Schenker's place in the guitar god hierarchy

There sure used to be alot more MSG stuff on Youtube. A killer show in Japan, but it is gone. Just that one from ‘84 with all the goofy outfits. So many killer riffs on those albums.
 
Panhead5 said:
I'm amazed that people that play guitar on this forum don't get or think the Schenker thing is all that . Hendrix, Van halen and all these guys have their strong suit and niches but listen to MSG or UFO and let me know if Eddie could play that melodic on his best day.

Hate to sound like a Fanboy but he's still kicking serious ass in 2022 as he is on the downside of his 60's !!!!
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Being melodic or great harmony wasn't EVH's forte. He was imo more about rhythm, feel and his noodly style of leadwork that I don't like. I'll have to listen to more Schenker stuff. Not honestly too familiar. You guys should post some clips for examples of his good stuff
 
braintheory said:
The Friedman stuff that did it for me was his leadwork with Megadeth. Definitely unique phrasing like you said. Jason of course was a very flow-y player. Maybe it’s my bias as a classical guitarist, but when Becker tried to be classical or when he used counterpoint, it imho just wasn’t very high quality. It was to me predicable and not musically inspiring. It was for me his playing itself and feel that impressed me. Some guys like him are great players, some are more great at making musical ideas (aka composers or improv), not many are truly masters at both. I can’t even name an example of someone that’s both honestly
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Panhead5 said:
I'm amazed that people that play guitar on this forum don't get or think the Schenker thing is all that . Hendrix, Van halen and all these guys have their strong suit and niches but listen to MSG or UFO and let me know if Eddie could play that melodic on his best day.

Hate to sound like a Fanboy but he's still kicking serious ass in 2022 as he is on the downside of his 60's !!!!
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I get all those players you mentioned. I think as a musician my favorite thing is just loving each player for what they bring . The differences and how they do it . I don’t really every think someone sucks . I find all these different ways of playing awesome and love individuality .
 
braintheory said:
Being melodic or great harmony wasn't EVH's forte. He was imo more about rhythm, feel and his noodly style of leadwork that I don't like. I'll have to listen to more Schenker stuff. Not honestly too familiar. You guys should post some clips for examples of his good stuff
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Really cool melodic solo here



A few blazing solos here , first one here from 1976



From 1982s Assault Attack

 
This was always one of my fave lead breaks. Doesn't last long but man does he ever rip with his choice of notes here. So damn good. It's like I know the scales he uses but I can't sound like that. So unique. If you guys aren't getting it after all these examples then it's never going to happen.:p

 
hammered said:
Really cool melodic solo here



A few blazing solos here , first one here from 1976



From 1982s Assault Attack

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I have trouble fully appreciating things the first few times I listen, but the solo in Born To Lose immediately grabbed me as something worthwhile. Will have to listen more. I think the reason I didn't really give MS a fair chance is because other than his solos the rest of the songs just don't seem to have much going for them musically imo
 
braintheory said:
The Friedman stuff that did it for me was his leadwork with Megadeth. Definitely unique phrasing like you said. Jason of course was a very flow-y player. Maybe it’s my bias as a classical guitarist, but when Becker tried to be classical or when he used counterpoint, it imho just wasn’t very high quality. It was to me predicable and not musically inspiring. It was for me his playing itself and feel that impressed me. Some guys like him are great players, some are more great at making musical ideas (aka composers or improv), not many are truly masters at both. I can’t even name an example of someone that’s both honestly
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Steve Vai
 
Panhead5 said:
I'm amazed that people that play guitar on this forum don't get or think the Schenker thing is all that . Hendrix, Van halen and all these guys have their strong suit and niches but listen to MSG or UFO and let me know if Eddie could play that melodic on his best day.

Hate to sound like a Fanboy but he's still kicking serious ass in 2022 as he is on the downside of his 60's !!!!
Click to expand...
I've tried so many times to get into MS and I acknowledge his brilliance as a player but a massive stumbling block for me is the songs. Either with UFO or MSG "to me" there is nothing compelling there to keep my interest so anytime I've tried to focus in on MS, I'm fast forwarding to the solo which frankly doesn't always give you context of where you are because you're just listening to a solo. For me it always starts with the songs. It's why I can only take so much Malmsteen as brilliant as he is. For example I am a massive Thin Lizzy fan, I get lost in every nuance of much of their music but I understand that some people just don't get it. Hey if I felt the music that MS played on with UFO or MSG I'm sure I'd be bigger fan or more vested in his playing.

Btw/ since Marty Friedman was brought...love the guy. Brilliant player and I've even nicked one of the things he does...take a Maxon Auto Filter and set all the controls to basically off, turn the pedal on and it adds an incredible vocal quality to leads, very cool.
 
Speeddemon said:
Almost sounds like it went through a bit crusher pedal, that makes it sound like old Nintendo, fuzzy, screechy stuff.
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I was wondering how one would go about getting that tone, I thought dod thrashmaster into one of those micro Marshall amps with the back cut out for more open back hollowness but I have no idea
 
jabps said:
I've tried so many times to get into MS and I acknowledge his brilliance as a player but a massive stumbling block for me is the songs. Either with UFO or MSG "to me" there is nothing compelling there to keep my interest so anytime I've tried to focus in on MS, I'm fast forwarding to the solo which frankly doesn't always give you context of where you are because you're just listening to a solo. For me it always starts with the songs. It's why I can only take so much Malmsteen as brilliant as he is. For example I am a massive Thin Lizzy fan, I get lost in every nuance of much of their music but I understand that some people just don't get it. Hey if I felt the music that MS played on with UFO or MSG I'm sure I'd be bigger fan or more vested in his playing.

Btw/ since Marty Friedman was brought...love the guy. Brilliant player and I've even nicked one of the things he does...take a Maxon Auto Filter and set all the controls to basically off, turn the pedal on and it adds an incredible vocal quality to leads, very cool.
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I'm having the same issue. With these clips posted MS has some great leads (especially Born To Lose), but the rest of the songs seem like nothing special to me, quite forgettable other than the solos. VH and Metallica songs I guess are kinda the opposite to me
 
RaceU4her said:
I was wondering how one would go about getting that tone, I thought dod thrashmaster into one of those micro Marshall amps with the back cut out for more open back hollowness but I have no idea
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I recall that this tone was achieved with a small pignose. They got the tone they wanted from it so they rolled with it. It makes sense too when you think about it as it sounds small and conjested yet the brilliance of the phrasing shines through.

Also, song wise, I hear a lot of people say that they can't go into it due to the songs. I always thought the songs in UFO and the 80's MSG stuff was as strong as anything out there. It is euro metal but very rooted in a 70's hard rock vein. Thin Lizzy is great too though, I acknowledge that as well. I really wish MS didn't have ao much ego and had taken the Ozzy gig as well. I would have loved to hear him play Randy's material. I think he would have done some amazing stuff live over those chord progressions.
 
Some of the UFO stuff is decent, more pop oriented imo. The MSG stuff is more hard rock. Armed and Ready, Are you Ready To Rock, Into the Arena, Captain Nemo, Attack of the Mad Axeman and Desert Song are some of my favorites.

Its just 70’s hard rock. VH has plenty of weak material too.

One trick I picked up from Schenker is the art of the neck bend. Haha. My first good guitar was a Gibson V. It was awesome for bending.
 
Greazygeo said:
Its just 70’s hard rock. VH has plenty of weak material too.
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One of the sensible things VH did was release very short albums too. They knew they didn't have a large repertoire of material, so kept things short, and that's even with some filler bits here and there. They also got a fair amount of mileage of their own takes on classic cover tunes. I don't fault them for any of that, as it leaned into their strengths which was being a light hearted party band and let EVH just enough time to throw in whatever new pyrotechnics he'd recently come up with.

After they got some fame, they tried for longer albums (just standard length though) and you could tell they were really trying to push beyond their creative abilities.
 
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