Howe or Zappa

I know who the better guitarist is, but who do you prefer and why?

Howe

I prefer Zappa.Even though i love yes and Howe's style i always considered Zappa"s guitar playing more soulful and exciting.Both have unique tones.Zappa is also a better musician and you can see that from the huge variety of music he has offered in 30 years.However it is clear to me that Zappa is self-taught and Howe is not and maybe Zappa knows less in terms of guitar playing  than the other he always was the one to play the solos that fit perfectly in each song. Miss you Frank

Howe.
I consider Zappa a much better composer than guitar player. It was never his strong suite, but it is certainly Howe's strength.
As for the comment "Zappa could play Howe but not vice versa", that is almost certainly wrong. Howe can play classical guitar, but there was no real indication Zappa could play that style proficiently. No one can ever trul replicate someone else's style 100 per cent unless they perhaps dedicated a lifetime to doing just that and not developing their own style at all.
Everyone fingers frets ever so slightly different, holds their pick ever so slightly or even dramatically different, has different vibrato, approaches to bends etc
Their styles are so far apart it's not even a good comparison at all IMO.

But I prefer Greg Howe to both of them anyway


Edited by HughesJB4 - August 26 2008 at 08:18

howe. His acoustic playing is amazing.

Sacred 22 wrote: I know who the better guitarist is, but who do you prefer and why?

I would call Zappa's composing and writing genius, not his guitar playing (although not bad either).  Steve Howe gets my vote here.

Chalk and Cheese 

I think both so innovative, Howe was in several contributing prog bands and Zappa was mainly in Zappa. Zappa was more technical and had to have everything right on more or less a perfectionist, Where Howe was more of a jam man. Someone who just flowed and made mistakes that would sound pretty cool. But also there different and incomparable. I think I like Zappa more as a soloist just because he was a perfectionist and a very innovative musician, And i like Howes different bands he was in better and how he managed to play with so many bands.

I choose Zappa,but not just for his guitar skills. Obviously Howe is the better player because he was classically trained, but the fact that Zappa was self taught and could play and write what he did is just amazing.

also, Zappa would augment his style with whatever band he had at the time. For example, from 72-74, he had this jazz-rock style, more rock obviously, but tried to keep up with all the jazz musicians he surrounded himself with.

in the late 70s and early 80s his tone was more 'raunchy' and really powerful. in '88, he used a tone I really like from him throughout most of his sets. He also improvised every solo, whereas i dont think Howe improvises all his solos, but he obviously could.