Has guitar playing progressed since the late 70's

Barney

Winny_Pooh said:

^ amongst guitarists SRV was huge in influence. You will still see many players copping his style whereas EVH-isms have largely disappeared. 

I still look at SRV as being heavily influenced by Hendrix

prh777

http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/14912/why-is-hendrix-so-revered-amongst-guitarists

history doesn't repeat but it rhymes?

richardhomer

I reckon there's been massive innovation since the 70s.

Andy Summers pretty much rewrote the rule book about the guitar worked in a trio - not just his very clever use of effects - but very sophisticated chord voicings. I very underrated player.

Beck has continued to evolve a highly idiocincratic style.

I suppose what you're getting at @koneguitarist is that perhaps 'mainstream' guitar playing hasn't really moved on? Apart from Summers - that's probably true - but as others have mentioned, on the fringes there's all sorts of interesting stuff going on.

TheBigDipper

Danny1969 said:

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
<snip>

Not trying to pick a fight, but Steve Hackett was tapping on Genesis recordings several years before EVH.

EricTheWeary

Alan Holdsworth had been releasing records for several years before the release of Van Halen I so I'm not too sure he's an answer to the question even though he's been mentioned a few times.

TheBigDipper said:

Danny1969 said:

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
<snip>

Not trying to pick a fight, but Steve Hackett was tapping on Genesis recordings several years before EVH.

Several people had used tapping well before Van Halen, I think Eddie got it from watching Billy Gibbons and expanding the technique but other rock players (including Hackett and Harvey Mandel) had used it a bit and there were jazzers doing it for decades. 

richardhomer said:

I reckon there's been massive innovation since the 70s.

Andy Summers pretty much rewrote the rule book about the guitar worked in a trio - not just his very clever use of effects - but very sophisticated chord voicings. I very underrated player.

Beck has continued to evolve a highly idiocincratic style.

I suppose what you're getting at @koneguitarist is that perhaps 'mainstream' guitar playing hasn't really moved on? Apart from Summers - that's probably true - but as others have mentioned, on the fringes there's all sorts of interesting stuff going on.

Just to reiterate what I think I said earlier that if you're using Van Halen I as the bench mark then what came after was the end of that lineage of blues rock based guitar bands as being the mainstream. The Police, U2, The Smiths, even Metallica had guitars but they used them in a different way with less of the guitar hero shtick. Again, Van Halen weren't really that well known in the UK at the time outside of guitar magazines. I suspect he's more widely known as a guitar hero for Beat It than anything else he'd done. 

PolarityMan

Well you have to be a fuck of a lot tighter than in the 70s that's for sure.

stratman3142

I still hear new stuff that inspires and excites me, so for me it's still progressing.

deano

Barney said:

Winny_Pooh said:

^ amongst guitarists SRV was huge in influence. You will still see many players copping his style whereas EVH-isms have largely disappeared. 

I still look at SRV as being heavily influenced by Hendrix

A little, but much more heavily influenced by Albert King. But I take your point. In no way was SRV original, and I suspect he wouldn't have claimed to be.

What he did do was bring blues back into fashion after the disco and synth-driven era of the late 70's and early 80's.

He was absolutely a very influential musician, not only amongst guitarists, but amongst music lovers who wanted to get back to a music more earthy and - for want of a better word - animalistic.

I think that is ultimately the answer to the OP. The guitar is a simple instrument really, and it's use will go in cycles along with the techniques. The only was I can see a leap of the Clapton, Hendrix, EVH style is if a new technique is invented and that would have to involve a new piece of technology, whether a pick or something held in the left or right hand.

builttospill

I've been listening to a lot of math rock/emo (or whatever you call it!) and I'm really getting into it. There's some really creative stuff going on. Really liking the older stuff too e.g American Football, Cap'n Jazz, newish bands like CSTVT and Grown Ups are worth a listen too

Funkfingers

Er, we use one hand to stop strings behind frets. We use the other hand to produce sound from one or more of the strings. Either hand can tap, pull off or hammer on. Bits of either hand can damp unwanted string vibration. This has not changed.

That leaves note choices (Reinhardt, McLaughlin, Holdsworth, Zappa) and sonic textures (Summers, Fripp, Belew, Torn). 

We can only play what we can reach. (Hence, the dearth of Holdsworth, Via or Gilbert tribute bands.) Signal processors present endless possibilities for sound modification. Maybe this explains their current fashionability? 

Anyone who does anything truly innovative is just going to get compared to Jimi Hendrix. He has a fifty year head start on market acceptance. 

ICBM

koneguitarist said:

In fact I would say Chuck Berry, Hank Marvin, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix and EVH are the only guitarists that really changed the game for everyone and influenced just about everyone with a guitar. 
Yes Page, Beck and countless others were probably better but none had the impact. 

Tony Iommi

The most influential guitarist ever.

Because he not only essentially created a music form - metal - but by doing that he created an entire subculture which goes beyond the guitar, or even music. Of all the bands and guitarists who were considered 'heavy metal' in the late 60s and early 70s, only Black Sabbath remain so today.

That doesn't answer the original question, I know...

Stuckfast

I'd suggest that Lou Reed actually exerted a much greater influence than some of the names mentioned in this thread.

DulcetJones

There's always going to be someone who picks up a guitar and approaches it a bit different, and setting a new trend.  For me it was Hendrix, pushing the boundaries a strat plugged into a Marshall could go and introducing fuzz boxes and wah wah pedals to a generation.  I don't consider Hendrix to be the most technically gifted player, he was great but the overall showmanship and musicality hit home more than a lot of "better" players.  EVH was the next game changer, taking two hand tapping(which he didn't "invent") to new levels.  And then there was Mark Knopfler, emerging in the middle of the punk versus metal volume/distortion fest with a clean strat sound that took over the radio charts.  Most of the players mentioned already in this thread have had an impact on me, the only aspect I didn't see(or missed) was flamenco, players like Paco de Lucia and Juan Serrano took the acoustic guitar places I will never be able to go.  All part of the whole guitar world.

BintyTwanger77

Yes. Two words: Johnny Marr.

hollywoodrox

EricTheWeary said:

Alan Holdsworth had been releasing records for several years before the release of Van Halen I so I'm not too sure he's an answer to the question even though he's been mentioned a few times.

TheBigDipper said:

Danny1969 said:

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
<snip>

Not trying to pick a fight, but Steve Hackett was tapping on Genesis recordings several years before EVH.

Several people had used tapping well before Van Halen, I think Eddie got it from watching Billy Gibbons and expanding the technique but other rock players (including Hackett and Harvey Mandel) had used it a bit and there were jazzers doing it for decades. 

richardhomer said:

I reckon there's been massive innovation since the 70s.

Andy Summers pretty much rewrote the rule book about the guitar worked in a trio - not just his very clever use of effects - but very sophisticated chord voicings. I very underrated player.

Beck has continued to evolve a highly idiocincratic style.

I suppose what you're getting at @koneguitarist is that perhaps 'mainstream' guitar playing hasn't really moved on? Apart from Summers - that's probably true - but as others have mentioned, on the fringes there's all sorts of interesting stuff going on.

Just to reiterate what I think I said earlier that if you're using Van Halen I as the bench mark then what came after was the end of that lineage of blues rock based guitar bands as being the mainstream. The Police, U2, The Smiths, even Metallica had guitars but they used them in a different way with less of the guitar hero shtick. Again, Van Halen weren't really that well known in the UK at the time outside of guitar magazines. I suspect he's more widely known as a guitar hero for Beat It than anything else he'd done. 

As a non guitar playing kid at the time in late 70s early 80s Eddie was very well known if you were into rock , my cousin  taped stuff for me til I could afford the albums or tapes . Van halen , rainbow ,deep purple ,Whitesnake ,ufo . All the little tribes of people  and kerrang magazine . Lots of people tapped before Eddie ,but Eddie did it with such flair it just took off. You also had randy doing amazing stuff with quiet riot and Ozzy 

racefaceec90

nels cline 

prowla

There have been two truly great rock guitar players: Hendrix and Van Halen; they are the ones who took the instrument and said this is what you can do with it.

Along the way, before and after, there have been many fine musicians, lots of incremental improvements, variations in styles and techniques, which have continued expanding the capabilities of the guitar.

If you look at metal bands, the staccato rhythm playing can be quite exemplary, along with the willingness to explore scales other than the simple blues based ones.

phil_b

well my playing hasn't at least

danishbacon

I think Tom Morello has really progressed what one can do with a guitar. BY that same token, so has Matt Bellamy. There was already a mention of Johnny Marr who has influenced countless others. Listen to some Phish if you'd like to understand what happened to American folk rock after the Grateful Dead or MOE. EVH a blip when you consider the breadth of guitar based music before and since. 

fastonebaz

There's that guy on Instagram who plays headless guitars and I think promotes Boss now,  he's very good,  seems to play a style i can't classify.