What makes you good? Obviously, a lot of practice does. I’ve stressed that lately and have possibly begun to beat a dead horse. But beyond that, many people call many different things “good.”
For me, it’s something technically complex as well as musically interesting. Normal and accessible are not goals that I really ever have and are seldom things that I look for in other music. Bring on the dissidence and confusion!
For others, “good” means catchy and accessible, pleasing to the ear. I don’t understand these people and I never will. Unfortunately, that is most of the general public. Enough so that you can generalize to say ALL of them. It’s unfortunate, but that’s how it goes.
Those are probably the two main categories. From there you’ll have people who want to be musical and accessible (orchestral scores), catchy and complex (The Fall of Troy), etc.
But for a select few, it’s about two things: speed and precision. You don’t see much of this. Even to look at speed metal, it’s not so much precision as it is speed. And that’s one of the big downfalls of the genre. There always seems to be a threshold with where speed dominates and precision takes a back seat… With speed AND precision, I’m immediately thinking bands like Dragonforce. Remember them? Through the Fire and Flames made it pretty big on Guitar Hero. Remember Guitar Hero? Ha, yeah, that’s for another blog… Really though, they do a good job at blazing fast leads over blazing fast everything else. And it maintains both precision and accuracy.
Illustrating this more than Dragonforce is Yngwie Malmsteen. Yngwie is a madman. Growing up, he equated speed and precision to skill. Coupled with classical music influences, notably Niccolo Paganini, he has pioneered neo-classical shred metal (or whatever they’re calling it these days). Since Tuesday was country day, I decided that Malmsteen was about as far from country as possible, and listened to him for a good part of the day.
So what did it take to get to where he is?
· Practice. It’s hard to ignore this point. And it feels, again, like beating that poor dead horse. But Malmsteen did it differently. As a youngster, he would record himself EVERY DAY, often playing the same thing over and over again. His goal every day was to be faster than the previous day and to be more fluid. When you do this every day, of course you are going to become amazing. This eventually led to him excelling in sweep picking, combining precision and speed in one fluid motion.
· Influences. Niccolo was a virtuoso. Most all of Yngwie’s main influences were. Some of these guys have been dead for like 200 years, but are still talked about. When that’s what you are listening to and exposing yourself to, that’s what you’ll try to emulate.
· Vision. Before Malmsteen, neo-classical shred didn’t exist. He took his interests and combined them together, despite what was already going on in rock/metal at the time.
· Innovation. Once upon a time, Malmsteen picked up a sitar. On a sitar, you don’t press against the fretboard; your fingers float on the strings. This allows for more control of the motion of the string. Naturally, Yngwie then proceeded to scallop his guitar neck. Playing on scalloped frets requires much more finesse, but allows the control of bends and vibrato to be unimpeded by the fretboard.
Granted, this is just how one guy did it. Sure, “Yngwie” isn’t a household name, but by his skills and abilities, he’s created something that will last.
This all being said, does anyone want to go see him either Thursday, October 13th in NYC ($40) or Saturday, October 15th in MD ($33)?? I’ve seen him before and it’s pretty freaking amazing…
