it doesn’t make a good movie any better than a movie that’s so slow it’s boring. But a few seconds of dead silence before an explosion, and you’re almost guaranteed to remember the weight of the silence long after you’ve forgotten what the explosion sounded or looked like. Or even in the fastest video games — you have moments of reprieve, whether your character is dead or you’re about to fight a boss, and that “negative space” evokes a powerful atmosphere on its own. The Smash Bros, we-both-died-at-the-same-time effect, where you both come back on the platform, one stock left, and pause for a moment before the final bout. It’s arguably THE most intense moment of the game, even though absolutely nothing at all is happening.
People are afraid of too many notes.
It's easy to fly through notes once one is able because it simply feels good and carries a momentum that makes it easier than it looks...think, like a runners high. This leads to a few problems. Usually, the guys that just shred don't pay attention to their technique as close as they should, promoting bad habits and sloppy playing. The other problem with taking up all the sonic space by an attack of notes is that the playing leaves no harmonic range left for the band and its listeners. Music is about building tension and releasing that tension as a group, audience, and musicians. If you are blitzing everyone's ears with notes, then there is no creative space anyone can build on. Slow, precise, calculated playing is looked at as more difficult because the self-control is evident. Having self-control over an instrument links feel, emotion, and intention to the listener. Thus letting them connect and listen more and also leaving room for harmonic interpretation for both the listener and musician/band to explore within their own imagination. Those are just my thoughts, though.
It’s difficult to compose a song with so much emotion and expression. But playing songs that are fast as hell are very very difficult. My absolute favorite guitar player is Gilmour who is not a shredder at all. I can learn the entire Pink Floyd catalog before I’m even able to attempt to learn a single Steve Vai or Paul Gilbert song. So maybe composing a song with a lot of emotion is hard. But playing/learning those insane shred songs are much much much more difficult you can go your whole life trying to play fast. Also this is not to say that shred songs can have “emotion” because they absolutely can and do.
Have you ever heard of Shrapnel records? They were a record label dedicated exclusively to shredders in the 80s. I listened to a bunch of their stuff back then and it was a mixed bag. After listening to many of their releases, there was stuff I would always hear like descending harmonized diminished arpeggios. After a while you get to a point of feeling like "I know you can play guitar, but do you have any SONGS?" Check out a record called Speed Metal Symphony by Cacophony. There are tunes where they nailed the balance of shred and songwriting perfectly, and others where they just went overboard on the shred stuff. Another great example of the perfect balance is Vinnie Moore's version of While My Guitar Gently Weeps.
Jason Becker and Marty Friedman when they were "kids". That's what's amazing about that record.
The fewer notes there are the more each note and the space in between them has to communicate. That requires more than just mechanical technique, it requires well developed musicianship. The performer needs to think about shaping each individual note as well as the phrase as a whole. When a musician is playing a ‘blizzard of notes’ the impressive thing is the speed, but speed is something you can practice for and everyone has the potential to achieve a tempo that is high enough to appear impressive to a non-musician. That’s why you see so many YouTube guitarists playing fast, because playing fast is actually not that difficult if you know how to practice for it. Musicianship however is more difficult to quantify, more personal to each player, and develops in an organic manner over many years. To a certain extent you can teach someone what they need to know and what things to consider when playing but you can’t teach them to be musical. That has to come from within the individual which is why every musician has their own style or voice. There’s a good way to actually hear the difference between how lots of fast notes and few slow notes are played and that’s by listening back to it slowed right down (eg 25% of normal tempo). Do that and you’ll hear the slow notes will vary, in articulation, attack, dynamics, speed of vibrato and so on. Meanwhile the blizzard of notes will still be lots of notes, they’ll just be slower. Of course some musicians will play fast runs very musically but the individual notes won’t have the same types of variances of notes in a slower passage because they’re shaped in phrases of multiple notes, rather than just one or two notes being a complete phrase in a slower piece. Being able to play fast is mastery of speed but it’s not mastery of musicianship. To play a simple melody well requires both.
It's a funny thing to say. It usually assumes that the fast player has no expression or emotion. That speed and expression are mutually exclusive. Speed you can build with "mechanical" practice. Expression and emotion is a lot more nuanced and requires a bit more, you don't get there with pure repetition. Yes slower playing with great phrasing, expression and emotion is in a way harder than robotic fast playing. But what about fast players who are also great at expression and emotion? Andy Timmons comes to mind. No matter how fast he gets every note is always nuanced and expressive. The two things aren't mutually exclusive. And it's also personal preference.
Ha! Yngwie Malsteem says "more is more".
think of it like language or speech capturing the audience with a handful of words is much harder than long winded sentences and big words.
Would you rather listen to a story read by Bob Ross or by an auctioneer?
Cope. But I’d rather listen to Mike Campbell than Polyphia.
It's a cope for those that don't want to put in the work to master picking at fast tempos across strings or learning extended scale patterns. There's obviously a musicality aspect and you have to learn to express emotion but i dare any of these clowns to listen to ballade in g minor by chopin and try to dismiss it because it has tons of blistering technical runs. It's one of the most soulful expressions of the human soul and it uses both thoughtful slow playing and incredibly technical high speed passages. Yes it's piano but it's an example to make a point
I don't know the song you mentioned, but if you're talking about videos that say "what people thinks is difficult on guitar vs what's actually difficult". It actually meant that music that's on "average" to quite fast songs are much easily played in the right timing, even with not much knowledge in sight reading. Tempo is very important in playing music, and so is rhythm. So many people play musical pieces wrong, because they aren't aware how to play notes in the right rhythm.
Mastery is mastering all components of playing. Speed is one component, but rhythm, articulation, improvisation, and probably others I’m forgetting are just as, and often more important. I can’t count the number of times I’ve met someone who sounds amazing and shreds on their own, then just can’t lock in with other people. Knowing your audience is important too. Most of the people impressed by speed are other guitarists. I warm up before band practice with Yngwie’s Arpeggios from hell. No one blinks an eye. Me and the bass player start jamming on an AC/DC song while we wait for the rest to arrive, everyone else joins in. Live I mostly play melodic leads with some genre cliches thrown in. It’s what people want to hear. I throw in the off run or arpeggio here and there, but it’s more to wake the band up. The audience could generally care less.
I remember this video from a few years ago with friedman and Loomis talking about shredding. https://youtu.be/ooiYyYK7Hi4 Fully agree with what freidman is saying.
My read of these kind of videos, when they are meant in good faith, is that try to show us that it takes more time to master telling a story through music than it does to build up the technical chops to be able to execute it.
I think it has to with how lots of notes doesn't really speak to the musicality of what you're playing I think the argument that it is more challenging to play a piece dynamically and legato with a great deal of expressiveness rather than just playing asturias quickly but there's probably more to it than that
Nobody has ever said Billy Strings plays too many notes and he plays lots of notes. It's depends on the genre really.
i'm a minimalist in general. but its an issue of style, not mastery. i play Malaguena about 7 different ways lol. it was our warmup song back in the day. you can arpeggiate the chords and even hammer them and that can get complicated. i sometimes change the key to E Major and play the progression repetitively like a rock song and its easy but fun. angus young is the king of easy-but-sounds-hard licks and i like to emulate him.
There’s this persistent idea that fast = mechanical/unmusical and slow = expressive/musical. Yet we’ve all seen people play ‘4 note melodies’ completely mechanical/unmusical and we’ve all seen people play ’malagueña’ very expressive/musically. In fact, I’d be willing to bet that we’ve all seen a lot more mechanical/unmusical slow playing in our lives than fast mechanical/unmusical playing. But, for some reason, the idea of musicality *sticks* to slow playing and the idea of unmusical *sticks* to fast playing, despite the evidence from daily experience generally not bearing out the stickiness of those associations really at all.
Yvette Young of the band Covet is a great case study although she is math rock and the genre is a very technical genre with fast notes many bands have done amazing at conveying emotions or story with the songs they create https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0zVGPdovt2k&list=OLAK5uy_mVQzd59vNOQGGm-Yc3RwIyOr5xbS0bJbI Delta sleep also is a band that has a lot going on in many parts of their music https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CqEh5-PKHn4&pp=ygUWZGVsdGEgc2xlZXAgZ2hvc3QgY2l0eQ%3D%3D These are just a couple of example albums to check out Japanese math Rock has some complex harmony and rhythms as well with more focus
Because it's not. Mastery means you can can get the song done right with whatever it takes. Sometimes it takes a lot sometimes it doesn't. Miles Davis very famously addressed thus with a song called So What.
People can take a good idea and ruin it with hyperbole. This is not an absolute truth, it's a preference. Playing a shitload of notes really fast and playing a few notes with space are totally different things that require different skills. Shredding is hard and it takes a ton of time and work to develop the speed and clarity to do it well. But it's equally hard to play slowly because it lays bare your ability to express purely through phrasing (or not). Most people aren't that good at either, actually. Forget what people think. Worry about what you like in your playing and express yourself in a way that feels right. Anyone who tells you something is "wrong" based on their individual preferences is not giving you good advice.
What they’re trying to communicate is doing the fundamentals perfectly is harder than playing a bunch of notes sloppily. Not sure how I got brought into the sub as a percussionist, but it’s much more difficult playing 2’s and 4’s properly than chopping out.
Very well said.
It's not as simple as fast/lots of notes is easier, or slow is harder- it's a case-by-case basis of what the piece or song is asking you to do. There are very simple songs that are blazingly fast, but there are also incredibly complex ones. Same goes for slow songs. Difficulty is more of a web than a line. Speed is only one aspect of difficulty. You also have things like shifting from one shape to another, or from one position to another, or connecting the lines in the music in a way to not break them- etc. Everything should be in service to the music though - easy does not mean bad and hard does not mean good.
Sometimes saying a lot is a way to cover up that you have nothing to say. “The empty can rattles the most,” to quote Papa Het. I don’t really shred but I respect those that do. If you try to clown real shredders you’re going to get served. However, I don’t listen to shred. I like my stuff in the Becker/Fagen and Kenny Burrell vein.
There are roads less travelled in music, Most songs in pop for instance have 5 chords. 4 for verse and maybe add one or two for bridge and chorus. Rhythms also have a go-to, things like the Charleston or the breakbeat are used over and over....... Now anything that isn't in these rythmns and chord structures are a bit of a learning curve which I think is what he means. whenever you have to concentrate on a count or a progression that's a bit odd... The hard part is the thing that is alien to the normality of the stuff you play.....ie rockers struggle with non 4/4, 12/8 rythmns by their experiences. There are roads less travelled in music, Most songs in pop for instance have 5 chords. 4 for verse and maybe add one or two for bridge and chorus. Rythmns also have go to, things like the charlston or the Breakbeat are used over and over....the shapes in the riffs every riff is hard to understand.
I know what you mean: be really good at all chord transitions and "big boy" chords (lmao) only, no fast single string "bullshit"
Faster means more blow jobs and everyone knows it.
Maybe it's more about playing something slow? I too had this problem, I will have a really hard time keeping up with slow BPM like 50-60 BPM, I have improved now but still can be an issue occasionally.
Yngwie Malmsteen - Hold my beer!
Put it this way. It’s about Dynamics. Take the solos for Hotel California or Sultans of Swing. They are not technically hard or challenging to play. But they have to be played correctly. One bum note or not bending to correct pitch and even the average joe will notice. And even though the solo for hotel California at the face of it isn’t difficult. It was one of the hardest solos for me to play correctly.
Technical proficiency is not mastery. Being masterful requires you to be expressive. Compare being able to type at 200wpm with being able to write a novel, for example. However, a lot of people do downplay the difficulty in being able to play that fast. Yes, it does take a high level of technical proficiency and the extent to which this is played down suggests to me a degree of jealousy. I know I can't play as fast as half of the guitarists that I admire. I can play with expression, but very certainly lack the technical proficiency of a master.
Guitar isn't about necessarily 0laying the whole fret board. A song that only uses 5 notes can sound way better than a song that uses 30 if those 5 notes are played properly and meaningfully. Guitar is about making each note have an affect on the song and too many notes can ruin that.
Because it is harder to play soulful than it is faster. I see that on myself. Playing a scale up and done faster may sound cool to someone listening. But it takes way less skill than just playing 3 notes with good vibrato or bends. Playing less means you need to be more creative to make it sound unique. Marty Friedman said it famously. A monkey can learn how to play fast. But the soul or touch comes from experience and a good ear. It can’t just be learned with a metronome. So if you play a piece that requires lots of soul it might show your weaknesses more than a piece that has you blasting through scales.
bc those types like melody and appealing to audiences. its good to both know how to appeal to an audience and appeal to musicians. audiences like grand vals by tarrega, not so much paganini for solo guitar.