Carl Palmer as a drummer?

Chus wrote: Gilmour has EMOTION but lacks skill. Again, I love Hackett's music, but I won't call him a "virtuoso"; what I admire about him is his overall musicianship, not his skill.. Paganini IS a master because he holds both atributes, Gilmour just has one: emotion.. but he lacks ability in his hands and that's why his licks are "comprised"... there's no way he could play the riff of "Beyond the Seventh Galaxy" unless he improved his skill.. for example

This is just repeating the same naive misinformation. Steve Hackett lacks technical virtuosity? Are you out of your bloody mind? And is Steve Howe less skilled than Eric Johnson because Howe can't play as seemlessly or in such a contemporary way? -- conversely, is Johnson less a virtuoso because he has not mastered classical and country guitar?

   
    
    

Edited by Atavachron - January 02 2007 at 21:43

Chus wrote: Skill is just one of the attributes... the attribute that Gilmour lacks

Horsepucky
    

Gosh, emotion alone can't make a virtuoso.  Look the word up in a dictionary.

Let me see if I can explain things, since I have a good deal of experience playing classical and jazz piano and drums.

When I play drums, playing "the right thing at the right time" is so much easier than playing something that is hard to play.  The "right time" is usually pretty obvious, and the "right thing" is usually very easy to play.  It is much harder to focus on complicated things.

When I play classical piano, there are some pieces that are very easy technically, so I focus on the dynamics, making it more emotional.  However, making these type of pieces emotional is many times easy than playing a very difficult piece.  Of course, the most difficult of all is play an advanced piece with lots of emotion.

Jazz is a whole other thing since you're improvising.  Making a nice, simple melody on the spot is a lot harder than playing a bunch of really fast, random gibberish.  Of course the hardest of all is playing at a high technical level while still having good melody and phrasing.

On the other hand, composing simple little melodies is one of the easiest things ever.  Sometimes I'll be improvising and I'll play something, and then I stop and say "hey, this could sound a lot better if I added this note," and after messing around for a couple of seconds I come up with a nifty little melody.  And this little melody is very easy to play, but it would have sounded awesome if I had made it up on the spot.  Of course, I didn't, so it's lame.  That's one of things I'm striving for:  Pulling pretty little melodies out of thin air.

To conclude, playing technical pieces is much harder than simple pieces with emotion added.  Of course, the hardest of all is playing very hard pieces with plenty of emotion.  Playing easy stuff with emotion, like Gilmour, is not hard.  Playing hard stuff with emotion is.  Also, simple melodies are only cool when they're made up on the spot.  If you're not going to compose a solo instead of improvising it, you might as well make it challenging.  So, despite popular opinion, playing the "right thing at the right time" is not as hard as it seems, because the right thing is usually so easy to do!

Sasquamo wrote: playing "the right thing at the right time" is so much easier than playing something that is hard to play.  The "right time" is usually pretty obvious, and the "right thing" is usually very easy to play.       Wrong. playing technical pieces is much harder than simple pieces with emotion added.       Wrong.  Playing easy stuff with emotion, like Gilmour, is not hard.        Wrong.

    
    

Edited by Atavachron - January 02 2007 at 22:00

I didn't think so either

Gilmour just makes it sound effortless and 'easy'.Doesn't mean it is!

Chus wrote: Well... it is to me (improvising like him, not playing his exact notes), he's over all a blues guitarist, a good blues guitarist with lots of emotion, but if I want skill (as in "techinque") in blues I'd say Clapton has it in spades over Gilmour, and Clapton is already more energy than technique IMO. Yes Gilmour has his "technical trickery" (harmonic sustained notes and such), but it doesn't take a lot of practice to do that, really. Blues guitarists are also improvisers but blues is just a basic music form( generally 3 or 4 chords over a 12-bar measure.. it may vary but doesn't stray to much from this format).. blues also has a standard scale from which you could improvise.. In jazz there's almost no boundaries for experimentation and improvisation, yet it is hard to do it effectively.

Chus wrote: This guy obviously has to learn from Gilmour http://youtube.com/watch?v=57WSFRDqTPw Robben Ford... now that's skill WITH a feeling.

I love Robben-- he would come and play at the music school I attended and it was a thrill. However, this clip is far from the best I've heard him and he has *nothing* on Gilmour in this sample. We can agree to disagree, but at least present a better case than a dated jazz-rock performance. He is so much more than this,
    

http://youtube.com/watch?v=kDdZl3joA34

here's an example of Robben's blues licks.. perhaps not his best but not bad either

I really don't know what you mean... I see far more potential (energy-wise) in that solo than in any Gilmour solo, period. Anyway I don't think is his best solo ever