David Gilmour > Jimi Hendrix

^ I'm no Chuck Berry fan, but nobody plays his songs right except that ugly guy in the Stones. Berry actually uses real nice inventive sparse RnB chords, while your typical local bar band tramples all over that.

Some of Hendrix's covers were satirical as in Wild Thing, that is either a stab at The Troggs or crappy garage bands in general. Listen to the sarcastic vocal delivery and I love that Strangers in the Night guitar solo, brilliant!

^ Johnny B Goode is alway awful, as a veteran cheezy music pro hack I truly hate playing that awful song, it get's my special ultra-disonant chord 'replacement' theory whenever I have to play it. Usually by the time a song like that is requested everyone is too drunk to notice, care or they think I'm funny, ha ha.

If anyone wants to read some long-winded drivel about Hendrix you can check my intro/bio on our new Hendrix page.

Edited by Easy Money - April 11 2009 at 07:20

jammun wrote: HughesJB4 wrote: jammun wrote: I have all due respect for Gilmour, but please... But please........? I'd love to actually know why you feel the way you do. That short statement doesn't tell me a whole lot if I must be honest.   Sorry, I should not have been quite so terse.   My opinion, in a nutshell:   Technical skill as a guitarist:  Hendrix > Gilmour Innovator in terms of introducing new musical vocabulary to rock:  Hendrix > Gilmour Innovator in terms of introducing new sonic vocabulary to rock:  Hendrix > Gilmour Studio wizardy:  Hendrix = Gilmour, but Hendrix got there first Songwriter:  Hendrix = Gilmour Interpreter of others' music:  Hendrix > Gilmour

Technical Skill as a guitarist, and you say Hendrix is better.
You're kidding right?

Sorry, but sloppy and good technique are mutually exclusive.
Some aspects technique means being able to play cleanly, with good intonation and control.
Gilmour had this down very well.
Hendrix did not. There are first hand accounts from people that went to his gigs, and even recordings where he wasn't able to play in tune, wasn't able to play without hideous slop and couldn't even play in time at certain points.
Allan Holdsworth has good technique.
Mikael Akerfeldt has good technique.
Steve Hackett has good technique.
David Gilmour has good technique.

What links these 4 guys is their ability to play in time consistently, play in tune consistently and not having particularly noticeable amounts of extraneous string noise as they play.
When they fluff up, they make honest mistakes as all humans do, which is a severe contrast to just being downright sloppy like Hendrix and Page were.
I've heard recordings of Hendrix where you can just hear heaps of extraneous string noise and hardly even any of the notes he was trying to hit.
That is shockingly poor technique.
Whether someone has good or poor technique is not entirely subjective, their are defined rules as to whether one has good or bad technique.

My father is (well, not anymore since he quit playing) a classical guitarist and I have given lessons in the past and am about to start giving actual paid lessons relatively soon. To be able to play classical guitar or to teach guitar effectively, there are certain concrete rules (yes, concrete rules, not subjective opinions) which need to be understood in order to have good technique. Gilmour's playing comes under the defined boundaries of what constitutes good technique, even if he is no virtuoso.

Dean wrote: Lost Follower wrote: He'd have to fight damn hard to get past Phil Manzanera actually. As Dave & Phill are bestest mates I cannot see them arguing one way or the other

Absolutely. I like Dave Gilmour. He comes across as a really nice bloke, he looked after Syds interests for 30 years and he gave away £6m to Shelter when he sold his London house. top bloke. I have his last solo album and love some of the songs. I just wish he'd lay off the trademark Gilmour guitar histrionics or find a new style to show us. I know he said he felt a bit worried about asking Phil to play rhythm guitar of late, being he's such a great guitarist himself. But hey, Phil needs to pay the bills while Ferry is still messing about playing Dylan.

Gilmour is a very blues rock player but Hendrix broke every rule in the book then rewrote the book. Gilmour is a great 'funky' rhthym player though. His solos are uber predictable. But hen, most guitar solos are boring anyway.

Gilmour would make my top 5. Actually, not my top 10. He'd have to fight damn hard to get past Phil Manzanera actually.

HughesJB4 wrote: dwill123 wrote: I feel if Hendrix had lived he would have left the confining boundries of rock for the more fertile ground found in fusion.  For any body to see this the Hendrix album you need to listen to is "Band of Gypsys".  I think a lot of people make there Hendrix decisons based on his earlier things "Fire" Crosstown Traffic", etc.  With BoG he left the playing with his teeth, playing behind his head schtick and concentrated on straight up guitar and the results tell the tale.  Just listen to "Machine Gun" and you'll get my drift.  He was on the doorstep of something really large and sadly we will not get hear it. That's always an interesting debate. I just tend to think his technique would never have developed enough to be a true fusion player. One thing I particularly notice about the late 60s era players that were born in the 40s that were heavily grounded in blues rock, is that over the years they never really developed further technique. For example, Clapton still stayed with his 3 finger on the fretting hand style of pentatonic licks for the most part, Jimmy Page largely the same, no real pinky usage, Tony Iommi, another who largely stayed within the context of blues rock styled solos. They never really picked up techniques like alternate picking, 3 note per string legato lines, sweep picking etc, and to an extent, that lack of technique confined them to play within a bluesier style. Whereas, take Allan Holdsworth, born in the 40s as well, but unlike the aforementioned, he picked up on the advanced virtuoso techniques such as 3 note per string legato, right hand tapping, sweep picking, and very wide stretches allowing him to play crazy arpeggiated lines, as well as amazing chord shapes. Or John McLaughlin, born the same year as Holdsworth, 1942, but possessed some of the greatest alternate picking chops known to man kind, at the time and even now. To be able to play fusion effectively, I honestly think at the bare minimum, you need to be able to execute 3 note per string legato lines or alternate picked lines (but ideally you'd learn more than just one of those techniques) to be able to play the fast and fluid lines that fusion demands. Having that level of technique just allows you to go far beyond just playing blues rock licks and doing something else. There is a lot of arpeggiaton in fusion as well, and without sufficient chops, you can't pull that stuff off. Even if Hendrix were to play fusion, unless he dropped the drugs and was prepared to take a look into getting some serious technique down, he would not have been able to play fusion with anywhere near the fluidity of virtuoso Brett Garsed, Holdsworth or Shawn Lane. Sure, Hendrix is not a bad player by any means, but virtuoso he was not, and his technique was too limited in scope and just not clean enough for fusion. There is also the question of, had he lived, would he have dropped the drugs enough to maintain creativity and to perhaps enhance and clean up his playing technique, or would have have just become another has been that was once a shining star, but then would just another 'one of those drug f**ked guitar players" type of guys? EDIT: Apologies if you're not a musician and found some of my post impenetrable, but hopefully it was interesting to other guitar players:P

That's all very interesting and I agree with most of it ... but what does it have to do with Hendrix vs. Gilmour? AFAIK Gilmour never went beyond the blues based techniques either.

From my point of view (I'm a guitarist too): What made Hendrix so special - apart from the "gimmicks" - was his way of fusing rhythm and lead in a way that was extraordinarily rich in terms of melody and harmony. Listen to Little Wing ... and remember that it was covered by a large number of guitarists, many also from the Jazz Fusion domain.

I think that Gilmour is mostly remembered for his great solos ... he simply often managed to come up with nearly perfect solos that captured the essence of the songs with just as much technique as necessary. I *love* both guitarists, but Hendrix really changed the perception of the guitar as an instrument.

^Jeff Beck is a damn good guitarist, but nowadays, he's doing whacky things....*cough* Who Else *cough*

dwill123 wrote: I feel if Hendrix had lived he would have left the confining boundries of rock for the more fertile ground found in fusion.  For any body to see this the Hendrix album you need to listen to is "Band of Gypsys".  I think a lot of people make there Hendrix decisons based on his earlier things "Fire" Crosstown Traffic", etc.  With BoG he left the playing with his teeth, playing behind his head schtick and concentrated on straight up guitar and the results tell the tale.  Just listen to "Machine Gun" and you'll get my drift.  He was on the doorstep of something really large and sadly we will not get hear it.

That's always an interesting debate.
I just tend to think his technique would never have developed enough to be a true fusion player.
One thing I particularly notice about the late 60s era players that were born in the 40s that were heavily grounded in blues rock, is that over the years they never really developed further technique.
For example, Clapton still stayed with his 3 finger on the fretting hand style of pentatonic licks for the most part, Jimmy Page largely the same, no real pinky usage, Tony Iommi, another who largely stayed within the context of blues rock styled solos.
They never really picked up techniques like alternate picking, 3 note per string legato lines, sweep picking etc, and to an extent, that lack of technique confined them to play within a bluesier style.
Whereas, take Allan Holdsworth, born in the 40s as well, but unlike the aforementioned, he picked up on the advanced virtuoso techniques such as 3 note per string legato, right hand tapping, sweep picking, and very wide stretches allowing him to play crazy arpeggiated lines, as well as amazing chord shapes.
Or John McLaughlin, born the same year as Holdsworth, 1942, but possessed some of the greatest alternate picking chops known to man kind, at the time and even now.
To be able to play fusion effectively, I honestly think at the bare minimum, you need to be able to execute 3 note per string legato lines or alternate picked lines (but ideally you'd learn more than just one of those techniques) to be able to play the fast and fluid lines that fusion demands.
Having that level of technique just allows you to go far beyond just playing blues rock licks and doing something else.
There is a lot of arpeggiaton in fusion as well, and without sufficient chops, you can't pull that stuff off.
Even if Hendrix were to play fusion, unless he dropped the drugs and was prepared to take a look into getting some serious technique down, he would not have been able to play fusion with anywhere near the fluidity of virtuoso Brett Garsed, Holdsworth or Shawn Lane.
Sure, Hendrix is not a bad player by any means, but virtuoso he was not, and his technique was too limited in scope and just not clean enough for fusion.

There is also the question of, had he lived, would he have dropped the drugs enough to maintain creativity and to perhaps enhance and clean up his playing technique, or would have have just become another has been that was once a shining star, but then would just another 'one of those drug f**ked guitar players" type of guys?

EDIT:
Apologies if you're not a musician and found some of my post impenetrable, but hopefully it was interesting to other guitar players:P




Edited by HughesJB4 - March 24 2009 at 10:41

No way, not even close. I love David Gilmore, but Jimi Hendrix is something else entirely. Since I grew up with Hendrix, I never realized how innovative he was, but after a couple of years of prog, jazz, and metal not listening to him, I listened to jimi hendrix again, and the difference was staggering. All of a sudden, he was this amazing guitarist with creativity and style like hardly anyone else ever had.

Edited by Nuke - March 23 2009 at 15:52

I don't think that even DG would consider himself to be better than Hendrix... tho there's no real comparison as they are both entirely different styles of guitatists.