Hot _Grits
Buttery Toneologist
Re: Tube Amps And Personal Style
Interesting comparison to make after the previous paragraph, considering Carlton has far greater technical facility than Gilmour, and certainly has a far greater scope to his playing ability, mostly due to his jazz background and extensive session experience. Make no mistake: I've seen Carlton play stuff that would send the average shredhead back to the woodshed for months. So does all the extra chops and versatility make him better in any way? -not as far as I can tell. I like both of them for different reasons. Is Gilmour copping out? -It's hard to believe that's the case from where I sit. I think Gilmour is pretty happy with his playing, which is, after all, only one facet of his overall musical abilities.
Some players who have limited chops do wish they were able to hit some different spots on the fingerboard and maybe blow a little smoke. There may be all kinds of reasons for them not developing their facility further: learning difficulty, lack of discipline, physical issues...
There are also some players who just find fiddly stuff distasteful from day one. And if they have enough facility to express themselves to their desire, that seems just as valid as mastering any crazy chops routine to me.
Then there's players who can really throw out some chops and choose not to. Perhaps they're over hearing the same old shred stuff. Maybe they just don't like widdly guitar. Perhaps they've scaled that mountain and once they got to the top they realised that musicality (ie: soul) is really a whole other issue and they were really not much closer to becoming an original, accomplished, appealing voice on their instrument.
I remember being a teen shredhead and talking a lot about learning all the latest fashionable techniques so I could express myself better. But really much of why I was learning all that stuff was keeping up with the other hot rod guitarists. It took years of not caring about technique for me to develop any real sense of musicality and awareness of musical context. Viewed from this perspective, an overriding interest in chops can be seen as a cop out, where a player arbitralily (and usually in a competitive spirit) assigns some worth to their playing simply on the basis of their ability to play difficult things. When really, they could still be a terribly unmusical player.
It's weird: my chops phase means I'll always be able to figure out how to play something and be able to either do it or know how shed it up to snuff. Which is cool, I guess. But overall, that same chops phase could have been put to much better use working on general musicality.
I think chops players often find themselves confused when listeners and other players don't really respect their command of the instrument or the time it took to get it happening. But the truth is, musicality is the ultimate yardstick for any player, from the most 'primitive' to the most 'advanced'. It's all art, after all, and any approach is valid if a statement can be made. Authors become renowned through writing works that resonate with readers, not because they can type quickly and accurately.
Interesting comparison to make after the previous paragraph, considering Carlton has far greater technical facility than Gilmour, and certainly has a far greater scope to his playing ability, mostly due to his jazz background and extensive session experience. Make no mistake: I've seen Carlton play stuff that would send the average shredhead back to the woodshed for months. So does all the extra chops and versatility make him better in any way? -not as far as I can tell. I like both of them for different reasons. Is Gilmour copping out? -It's hard to believe that's the case from where I sit. I think Gilmour is pretty happy with his playing, which is, after all, only one facet of his overall musical abilities.
Some players who have limited chops do wish they were able to hit some different spots on the fingerboard and maybe blow a little smoke. There may be all kinds of reasons for them not developing their facility further: learning difficulty, lack of discipline, physical issues...
There are also some players who just find fiddly stuff distasteful from day one. And if they have enough facility to express themselves to their desire, that seems just as valid as mastering any crazy chops routine to me.
Then there's players who can really throw out some chops and choose not to. Perhaps they're over hearing the same old shred stuff. Maybe they just don't like widdly guitar. Perhaps they've scaled that mountain and once they got to the top they realised that musicality (ie: soul) is really a whole other issue and they were really not much closer to becoming an original, accomplished, appealing voice on their instrument.
I remember being a teen shredhead and talking a lot about learning all the latest fashionable techniques so I could express myself better. But really much of why I was learning all that stuff was keeping up with the other hot rod guitarists. It took years of not caring about technique for me to develop any real sense of musicality and awareness of musical context. Viewed from this perspective, an overriding interest in chops can be seen as a cop out, where a player arbitralily (and usually in a competitive spirit) assigns some worth to their playing simply on the basis of their ability to play difficult things. When really, they could still be a terribly unmusical player.
It's weird: my chops phase means I'll always be able to figure out how to play something and be able to either do it or know how shed it up to snuff. Which is cool, I guess. But overall, that same chops phase could have been put to much better use working on general musicality.
I think chops players often find themselves confused when listeners and other players don't really respect their command of the instrument or the time it took to get it happening. But the truth is, musicality is the ultimate yardstick for any player, from the most 'primitive' to the most 'advanced'. It's all art, after all, and any approach is valid if a statement can be made. Authors become renowned through writing works that resonate with readers, not because they can type quickly and accurately.
Last edited:
