Schenker's place in the guitar god hierarchy

mentoneman said:
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took the first rising force album into my college intro to classical music theory class for my professor to critique. he said technically the guy had chops and it was cool to hear rock guitar in that context but generally everything stuck to one key/mode and came across as a guy who appreciated classical music and wanted to sound like a classical musician by borrowing from that idiom, without the depth of understanding in what it takes to be a classically trained musician.

i’ve taken accordion, piano, trombone, and guitar lessons in my life as well as high school band and entry level college theory classes and was blessed to play live over 20 years semi-professionally with world class musicians of the highest order, but never had the desire to discipline myself enough to become an exclusively dedicated professional musician. i knew what it took and i didn’t have “it”.
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My main thing is classical guitar, so that’s my background and bias I suppose. I went to Mannes conservatory for my masters and post-master’s degree. I don’t know if I have “it” or not, but I’m trying lol. Maybe that’s why I nitpick the musical content in these guys

IMO I wouldn’t quite give Yngwie chops as much either by today’s standards. Listen to Shawn Lane, Rick Graham, Guthrie Govan, Jason Becker, and others. I don’t see Yngwie as being on their level in pure chops and doesn’t have the musical content. To me what makes him special is his tone and feel (excellent vibrato especially)

I think EVH and Yngwie were kinda like what segovia was to classical guitar. Not the best, but they broke new ground and were hugely influential. And also very arrogant
 
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rstites said:
I never really got that much in Malmsteen. I have a lot of classical music around and love it, but my appreciation of it in rock format pretty much stops at Blackmore, et al. I love pulling some things in that are out of that arena, but it tends to be limited in the end. (A bit like how I don't really get into most of the progressive rock that much. It's impressive, but too brainy for me. I appreciate it, but don't really want to listen to most of it.)

I still would have sold my soul to be a professional musician in my own band, but I'd have remained a metal, musical hack most likely. Hell, I can't even properly read music!
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Classical guitar is my main thing/background. Got my masters and post-masters for it at Mannes. I guess when I listen to rock or metal I want to get out of it the things I won’t get in classical (like that raw energy, drive, aggression and stuff like that). I don’t think anyone really has done a good job implementing classical stuff into rock or metal. It’s often cheesy, predicable and just not effective to me. Even with Randy Rhoads. He’s one of my all time favorites, but not when he tries to be classical (gets too predictable/not spontaneous). To me RR at his best was that 1st solo in Mr Crowley, which had a lot of pentatonic, yet somehow sounded unique to me in its context. The 2nd was very good too, but more formulaic, not as heartfelt or magical to me
 
braintheory said:
Classical guitar is my main thing/background. Got my masters and post-masters for it at Mannes. I guess when I listen to rock or metal I want to get out of it the things I won’t get in classical (like that raw energy, drive, aggression and stuff like that). I don’t think anyone really has done a good job implementing classical stuff into rock or metal. It’s often cheesy, predicable and just not effective to me. Even with Randy Rhoads. He’s one of my all time favorites, but not when he tries to be classical (gets too predictable/not spontaneous). To me RR at his best was that 1st solo in Mr Crowley, which had a lot of pentatonic, yet somehow sounded unique to me in its context. The 2nd was very good too, but more formulaic, not as heartfelt or magical to me
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i think the critical nature comes in part from being put through the musical grinder where your teachers dissect your playing that way. we had a classical guitar player on our church worship team named terry graves who got his masters at USC and was the department chair at:

https://idyllwildarts.org/academy/music/
and a member of the falla guitar trio before his untimely passing. he invited christopher parkening to play at our church where i had the privelege of running sound for players like him, doyle dykes and phil keaggy.
terry was the sweetest humblest guy who i was truly honored and undeserving to share a stage with. he could pull up complex bach sheet music and sight read a first pass like he wrote it. i can’t read to save my life. but he wrestled with improvising and that came pretty natural to me over simple changes. he always complimented and encouraged me kindly when i *so* did not deserve it. a good lesson.

schenker had grand epic solo voyages from a great era in electric guitar history and is still one of the rock legends in my book.
 
mentoneman said:
i think the critical nature comes in part from being put through the musical grinder where your teachers dissect your playing that way. we had a classical guitar player on our church worship team named terry graves who got his masters at USC and was the department chair at:

https://idyllwildarts.org/academy/music/
and a member of the falla guitar trio before his untimely passing. he invited christopher parkening to play at our church where i had the privelege of running sound for players like him, doyle dykes and phil keaggy.
terry was the sweetest humblest guy who i was truly honored and undeserving to share a stage with. he could pull up complex bach sheet music and sight read a first pass like he wrote it. i can’t read to save my life. but he wrestled with improvising and that came pretty natural to me over simple changes. he always complimented and encouraged me kindly when i *so* did not deserve it. a good lesson.

schenker had grand epic solo voyages from a great era in electric guitar history and is still one of the rock legends in my book.
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Yeah I’ve always been horrible at improvising. Most classical musicians seem to be that way. I’m though just as bad at sight reading haha. I had this friend in college that was a very bad player in terms of technique and feel yet somehow was able to improvise amazingly well and seemingly effortlessly. Seems within music there are lots of skill that are independent: technical ability to actually play, improvise, compose, read music. I think a lot of these so called “guitar heroes” were really just ok to decent players, but were very creative composers and improvisers and that’s clearly a more valuable skill to most. We don’t really hear about the players that only have chops
 
The Thing about Yngwie is, hes not just Classical, he rips at blues, plays the correct guitar for it, and openly pays homage to Hendrix. His vibrato and the way he finishes motifs is unmistakeably dramatic and him. EVH for tone, but I guess I wasnt there the first time around, and I get the riffs and all, but the playing never directly impacted.

I was around for Becker and Shawn Lane, and I echo what Pat said, these dudes are just on a different place, especially Shawn Lane (RIP) who was basically and alien being.

BTW, Gary Moore for the win.... :p
 
Sick Michael said:
The Thing about Yngwie is, hes not just Classical, he rips at blues, plays the correct guitar for it, and openly pays homage to Hendrix. His vibrato and the way he finishes motifs is unmistakeably dramatic and him. EVH for tone, but I guess I wasnt there the first time around, and I get the riffs and all, but the playing never directly impacted.

I was around for Becker and Shawn Lane, and I echo what Pat said, these dudes are just on a different place, especially Shawn Lane (RIP) who was basically and alien being.

BTW, Gary Moore for the win.... :p
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I agreed I wish Yngwie stuck to a more bluesy flavor in his shred vs the classical he often was going for. He had a killer vibrato and feel, amazing tone with that strat and really could’ve been a great blues on steroids kinda player, but instead for that we got guys like Joe Bonamassa, which to me is like elevator music shred

Listening to players like Becker and Shawn Lane made me forget about Yngwie and the same happened for me with EVH once I heard RR’s stuff I no longer listened to VH stuff. I wonder if maybe Lane and Becker didn’t have as much impact simply because you need much higher level technical skill to play like them and it’s just too much for most, while EVH and Yngwie seemed much more attainable. I can see why it’s harder to get influenced by them even if they’re better players
 
rstites said:
I would say that there were some tremendous technical players around. EVH gets a lot of credit because he went big, so he's a household name. To his credit, I've always felt his rhythm work is fairly unique - really, moreso than his solos. It's why VH is more pop than hard rock or metal, and part of why it has such wide appeal. (Really, DLR as a front man helped propel the whole thing up more than any guitar wizardry.) Musically, a lot of EVH's things seem to be tricks, I suppose, but not that deep musically. I'm not knocking them, but it's almost as much the show of him doing those tricks as anything they're doing from a musical perspective. Regardless, it caught the general publics ear and propelled them to stardom.

There are a lot of other bands out there at the time that were massively influential on the guitar and metal world that never had the success directly, but definitely were well known by the players. UFO and Schenker is absolutely there. It's like the fact that Rainbow never had a platinum alum in the era, but everyone in the metal crowd (players anyway) had the albums. UFO was the same. Or someone like Rush who had a bit more commercial success, but still weren't really a household name. Those bands were the real foundation of the up-and-coming bands/players, so had influence vastly superior to their actual album sales. (Want to go extreme: look at the various NWoBHM that never even had an album, but lots of people had a take of their one or two songs, even if it was 4th generation tape.)
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EVH rhythm playing is so good and Eden better now since modern bands don’t use chords and intervals like he did . Hang ‘em high have some amazing riffs through out . Fuck I miss Van Halen
 
braintheory said:
I agreed I wish Yngwie stuck to a more bluesy flavor in his shred vs the classical he often was going for. He had a killer vibrato and feel, amazing tone with that strat and really could’ve been a great blues on steroids kinda player, but instead for that we got guys like Joe Bonamassa, which to me is like elevator music shred

Listening to players like Becker and Shawn Lane made me forget about Yngwie and the same happened for me with EVH once I heard RR’s stuff I no longer listened to VH stuff. I wonder if maybe Lane and Becker didn’t have as much impact simply because you need much higher level technical skill to play like them and it’s just too much for most, while EVH and Yngwie seemed much more attainable. I can see why it’s harder to get influenced by them even if they’re better players
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yeah, that attainable aspect is definitely true. Its a good point, you get influenced by guys who you try to cop, but if theres no chance of ever achieving it (shawn lane) then....I guess it just doesnt happen lol.

I hear you on Bonamassa. He's good but apart from his take on Eric Johnsons cascading 5s, I cant hear anything thats particularly identifiable.

I wish I could play as badly as him though ... lol!
 
rstites said:
I will say that one huge thing VH had going for them on that very first album was an amazingly new/fresh sound from the entire album. There's some serious magic-in-a-bottle to the overall sound of that. Song-for-song, I'm not sure it's really anything beyond many of the other late-70's hard rock albums out there, but it definitely has an open, live, airy sound to it that those others, at least the lower budget band just couldn't capture.

Personally, I love it all. I'm not willing to play favorites between them, but no doubt VH had the better pop success and had an overall larger impact due to album sales. Some of that is the sound, some is uniqueness, and some of it really is just timing. It hit at the right time that people were out looking for something new and went big due to that.
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I would add though, maybe most importantly, NO ONE played guitar like Ed did, in 1978. The speed, accuracy, feel and timing were above anything up to that point, and it just wasn't close. At least in the hard rock scene. Notice how I'm not even mentioning the hammer ons/Dive bombs. It was Incendiary.
Hendrix, same thing when he burst on the scene. His was more heavy blues/rock. Different styles but both knocked the guitar world on their asses.
 
Jimi I think is the hardest to imitate, I’ve never heard anyone nail his style like I have others.
 
RaceU4her said:
Jimi I think is the hardest to imitate, I’ve never heard anyone nail his style like I have others.
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I think trying to copy anyone’s playing is like trying to copy someone else’s fingerprints, but I’d argue Magic Sam (Chicago blues payer) is much harder to copy and I also like him even more fwiw (incredibly underrated somehow). I think though all these players that are considered “legendary guitar heroes” I’m not convinced they’d necessarily be great at copying others either if they tried to, but who cares, they’re great at being themselves
 
RaceU4her said:
Jimi I think is the hardest to imitate, I’ve never heard anyone nail his style like I have others.
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Yet YouTube is filled w/ people playing VH stuff perfectly. Yngwie too, There's nothing wrong with that, and there is a reason for it, but I doubt any of you 80's guys would guess it.
 
Racerxrated said:
I would add though, maybe most importantly, NO ONE played guitar like Ed did, in 1978. The speed, accuracy, feel and timing were above anything up to that point, and it just wasn't close. At least in the hard rock scene. Notice how I'm not even mentioning the hammer ons/Dive bombs. It was Incendiary.
Hendrix, same thing when he burst on the scene. His was more heavy blues/rock. Different styles but both knocked the guitar world on their asses.
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I feel lucky now that I got to experience that in the 70's. Everyone I guess has that one friend that kinda gets you into something and he had gotten me into rock. Jimi, Page, Iommi etc... I was a massive Kiss and Queen fan but Jimi was our bible. And when VH debuted as I have said, it was like a bomb going off. It's like everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at Ed. There were alot of established players/guitar hero's at that time. Page had been ruling the roost. Jimi's shadow still hovered over guitar players, Montrose, Nugent, Brian May, Blackmore etc... and then bam > everything stopped and looked to Ed. That is exactly what it felt like. No mass media back then, your way of inhaling things was concerts, magazines, radio (which generally sucked unless you loved Disco) and word of mouth. And every guitar player young or old, it was all about Ed. It's trickery, it's some kind of synth I mean you heard all kinds of stuff back then.

I had really only started playing at that time, I was content to be the rhythm player in our little junior high bands and let my friend handle lead duties copping Jimi or Clapton. Here we were learning Smoke on the Water, Paranoid, Cat Scratch Fever or my gangs personal fav at that time Lifeson and something off 2112 which we all thought was something akin to Mozart and then bam, VH debuted. Everyone was like are you shitting me. Quite frankly from that point on until the late 80's it was a helluva time to be a guitar player. Just an incredibly fun time discovering all the older players and the newer players coming down the pike. It wasn't until Randy burst on the scene that the light went off with me, remember it like yesterday i.e. that's what I want to sound like. It'd be another 28 years before I would share the stage with another guitarist.

I love the 70's musically, it's my foundation.
 
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Jack Luminous said:
I agree Schenker has some kind of special accuracy within his picking technic and phrasing (when he's not drunk). I hear it that way. But still I don't really appreciate his solos. Feels kinda boring to my ears. For example, I much prefer Andy LaRoque (more recent but kinda classic in a way).
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Andy's a stud. Also very unique and you know it is him when he rips in. Sharp live player too and one of the most underrated guys out there. People throw that word around a lot but Andy definitely is that.
 
RaceU4her said:
I’m gonna give them a real listen after reading how highly people regard schenker, the op video though I honestly thought was horrible lol
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Yeah I blew it on that one. It was more for reference as to his speed and technique for 1975 and I should have posted something from 76 or later. But def. Strangers in the Night live album is where it's att. If he isn't blowing your mind there, he prob never will. For the record though, I also really like MSG.
 
Noel's Destroyer said:
I heard Schenker for the first time about 2 years before I heard Van Halen. "Love to Love" IIRC. I thought his playing was utterly beautiful, and became an instant fan. Oddly, I never saw UFO. But I've seen MSG several times. Last time was the 2018 tour at a medium sized club here in Seattle. Utterly amazing! Apparently Ted McKenna died a few months later.
Interesting sidebar: If you ever plug into a 2205 or 2210, if you turn the treble down to almost off, you can get that tone (sans cocked wah of course). I don't need one of them, but every time I play through one, I seriously think about it.
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Fun "fact" or myth. Schenker said that the 2205 was designed with his tastes in mind and maybe "consultation". He wanted an amp with that built in cocked wah sound and he has mentioned that in more recent interviews that he stopped using the wah because the 2205 and 10's gave him that. In a way it was a good switch because the cocked wah actually knocks some gain off the amp to my ears and now his tone still cuts but is thicker and gainier. It has aged well because of that.
 
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