Speed vs Feeling

So what do you choose ...?

Feeling hands down. I mean impressing people with speed is fun but i love nothing better than playing and raising the hairs on the back of peoples necks with a good old David Gilmour solo!

why not both? fast things can have "feeling", just look at the solo to epitaph by necrophagist or dark matter by rusty cooley, or even altitudes by jason becker

FEELING FEELING FEELING

David gilmour vs. Yngwie? i choose gilmour. HANDS DOWN.

I feel like speed players, especially young people who go for speed tend to be insecure in their playing and play more notes because they dont have the feel or confience in their playing to slow down, i think feel is so much more important. Id much rather listen to a 5 note gilmour solo then a 100 note yngwie solo. and its much more interesting.

One can argue the untimate player will have insane feel and speed. Randy Rhoads comes in mind. But hes the only one i really like or think of. Others could be trey anastasio from phish or jerry garcia from the grateful dead but i feel gilmour has the ultimate feel, while jerry has totally and complete control of the changes and chords and the song, imo gilmour is a blues master hidden by echo reverb chorus fuzz etc and garcia is more of a fusion player with jazz blues rock pscadelic. The ultimate combo and playing imo...

EXACTLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Feeling will always be the winner. But if I could choose both, then I would.

Flight of the Bumblebee was a fricken amazing classical song and always will be.

Both, of course. But you need to know your balance.

Feeling is more important than speed, but to me if you don't have some speed you sound a wee bit boring after a while. But you don't want to be like Yngwie Malmsteen either. Malmsteen suffers from a disorder I call USS (Uncontrollable Shred Syndrome). Which constant shredding can also become boring after a while. To me people who have a very good balance of the feeling and speed are: John Petrucci, Randy Rhoads, Adrian Smith, Glenn Tipton, Alex Lifeson, and there are so many more good players that anyone could listen to them playing for hours just because they are so precise with the notes and they have the feeling behind it, but they also keep you interested with they ability to rip it up on the fretboard.

it depends i mean many people like yngwwie and on the other side of the spectrum being jerry and dave i mean theyre 2 of my favorite players, and i tend to lead towards their side



Also another people always overlook are jazz guitarists. Theyre some of the best in the world, and they dont shred but they play damn fast at points, but moreover their knowledge of music, changes, chords, etc is impecable (at least the good ones) and one reason i love listening to jazz guitarists (wheere the band is guitar based, not big band jazz) because how well they play over changes and over the chords, and even though they dont hvae the feeling of a dave gilmour they still are incredibly amazing. I think a better argument might be

feel vs technicality...

thats a hard one for me... Feel is more of a natural thing, and when you go on technicality its really hard because to have fantastic feel you n eed to be good technically, and to be good technically u need some feel...

Couldn't speed help give more feeling though? Oo

Just a thought...I mean I choose feeling over speed any day BUT I really like to use speed to help a solo out with the feeling department.

I really like to try to find ways to help a solo with quick/fast runs (If I even plan them out) to help the solo out a little bit more, but I can't seem to play just fast run after fast run since there isn't a ton of emotion after a little while of doing those.
I think that the best solos are the ones that build up to the fast parts, I really like to hear the slower soulful parts build to extreme *passion* when they start ripping up the fretboard.

A combination of both is optimal. A good example would be Dimebag's solo on the song "Floods". It uses a great mixture of the two imo.

But I think feel is more important for me personally overall, as I think that many players vastly underestimate the importance of space in music. And that is applicable to all instruments, not just guitar.

One thing I noticed which is amazing is that it seems when people note their favorite guitar players, it almost never seems to include Vai. Why is that? It seems to me that he combines the best of speed and beauty, but there has to be a reason why most lists I read here don't include him. It doesn't seem to be coincidence. Is it an out-of-sight, out-of-mind type of thing?

I choose both.
If i had to pick one, it would be feeling.
For example:
Dragonforce-TTFATF vs. Audioslave-Be Yourself.
The random mindless 6 minutes of shredding is okay, but there is no soul. Vs. the Audioslave songs, they are about 1000bpm slower (sarcasm) but have a soul and make up for speed loss in feeling.
Idk how to explain, just listen to them and youll understand.

Feeling. heck, ive pretty much completely stopped trying to play fast. but that might be because Ive been stuck in this Delta Blues thing. which is pretty much 100% feeling, because most of the old blues players were mostly self taught or taught by someone who was self taught. so they didnt have much technique.

About Vai, yeah in my opinion he is probably one of the "best" players out there. But i think the problem is he knows it, and acts like it. thats just me though.

I just put this video in another thread but it applies here too.




Speed and feel in perfect harmony.

It's like what I always say:


I believe music is about what the artist wants...true that some focus too much on the technical side with less catching melodies. But the best of both worlds is also possible and more challenging to the artist. So many of these artists aren't appreciated as much as they should be. Being amazingly self aware of the importance of melody behind the awesome skills!

speed + feel (randy rhoads)



Feel + more feel + echo

Tell me whatcha think,

if you cant feel the feel in this shred,then you're not made for music

FEELING!!!!!

shred!!! weedle weedle woo diddly!!!!!1111!!!!11!!!! one!!!1

I seem to like a lot of shred guitarist but mostly for their soloing. John Mclaughlin is one of my favorites but he's not necessarily a shredder. Although he is extremely fast when he wants to be but mostly he plays with a lot of feeling. And that's just it. He's technically capable of playing as fasts as he wants but it's just not always appropriate. I seem to play better myself with a lot of feeling. And when I do, speed comes when I need it.

EMB5490 Says,,

I feel like speed players, especially young people who go for speed tend to be insecure in their playing and play more notes because they dont have the feel or confience in their playing to slow down, i think feel is so much more important. Id much rather listen to a 5 note gilmour solo then a 100 note yngwie solo. and its much more interesting.

Many guitar players can't play fast (or can't understand the true meaning of good shred guitar) and tend to use "Feeling" as an excuse for their lack of knowledge (90's grunge explosion in seattle anyone?) ,thus attacking serious guitar players that,with the use of shred,can transmit the same amount of feeling,if not more,than any other blues guitar player

Music is not about 1 single,slow down anti-shred guitar style,it is as vast as your imagination can go

I prefer feeling, but that doesn't mean you don't have to play fast.

It's more about preference too, someone might have as much knowledge as the person who likes to play complex lines very quickly, but they might like to slow it down because their ear likes to grab those slower notes and hang on to them.

I think this conversation is getting too "Black and White". Feeling does not equal slow all the time.

That scene has some great artists that have some solid knowledge of music, see Soundgarden and Alice in Chains. Don't crucify an entire genre/time period of music just because of the famous mainstream bands like Nirvana.

Come on I think Nirvana was a cool band so as SoundGarden and Alice in Chains .... but i must say ... my favoutite Seattle band IS PEARL JAM :D

I did notsay they were bad,in fact i enjoy AIC a lot,what i meant was,the grunge movement replaced the hairy virtuoso rockstar and his virtuoso rock band/glam band with a simpler,moreblinear style.

So,in contrast with the classically trained,shred rocker,the grunge guitar player couldn't do what the first one did on his time,because he did not have the knowledge required to shred (musical theory,shred technique etc..) and why? Because it wasn't needed anymore,shred was oldschool now

So im not saying they are bad,but Jerry Cantrell will never do what jason becker did

Ohh and,both Soundgarden and AIC are as mainstream as Nirvana

I agree that they didn't need to do so, but how do you know they CAN'T do it? Jimmy Chamberlin of Smashing Pumpkins for example (I know he is a drummer and not a guitarist, but the point is the same) was trained to perform jazz, not rock. But you would not know that just by listening to them. To say they can't do something is a bold assumption.

And while Soundgarden and AIC are both mainstream, they weren't close to Nirvana as far as media exposure, not even remotely close.

I really don't think this is true. People who reeeallly want to play fast can. People who dont play fast just dont want to. It's not because they can't it's because there's no need. Michael Angelo Batio or even Alex Masi will never be as popular as Nirvana like it or not. Their music simply does not require speed and because there wasnt any shreddin in grunge doesnt mean it wasnt good. That's the whole point of this discussion.

Alice in Chains rocks. :D

Feeling all the way.

Indeed they do! ;D

Ok then shredders are machines made for dry playing and slow guitar players are the epitome of music guitarwise,got it

Well as I said initially, I personally think you can do both, have emotion and feel AND speed. I just was saying I think just because someone opts to not play a certain style doesn't mean they can't do it - they just don't want to.

I think what Alex was getting at though is that those passionate slow players - even though they're great at what they do... simply DON'T appreciate the thirst for speed - or speed players in general.

But Alex it's the same vise versa. I doubt most speed players would be able to play slowly simply because of their ignorance to the skill.

What's brilliant is when you can find one musician who's brilliant at BOTH.

Then it just makes me wish I could clone them. >:D bwahahahaha!

Well put Jazz... except I saw The Sixth Day! >:D I can stop the cloning of players that would put everyone out of lead playing work! xB haha

Feeling is natural, if you learned to play and play scales correctly feeling is natural. But who say that speed can't hop in with feeling? Look at Hendrix, he was the KING of "feel" and yet he still would let loose. Speed is great as long as it has feel, look at Slash. Speed is boring, feeling, while often much better, can wear out, but the combination is magical! Neither is perfect (I think almost every guitarist over seven would agree that feel has an edge) but don't forget about their love child, he trumps them all!

i just have one thing to add to this discussion,and you should really ponder this...what if i FEEL like paying fast..

nope, if you play fast you're a robot.

beep:and if beep; play beep: bop boop slow you are a:beeeeep turtle....xp

When your good you can have both like for example stevie ray vaughn did. I try to use both in my solos. I'll try to post SOMETHING soon of my guitaring.

Speeling!

Feeding!