Has guitar playing progressed since the late 70's

koneguitarist

i love how some of the country players can do some amazing stuff, i like how Bonnamassa gets an amazing tone, some guitarists seemed to have mastered amazing effects, but has anyone really took the guitar and blown everyone away with a new style since Eddie Van Halen?
i am not really a fan of EVH, but I can't think of anyone who has changed the way we play to the same extent. 
Trouble is, if this is true, why? Has guitar playing gone as far as it can? 

VimFuego

dunno about electric playing, but for sure acoustic playing has. Even if it's not your taste, players like John Gomm, Eric Roche etc  etc have really pushed back the boundries of what can be done.

EDIT: thinking about it for a sec, Matt Bellamy really pushed back boundries as well.

EricTheWeary

IIRC Dave Edmunds said electric guitar playing stopped evolving with the invention of the fuzz pedal. 

Van Halen was pretty much the end of a period when clever electric guitar playing was a big wow for anyone other than guitarists. The band weren't even really very big in the UK at the time. 

Plenty of guitarists since who have done technical things that weren't happening in 1978 (Malmsteen, Vai, etc) in rock plus clever things in other genres (Frank Gambale rewriting the sweep picking rule book for starters). Van Halen was, arguably, the end game for guitarists in the blues rock tradition (he was heavily influenced by Clapton). But we had guitarists (like John McGeoch)trying to reinvent the electric guitar outside of that tradition. It may not have been technically complex but it was moving the language on. Johnny Marr, lots of Afro beat stuff, loads of others in the 80s and 90s and beyond bringing new flavours into guitar playing. The technicalities of playing were increasingly codifed so you arrive at guitarists like Guthrie Govan who can play anything. The problem is more that the songs haven't caught up - there isn't that much use for that kind of playing in anything other than quite specialist listening.
I've watched a bunch of Paul Gilbert videos recently. He was a post Malmsteen shredder and a very versatile and technical guitarist. But his thing now is pretty much saying that stuff doesn't ROCK: it doesn't reach many people on a gut level. He's become more interested in blues and melody and extracting dynamics and feel out of the guitar. Maybe it's more that guitar still technically progressed but Van Halen was as high a level of progression that most people can find palatable. 

prh777

rhythmically things have moved on massively.  Meshuggah, Monuments, periphery etc.  Maybe not technically forward but definitely compositionally with displacement etc.

Danny1969

Personally I don't think anyone has done anything technique wise that has had the impact Van Halen had .... I mean guys can pick faster and tap faster but those techniques were his first. He was also the first guy I ever heard tap out harmonics like the intro of Mean Streets and the first guy I heard do crazy wide picked intervals like Ice-cream man. When I think of all the techniqies rock guitairst use now it's all VH originally 

The big difference is Van Halen can also write killer riffs and play with such a groove that the music cross's over to non musicians ... something people like Vai, Gilbert etc never seem to manage although Gilbert came close with Mr big on one album

Country rock is where the killer techniques are now for me, incredible players in that field

guitarfishbay

See this is a flawed question because you're equating success with evolution in technique. 

The days of the the rock god are over, most people don't care about solos, but there are people within sub genres of metal who've pushed technique to crazy levels.

The guys from Sikth and Meshuggah have influenced a lot of this generations metal guitar stuff and that's about as far removed from 70s rock as you can get.

MagicPigDetective

Csn I be the first to mention Tom Morello? He did bring some new ideas to the table. 

MagicPigDetective

Also Kevin Shields (his use of the tremolo bar and effects had not been done that way before) + Thurston Moore/ Sonic Youth, crazy experementaion and tunings, sticking screwdrivers between strings etc 

viz

The whole jazz metal thing with people like Shaun Baxter, Greg Howe et al started in the 80s / 90s thing and is still continuing to develop

Drew_TNBD

Old people are old. heh.

sweepy

Allan Holdsworth rewrote the book on electric guitar, Van Halen etc nicked bits that they could use in a rock context

axisus

Technique has improved, musicality probably hit a plateau ages ago. The biggest difference is the amount of people all around the world who get to a very good standard in their bedroom. 

koneguitarist

sweepy said:

Allan Holdsworth rewrote the book on electric guitar, Van Halen etc nicked bits that they could use in a rock context

What did Holdsworth do that was so different, not really conversant with his material? 

Winny_Pooh

Allan Holdsworth. His technique, sense of melody & harmony is bit brain melting. He is so out there though that he is hard to appreciate. 

Michael Hedges invented a new acoustic idiom in the 80's

Pat Metheny has a great and distinctive take on things.

Marc Ribot does great skronk, his work on Rain Dogs, mixing dissonance & cuban vibes was very influential.

Jack White. Fantastic songwriter. Annoying soloist but his style was a great blend of new and old and reinvigorated rock music. 

Shawn Lane's classical Indian hybrid stuff was quite interesting. 

Jerry Douglas's slide work is a radical evolution of stuff anyone was doing in the 70's

Barney

I think it was Holdsworth the changed the way electric guitar is now ...he was miles ahead and still is ...i would say Eddie van halen would agree

Jez6345789

I think it still continues to evolve and the range of accessible music in all genre has never been greater.

van halen was a landmark at the time and did stuff that was popular but popularity can't be the measure of innovation in my mind.

blobb

It's progressed from an art to a hobby.

TheBigDipper

blobb said:

It's progressed from an art to a hobby.

Ooh, wicked...  

stickyfiddle

Surprised no-one has mentioned Jonny Greenwood, The Edge or Matt Bellamy.

Barney

I think its progressed technically ...but not sure iff thats in a good way ... it seems something is lacking to me compared to what players used to play and sound like ...its maybe just my age though....

I honestly think with all the guitar schools ect ..they are churning out a lot of players that sound the same ....i understand that its like an apprenticeship and when you finish this you need to forge your own style but most dont ....
In the 70s all this wasnt as accessable so players forged their own style and end ended up more creative in my opinion

VimFuego

stickyfiddle said:

Surprised no-one has mentioned Jonny Greenwood, The Edge or Matt Bellamy.

I did