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Too Many Notes?

Then there are all the Sax players and Pianists that took off playing 200 miles an hour. Trumpeter and trombonists, too. Some Oscar Peterson plays fast and sometimes so does Andre Previn. But you can fine exceptions. I will say I prefer Basie and Nat king Cole when he plays piano. But if you back in time Scott Jop;in could pick em up and put down during the Rag Time Era. Ladyva can get a bit busy with ber Boogie Woogie Piano, too. Dizzy Gillespie is a prime example of trumpeters I can take a break from. I prefer Clark Terry my self.

There some violinists that are Known for their speed. My dad was very fond of the elder Zimbalist. His son could play very well but became a TV and Movie actor. He was to have said with my dad being the best how could I become famous. I'm a Heifetz, Menuhin, and Perlman fan myself.
 
Speed isn't everything but if thats a there is, it ain't much to listen to. There are fast guitarists that play amazing stuff, and ones that just hit a bunch of notes. There is a mile of difference. Chet Atkins doing Yackety Axe vs any Malmsteen solo. Or even Lester Flatt playing Foggy Mountain Breakdown.

There is also slow noise that i don't love either. Terry Kath had that 48 minute solo on the Chicago Transit Authority album that I don't think anyone would classify as shredding, but it just doesn't do it for me. I love the man as a guitarist but i don't dig that particular piece.
 
Watching Roy Clark and Glen Campbell play instruments on yt made me realize there's more talent between those 2 guys than there is in all of today's country. Both those guys were top rated guitar players but were also very talented playing several other instruments.
 
I've always liked Eric Johnson. He's got a clean style and knows where the hooks are and how to solo around them. When I learned that he learned to play piano before learning guitar, you can hear the melodic habits he learned from piano in his guitar playing.

He also does a pretty good Wes Montgomery impression.

 
Surely, the piece of music itself asks for a few or a lot of notes depending on what it's trying to convey and not vice versa?

Lots of great music and musicians mentioned in this thread! :music:
 
motorstereo said:
Watching Roy Clark and Glen Campbell play instruments on yt made me realize there's more talent between those 2 guys than there is in all of today's country. Both those guys were top rated guitar players but were also very talented playing several other instruments.
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Brad Paisley, Chris Stapleton and Keith Urban are hardly slouches…
 
Playing at a rapid tempo (presto) is demanded for certain genres like "classic", and it uses much in the way of constant changing of chords, and separate notes. Carlos Montoya plays so clean, yet so quickly.

Also, in the "Flamenco" players like Jessie Cook, Robert Michaels, play with such staccato, and lengthy runs.

Some of the "Blues-types", like Stevie Rae V., BB king, Clapton and a host of others created those long sad runs.

Then there's Les Paul, who started this electronic quick guitar playing that captured the attention of up and coming players, like Jimi Hendrix who transfixed the audience with his ultra-fast picking on the electric guitar.


Too many notes? They are just part of the selection of music played, but how well played...therein lies the "rub".


Q
 
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One of the first amazing guitar players I felt was too busy was Frank Marino. I went to hear SRV in the 80s and found listening very fatiguing. These days it's Billy Strings. It isn't about how many notes you can play in a measure, it's about playing the right ones.
 
Love me some Molly Hatchet but after 30 minutes my brain needs a break. I like the slower style of Gary Rossington. I admire the way Jason Hook can start a solo slow working up to a lightning fast ending.
 
I discussed in another thread a concert I attended a week ago featuring Toto, which is really just Steve Lukather and gig musicians these days. There were two issues.

The first was that while Lukather was wildly talented as a teenager he was constrained by other band members and was outstanding at playing licks and fill that worked within the structure of the songs. As Toto aged and toured endlessly now for decades, he became 'virtuoso guy' who demands a long, self-indulgent solo on every single song and winds up just dominating the hell out of the stage for the entire set. I've seen him live quite a few times now and it becomes tedious, this wailing away.

Second, in this last show the sound mix was so poor, with booming muddy bass and overpowering drum strikes, that at one point I looked directly at Lukather while he was wailing away and literally couldn't distinguish any of the notes he was playing, at all. It was a gigantic, muddy wall of sound at that point. Disappointing.

I've seen it with other artists too, a tendency to read a little much of their own press and decide that instead of fitting within the structure of the music and the set they should stand front and center and wail away for 2 hours, treating the rest of the musicians as glorified props. Not great. That's today's Toto IMO.

Now, I know Lukather is one of the better guitarists of the last few decades and I've seen and heard him work magic but today's Lukather is, well, a bit much.
 
There has to be a balance between technical know how and phrasing. Because the phraisng is just as important. I really like watching some of the old Ritchie Blackmore stuff when he was with Deep Purple. But even he talks about just being technical and throwing out a whole bunch of notes. Of course he wouldn't have done that if it hadn't gotten him attention as a guitar player. He is very talented. But now he does madrigal music. Oh well... It's called understanding phrasing.

Of course he also had Jon Lord right there on organ...

 
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