This makes me an old fart, uh?

The more I go out and see live bands, the more I realize that a lot of the younger (some of them my age, actually) guitar players out there are just burning through the fretboard, playing a thousand mph and throwing everything but the kitchen sink every chance they get. Yngwie sounds like David Gilmour by comparison.
 
But comes the rhythm part and the simplest things seem to be a complete mystery to them. I'm not even talking about complex chord voicing - just,  practically anything that's not a power chord. Song after song after song, I spend my entire evening going:  "Nope". "That's not how they play it". "Close but no cigar - try again." "Dude, where's that 7th?!"
 
It's hard for me to believe that people with such mad skills can be so completely mistaken when it comes to rhythm guitar. My guess is that they simply don't care - the song is just a pretext to "shred", so they don't care for the rest.
 
It's kind of funny that after hearing that first solo, I'm devastated, thinking that I'm not worthy of ever touching a guitar again. But after 2 or 3 songs, the guy has said all he had to say in the first solo - all the sweep picking and the fast runs and tapping assorted with a copious amount of squealing and pinched harmonics. And I go from devastated to bored to death because the guy onstage is just vomiting the same solo song after song after song. Just adding more and more squeals and pinched harmonics...
 
Don't get me wrong - I grew up wanting to be the next Randy Rhoads, to be a great lead guitarist. Rhythm by itself did not seem quite glamorous enough for little me. If you had an option, you'd be Angus before you'd be Malcolm. The rhythm guy was regarded as the guy who wasn't talented enough to play lead. (Of course, I know better now...)
 
But it was still absolutely crucial to master rhythm. Playing lead was out of the question unless one mastered rhythm. Even the archetypical modern guitar hero Eddie Van Halen played incredible rhythm guitar. Same with Rhoads. Same with Hendrix.
 
I guess guitar players are just like the rest of them people. Nowadays, it's all about feats. You have a few minutes to wow an audience and a jury, who are both completely desensitized. Lead singers can't sing harmonies. Lead guitar players can't play rhythm parts. It's all about fireworks.
 
The sad thing is that those people are missing an opportunity, playing to an audience that doesn't exist, playing for people who are too busy checkin-in on their iPhones and taking selfies to even pay attention for an entire song. Most of the time, there is an actual audience in the room, people that would love to hear music... Maybe some day. 
 
 
 
 
 

You old guys slay me.
 
This is about the nth "what's wrong with kids these days," thread in the last month.  I think I'll start a thread called "old people know everything except when to stfu."
 
You all need to search a bit more.  There are some fantastic musicians from my generation that can play well, and want to do more than shred. 
 
It gets kind of old hearing how stupid, lazy, spoiled, and lowbrow we kids are. 
 
Sorry for the rant, go ahead, ban me, or pillory me, or ignore me, or whatever else you old farts do when someone young calls out your BS.
 
The coffee house is all yours gramps.
 
Jesse Q. Screed

bayoubill
...
I can play a Mozart piece on my guitar and I get yawned at but the sec I do some thing like eruption they say" what a player".
 
...

Eruption? As in Focus 3? (The album with Hocus Pocus)

Jesse Screed
You old guys slay me.
 
This is about the nth "what's wrong with kids these days," thread in the last month.  I think I'll start a thread called "old people know everything except when to stfu."
 
You all need to search a bit more.  There are some fantastic musicians from my generation that can play well, and want to do more than shred. 
 
It gets kind of old hearing how stupid, lazy, spoiled, and lowbrow we kids are. 
 
Sorry for the rant, go ahead, ban me, or pillory me, or ignore me, or whatever else you old farts do when someone young calls out your BS.
 
The coffee house is all yours gramps.
 
Jesse Q. Screed

 
 
this

 
 
I quite like Glenn Tipton's approach where he once said that a solo shouldn't be there for its own sake, rather that it should actually add something to the song as a whole.
 
It's probably why the guy is so criminally underrated and under-appreciated by most with only a fleeting knowledge of the Priest back catalogue. It also goes someway to explaining why him (and KK to an extent) were never happy to allow the guitar aspect of the songs stagnate. They even gave synth guitars a try for the Turbo album.
 
Tipton is a master tapper, but he only uses it when he considers it works (e.g. Hell Bent for Leather, Electric Eye), instead of using it every solo, just because he can. Same with sweeping, it was obviously the 'in' thing for the Painkiller album but only appears occasionally in subsequent releases - my favourite being the passage at around 4:30 in Revelations:
 

SteveStrummerUK
 
...
You forgot to add... in your opinion

Are you illiterate? 
 
I did say ... "I much prefer" ... which amounts to the same thing you suggest!
 
 

Rocket surgeons, the lot of them! 

SteveStrummerUK

No, my parents were married when they had me.


Seriously hilarious.

Jesse Screed
You old guys slay me.
 
This is about the nth "what's wrong with kids these days," thread in the last month.  I think I'll start a thread called "old people know everything except when to stfu."
 
You all need to search a bit more.  There are some fantastic musicians from my generation that can play well, and want to do more than shred. 
 
It gets kind of old hearing how stupid, lazy, spoiled, and lowbrow we kids are. 
 
Sorry for the rant, go ahead, ban me, or pillory me, or ignore me, or whatever else you old farts do when someone young calls out your BS.
 
The coffee house is all yours gramps.
 
Jesse Q. Screed

 
 
 
You tell 'em Jesse.  I would have said the same thing 50 years ago   :)

michaelhanson
Age has nothing to do with maturity.

True dat... maturity has nothing to do with age either..  and I can prove it!
 
Rain, you are a Respected Internet Guitarist!
 
I prefer a good rhythm guitarist who can throw in some licks over a strictly lead guitarist any day. I imagine ego gets in the way of greatness when a player can blaze away on the frets.
 
J
 
 

eph221

michaelhanson
Age has nothing to do with maturity.

Yes, but with wisdom one gets a sense of humor.

LOL