Paul Gilbert Live Solo. Holy Smokes!

Re: Paul Gilbert Live Solo. Holy Smokes!

Dude! When ppl have done well I have always given them credit! I'm just as "zealous about that". This is a pure technical excercise plain and simple. When I say that, I don't mean that I don't like fast solos! I love to hear a guy rip! I literally mean that "This is a technical excercise"! The sorta thing you might play as a warmup! Can't you see that! It embarassing that someone would even try to pull something like this off as a solo spot! ROFLMAO! I don't think I'm being a snob by criticizing something thats so obviously this bad!

As to my contribution to this forum? Yes when someone asks a question like "What can I do to help my creativity?", or "How do I construct a melody?", or "What can I do to spice up my playing?", I talk to them about things like melody and phrasing. The question is why does that inflame you so? The person asked the question! At least I can tell them how to go about constructing a melody and how to use melodic devices like repetition and inversion. I think that would be of more utility to them than to tell them to play some idiotic scale or to go listen to country music! LOL! Embarassing!

I've always given members that post thier own personal sound clips of thier efforts kind and objective criticisms! I never ripped any of you guys. Or said that any of you suck! One guy even told me that he thought he sucked! Did I agree with him? No! I encouraged him to continue! But this jerk in this clip is supposed to be a professional!
 
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Re: Paul Gilbert Live Solo. Holy Smokes!

JeffB said:
I always thought he should have stayed in Racer-X...they could write good songs..even pop-like hits (anyone remember "livin' the hard way"?) Mr. Big was just horrible corporate pop hair metal. I was sooooo disappointed in that album when it came out.


You do know that there have been post Mr Big Racer X albums (with Gilbert)?


Technical Difficulties, Superheroes, Snowball of Doom I + II (live) and Getting Heavier.


Superheroes is easily my favourite RX studio album. It's more hard rock than straight up shred, and the solos are still fast, but much more tasteful than oldskool Gilbert stuff (IMO). I'd reccomend it to any hard rock/metal/shred fan.
 
Re: Paul Gilbert Live Solo. Holy Smokes!

Furthermore, this is a guitar site and a guitar forum. Therefore, it is assumed that it is frequented by people who are or aspire to become guitar players. For that reason I would hope that people would have more than just a superficial appreciation for the art form. This should include the ability to think critically and objectively in terms of evaluating performances.

If your attitude is that nothing is deserving of criticism as long as people like it, then yours is the attitude of an amateur/lay person ("Noob/PWNT") and not that of one who aspires to be a musician.

P.S. - Thanks for the spell check. Maybe you could be a secretary!
 
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Re: Paul Gilbert Live Solo. Holy Smokes!

I agree with criticism. It good. I agree with musical theory (I love marty friedman for a reason) but

He is paul gilbert and can play whatever the hell he wants.
 
Re: Paul Gilbert Live Solo. Holy Smokes!

Okay whether it was crap or not it was fun to listen to and watch, lol.
 
Re: Paul Gilbert Live Solo. Holy Smokes!

I'll agree that solo did absolutely nothing for me...and I'll agree with the "criticism". I watched it again this morning. it *is* very much like a technical scale exercise....like the stuff Paul taught in his seminar as "warmups"...it's frankly boring as piss.like the majority of shredder guys with monstrous chops...whether it's Yngwie or Vai or Satch or Paul..they work and ply much better in the framework of a song...give 'em 5 minutes of "free time", and :yawn:

But criticising "80s" music iin general based on this unaccompanied 5 minute solo spotlight is not fair either. Especially Paul, who IMO, is prolly the most monstrous technician, but also the least creative compared to his peers (when playing in this style). Go listen to someone like Jake E. Lee on his solo spotlights with Ozzy or any number of other really good players from the 80s. PLenty of guys showed great chops and musicality when allowed to show off. Paul just isn't that type of player (at least back then).


Nuntius, no I was not aware. Same bad lineup?
 
Re: Paul Gilbert Live Solo. Holy Smokes!

Nobody is criticizing 80's music. Nobody's criticizing shred. Nobody's criticizing fast solos. I'm not even criticizing Paul on the whole. I would need to see and know much more about him to do that. I'm just criticizing this one particular instance where he's playing a crap solo! LOL!
 
Re: Paul Gilbert Live Solo. Holy Smokes!

This thread has turned into Criticism of Criticism of Criticism.:laugh2:
 
Re: Paul Gilbert Live Solo. Holy Smokes!

jimmy said:
This thread has turned into Criticism of Criticism of Criticism.:laugh2:

I'm not sure that this statement is very fair...

Also I think you could have worded it better...

and change your shirt...that one looks horrible on you


:rolleyes:


:bigthumb:
 
Re: Paul Gilbert Live Solo. Holy Smokes!

Carmine?

Seriously though, he started to get impressively fast about half way through I thought.

But he does have an advantage with those massive spider legs (I believe they're supposed to be fingers) on the ends of his arms. Kinda like Richie Kotzen in the ability to do wide speeping stuff with little effort.
 
Re: Paul Gilbert Live Solo. Holy Smokes!

Osensei said:
Nobody is criticizing 80's music. Nobody's criticizing shred. Nobody's criticizing fast solos. I'm not even criticizing Paul on the whole. I would need to see and know much more about him to do that. I'm just criticizing this one particular instance where he's playing a crap solo! LOL!
Pretty much everyone back then did crap spotlight solos. They were to impress the crowd, not to be some musical masterpiece. It gave the rest of the band a break to do whatever backstage while the guitarist or drummer or bassist wowed the crowd with a bunch of flashy stuff. That's it.

We as guitar players expect way more out of other players than the average fan. Those people watching don't give a rat's ass what key it's in, what the scale is, or whether anyone thinks it's crap or not. The only ones in the crowd that think that are other players. Everyone else is just wowing the fact that he can do that, and the girls are wet cause he doesn't have a shirt on....LOL.
 
Re: Paul Gilbert Live Solo. Holy Smokes!

My point exactly! Skilled players should know better than to slobber over this solo. Yet, I am aware that nobody likes a critic. :reporter: But alot of people here are in for a rude awakening! They overlook the fact that musicians are not nice people. Yeah, they are kind and gracious when engaging in casual conversation. Most are very cordial about answering questions, offering encouragement to others, signing autographs and telling funny stories. But strap on your axe and step on stage and they'll rip yo freakin heart out if you can't cut it! LOL! It'll be like, "You'll never work in this town again!". LOL!

In music there is no quarter asked and none given. Mostly, because musicians are cruel, firstly to themselves! They tolerate nothing short of perfection in themselves. Therefore, they definately don't tolerate BS from others. So as long as I know that I'm torturing myself to death then I'll call BS when I see it.
 
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Re: Paul Gilbert Live Solo. Holy Smokes!

I enjoy watching it because he can do that stuff 100 times better than me.....LOL I like all sorts of players and different styles from Paul doing his runs to BB King doing one or two notes and ripping your heart out in the process.

I have to disagree somewhat with the "musicians are not nice people" statement. That's just not true. There are some out there that are just great to hang with, love to jam, don't care if you can play as good as them or not. They just like to play and enjoy watching others play. Those are the musicians I like to hang with.

When I lived in CA, I ran in to some really great musicians. It didn't matter how good I was. We jammed, had a good time, and I learned a lot from them. Most of them were a lot older than me and had done their time so to speak. It felt like I was in school but they just let me do my thing and I found that I improved just by playing with them. It was a great feeling. Got lots of props from other folks as well. Granted, they weren't big name multi-million record sellers but they had been playing a long time and have more experience than me.
 
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Re: Paul Gilbert Live Solo. Holy Smokes!

Now that you mention it, during the last Santana concert I went to he let La Mafia sit in on his set. I had to sit for 30 min listening to La Mafia's sax player play in the wrong key! Not what I paid for!
 
Re: Paul Gilbert Live Solo. Holy Smokes!

Dude! Sitting in with some guys jammin is cool! But always remember that other than being able to say that they helped some people along the way, they have no other interest in you. Yeah, they might be gracious and let you sit in, but if you wanna see what they're really like then take one of them as your mentor. You'll be in their personal torture chamber! :laugh2:
 
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