My Top Guitar DVDs/Books

wayfaerer

"Embrace your dreams."

Location: The Lifestream

Joined: Apr 03 2011

Thumbs up for JP!!!
Glasgow kiss anyone??

wayfaerer

"Embrace your dreams."

Location: The Lifestream

Joined: Apr 03 2011

assuming you mean over-priced? haha

id pay it though. the dude is a legend.

the whole band (dream theater) is comprised by top musicians on each respective instrument. and the new drummer mike mangini is a fuckin beast! personally i think he superior to portnoy.

i also think rudess is superior to moore in regards to sheer talent; though moores melodies were better than rudess', IMO

wayfaerer

"Embrace your dreams."

Location: The Lifestream

Joined: Apr 03 2011

ive never actually used any technique booklets; i should give it a try, since all my technique is slef-learned/tuaght or simply collective through trial and error.

mainly i want to learn more theory. and i really wanna know scales; i can rip on guitar, but none of it has any real substance cause i dont know enough about theory and note progression

Hakoria

Laon King

Location: gmt+1

Joined: Apr 03 2011

If one can master Touhou, one shall also master guitar. Demetori is proof.

Jacob31593

Location: Tampa, FL

Joined: Jan 04 2009

demetori is my favorite :O

Giogiogio4

For all the dreamers: Our planet's dream is not over yet...

Joined: Jun 10 2010

Hate to break it to you but that child wont be anywhere near as good a player as Petrucci anytime soon. Theres a reason they study Petrucci and Steve Vai and Joe Satriani at the top music schools when it comes to guitar.

Hakoria

Laon King

Location: gmt+1

Joined: Apr 03 2011

Kiko was a nice surprise in that list, not my level at all though |:

Giogiogio4 said

Theres a reason they study Petrucci and Steve Vai and Joe Satriani at the top music schools when it comes to guitar.

Do they study Guthrie Govan or Tosin Abasi? I don't go to guitar school, that's why I'm asking, I have no idea 1: Also interested with Jason Becker if you have any idea.
Anyways sorry 'bout this, just read when you feel like you have the time since it's more some self-reflections on the subject than trying to make you understand that you're wrong (there is no best = end of story, is my actual pov with things).

Don't use top music schools as the only undeniably true ranking system. I'd just like to share that fame might matter more than you'd think when it comes to this; teachers will have less success if they only talked about unknown gems tbh: most people want to learn guitar like Petrucci/Satriani/Vai/Gilbert/etc, that's why the lessons are mainly on them. Those are the great guitarists that have successful media attention and most tours, people are introduced to amazing skills due to them.
So they have the skills and I respect each of them, that's for sure, but that's not the main reason they're studied imo |:

I'm basing this on how piano music schools teach us about 18th century pianists (we'll be reaching 20th century music such as jazz/etc in 2 years :/). The more famous ones are the ones everyone know and want to hear about. One of my teachers didn't even know Alkan: he was a rival of Liszt technique-wise and made beautiful masterpieces, Chopin also respected him greatly. Reason he isn't a big subject in school? Short 'on scene' career, mainly taught Chopin's students after the latter died (they were neighbors) for the majority of his life.
Schubert or Schumann labeled Alkan's music as 'only technical virtuoso absurdity' later on in time, which made people forget his works even more. A too big amount of pianists didn't bother picking it up, they wouldn't attempt to understand the pieces (we are lucky that we've had pianists such as MA Hamelin and J Gibbons that did want to understand why even the greats respected him), because no one told them to bother.
A more 'recent' familiar case is Godowsky, although he was mainly bashed due to rewriting chopin's etudes. He did it to make them even harder, but people thought he did it because he thought Chopin did things wrongly. Instead of seeing his rewritings as works in honor of Chopin, they saw it as Godowsky's way to insult the Poet of the piano. Godowsky is more famous than Alkan because he was a prominent pianist in the USA contemporary to Rachmaninov and when music recordings were starting to develop. He also rewrote the American anthem, so he was still liked by the people of his time, but not by the schools that could only lick Chopin's feet. He also wrote pieces called 'monsters' when it came to technique, which scared a lot of people away from interpreting it <- how piano music mainly survived was with pianists and not recordings unlike guitar who has had it's 'true birth' in the 50s with Les Paul/Chet Atkins/etc I believe.

Piano has a far more in-depth history than guitar (which is normal ofc), but we still see that what's being taught isn't undeniably the best that can be taught. Fame/reputation/etc counts, period. Tokunan (Demetori's guitarist, also impressive due to playing&composing the bass/synth/piano for their tracks) is a small Japanese man who tours with a weird-looking group during the year and when he feels like it will release with his brother a new cd every 2 years under the name of Demetori as a side occupation: just to show their love of ZUN. Even if he was better at guitar than anyone else, why would they talk about him in top music schools? Mainly otakus know him.

And yeah, there are teachers who do recommend you hidden gems, that's how I had discovered Tausig or Blumenfeld (pianist examples) for also being excellent teachers in their ideas on technique/etc. But you'll still see people mainly talking about Czerny even if his ideas/teachings are outdated (proved to be less efficent, he was also a generation older than Chopin/Liszt). You still have reputable music schools teaching piano techniques/practice routines/etc that will in long-term durations fuck up your fingers/hands/wrists nerves |:

The younger generations will almost always have the leading technicians ; I think Vai/Petrucci/Satriani are becoming outdated in today's standards of guitar virtuosity since it is growing at an incredible rate (thanks to internet/easier access to lessons even for free at home; none of that in Gilbert/etc's generation). They are taught as prominent figures of guitar technique and historical development, not as 'the leading examples of today's most skillful guitarists'.

Sorry for the long post, but it just kind of happened <: Just wanted to see what I could say on that statement you made even though SJ was trolling.
Personally I don't think I can compare the depth of both Tokunan and the others skills. I just like Tokunan's solo writing more which is taste preference. He has a less developed arsenal of 'skills' than the guitarists you cited too though. I didn't know ZUN's music back when I discovered Demetori either (so no preferences due to recognizing the melodies/etc), they introduced me to ZUN <: Basically had judged those guitarists and Tokunan the same way, except Gilbert which I got to see live and it quite blew my mind back then, thus that's why for me Tokunan > them
:D

Edit: Had forgotten of him until just now (new upload the last week on yt), but I believe a guitarist like guitaryman/BKMJMBOX is a good example of how someone with outstanding technique can be not even known in top music schools. As you've got better knowledge on the instrument, how would he compare to those 4 famous guitarists? (I'd recommend his Save Them most recent video for a good example. Guthrie Govan Waves cover for improvisation and chocobo theme for alternating between no pick and a pick).

StrangeJam

Da Manliness

Joined: Aug 23 2009

this thread has been succesfully laon'd

Hakoria

Laon King

Location: gmt+1

Joined: Apr 03 2011

How they climbed the ladder is thanks to their hard work in obtaining great skills. But today they are kept at the rank of being the most skilled due to the media as in reputation earned in the past continuously applied to their name. I don't know what they're doing nowadays, but have some of them already achieved their peaks? That's what I meant because there are now better guitarists than them. I understood, when you said "Hate to break it to you but (...) when it comes to guitar", that you held the opinion that people like Tokunan can only dream of getting at their level. Level as in skill level, not a level of how they influenced music with their discoveries.
In that regard Tokunan indeed won't make it to Petrucci's level if he simply continues his current style of play, as it's something hundreds/thousands of others can already manage. So maybe I simply misunderstood <:
I guess Vai/Pet aren't famous like actual media-slave musicians (do I really need to torture myself to name them? I doubt anyone here will need to turn on the tv or radio to figure it out), but to actual guitarists (I don't consider someone who only learns crap like green day and never seeking actual progress of the self through the development of skills with a music instrument to be a guitarist nor musician) they are part of today's active most known. I've personally known someone who started guitar due to being a huge Pet fan, so I thought there would be many other cases of people taking the same initiative for the same reason. I don't think it's implausible either.

I didn't get what the 'bach/mozart being reborn today they would be metal guitarists' example had anything to do with this >:
Have heard/read about it on more than one occasion though and I do believe it's true. Reason I had pointed out Govan/Abasi/guitaryman were due to the fact skill-wise they are at Petrucci's level in their own style, which is why I disagreed since, like I said earlier, you made me think that those talked about in music schools are unreachable in that pov. And tbh you're messing around too much with that history thing. I was talking about the history of how music had profited from these instruments to develop itself. Guitars were far less prominent than piano during the times where both existed. People mainly cared for the latter. I haven't heard a guitarist name in music history class although the basic guitar already existed in 18th century. It was just less cared about by the majorty back then and the piano lived a development that the guitar only really started to have in the 20th century. Just like how you state Bach/Mozart would be metal guitarists today, wouldn't it be because it's in the situation the piano was back then: they choose guitar now just like the reason they chose piano (well clavecin/harpischord/pianoforte, today's piano is different) back then?

I don't want to actually debate between piano/guitar history, I love both and we're on a guitar forum so it wins by default. I'll forgive you for not comparing guitaryman to petrucci or someone else because you talked about dragons, and that's bad ass as hell.
Bad ass as hell.

SalemJenet

Joined: Sep 22 2011

forget about this ash guy.
laon for the new gametabs emperor plz