Mike for the Shredder award?

Playing 3 notes with good intonation vibrato and articulation overall is A LOT harder than shred. Everybody can shred, you can see in youtube that. You can also see how everyone fails at doing proper bends and vibrato. I defy Annihilat0r to post a video of him playing any opeth solo and playing it WELL as mike does.
 
Haha, no tomatos please!

Yah, that was certainly not meant as a instructional video per se, something we we're "forced" to do and it came out like that. Sadly.

Obviously the original player would play the solo slightly different each time but it'd certainly be a lot more genuine than if some other player did it, and you'd hear it came from the hands of the originator.

I just don't believe in reproducing "magic". If what you're saying is true (which it isn't, hehe) it diminishes the importance of some of the musical treasures we have out there. No other player could get my juices flowing like Blackmore in "Stargazer", like Gilmour in "Shine on...." and the rest of them. Even if you had a complete set of tabs.

OK, bed time...I'm actually in Istanbul right now.
Mike

May I treat you a beer? :)




P.S. Funny thing is, I don't know any DragonForce song name. Just watched their solos, so I was not comparing your musicianship in fact.
 
What I love about Mike's solos is that they are generally a bit easier to play. Most of my other favourite bands/musicians have solos just beyond my capabilities, but generally, Opeth is right at my level! For this I am most thankful!

However, while I can 'play' most of the solos, I would never claim to be able to express exactly what is going on in the music because I didn't write it. I'll never know what was going through Mike's head when he was composing so I'll never really know exactly what he was trying to achieve. I like to think I get pretty close though..

As an aside, Mike- I think you are being a little harsh about shredders. There are some more tasteful players out there. Try Guthrie Govan for example. Not only is he exceptionally skilled but he has a flair for maintaining fantastic tone, variety and emotion in his playing even at high speed.

My personnal king of the solo though has to be Richard Thompson. Incredible acoustic and electric playing and always a unique take every time he plays a solo. I've heard him live several times and he never plays the same solo twice. I've always thought an RT-Akerfeldt project would be awesome (hint hint)...
 
No other player could get my juices flowing like Blackmore in "Stargazer"...

Weird, I'm listening to that exact song as I'm reading along...



Music is just one of those things with so many intangible elements, it's ludicrous to claim that just by knowing the techniques and technicalities of a track or solo, you'll be able to reproduce exactly the piece recorded or played by the original artist. Even if that original artist isn't as talented or skilled as you, there's always some slight stylistic changes or tendencies that will be just too faint and subtle to recreate. I see what Annhilator is getting at: in a perfect world, it is technically possible. But in reality, there's too many uncontrolled elements.
 
I find that 'shredding' as what it is, bores the hell out of me sometimes, and I'm a guitarist of 10 years. I've never been so bored watching 2 guitarist try to out-do each other's shred on stage. When I saw Arch Enemy do it once, that was awesome, but when you see 2 guys constantly going at it for 10 mins, it makes me wish I has my MP3 player with me so I could listen to some real music.

I can see that most of you do realize that Mike isn't a 'shredder', so how is it that he's been nominated for the award?
 
I just noticed that all the other options on that poll have 2 guitarists, whereas Mike is all alone, is he just that good that he outclasses them by himself? :p

(I am still assuming that when they say 'shredder' they don't actually mean shredder in the the technical sense, as I said earlier they are probably just using it to sound 'cooler' than just saying guitarist)
 
If the 100% accurate tabs thing was correct we could all just listen to Guitar Pro play the songs for us and it would sound exactly the same as the original piece. There a million things that go into defining the sound of an instrument, as Mike touched on, beyond what is written on the sheet. Those parts are ~95% of what actually playing an instrument is about, and it's the whole reason I keep doing it night after night. You can always improve, even if you don't constantly up the notes per second.
And no, if you can play fast you are not automatically able to play the same stuff a slower player does, those are quite different schools of playing.
 
4. Annihilat0r should record newer reproductions of Opeth solos' before trying to excuse his lack of experience, which isn't even provable (most people lie about this to look better).
5. My final conclusion : Annihilat0r got some good points.. it's good to know technically how to play guitar. But is it necessery to "shred" and play hyper-fucking-fast to be better? I don't think so. And can a great shredder reproduce flawlessly the way the greatest musicians played.. no, again, not necesserly.

Technically I can't "prove" that I've been playing for only two years (who can), but I do have a very good friend who is a regular member of this forum, and he knows that I have been playing only since 2007. That's about as much as someone can do to "prove" such a thing. And let me tell you something, the time I started, I was so ignorant on music that I didn't know what a "chord" meant. You heard me correct.

Here are a few Youtube videos OF ME PLAYING WHEN I HAD BEEN PLAYING FOR ONLY ONE YEAR:

Deliverance


Funeral Portrait 1 (somewhere it goes offsync, because I couldn't hear the music in the background; plus it has some more mistakes like the overbending)


Funeral Portrait 2
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LB9rRmGT0Q8&feature=related[/ame]

I don't claim to have exactly reproduced the solos in these videos, all in all they were all played in the same day IIRC, and without really rehearsing much and doing retakes.
 
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That first video may not be the easiest thing to do, but I know plenty of skilled guitarists who can do it.
Dragonforce is definitely skilled, but basically all they do is speed, and it all sounds the same. Inhuman rampage was basically the same song 8 times in a row. JP and Michael Romeo are a different type of speed(the talented type and they should have been in that category.) Mikael may not be a shredder, (and I know this isn't the main topic of the thread) but he is definitely more talented than Herman Ri, even if he isn't a shredder.
 

Sweet jaysus, that sucked. I've been in garage/bar bands with better sweepers than that. No kidding, once it was a guy with a Petrucci fetish and the other one worships at the altar of Vai - both could do cleaner sweeps than that shit.

That guy must be made to watch something like this from Mr. PotatoHead:



or something like this (how to not suck live):



so he can weep and do us a favor and burn his guitar.

(and the tapping guy was so lame it isn't even worth discussing - I think I could pull that off with a little practice, and I play bass... I thoroughly suck at guitar :lol: )
 
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I got to be honest with you annhilator, you suck.

You got the notes right, but you didn't get the "attitude", the "feeling" and all that stuff.

Your pick attacks were weak, your slides were fast and snappy and not very emotive, your vibrato sucked and you were slightly out of tune. Just everything was wrong, dude.

You are not playing, you are just running through the solo. You know what I mean?
 
oh yeah, you should do just that - make nonsensical criticizations when you realize a 1-year player is actually playing better than you do. "no attitude and feeling" - "weak" 'pick attacks' - "snappy and not very emotive" slides, "sucky" vibrato... yeah man, those were really definitive and exactly to the point! go play nothing else matters.
 
i could try putting this nicely but...

"I being a 2 year old player can play your solos as good as you do"

and then watching ure videos.

...

...

:lol:

id be so embarassed.

im not saying ure bad for the time youve been playing etc but shit man, u gotta be mighty stupid to compare yourself with mikael like that, no matter whatever reservations u might make.
 
oh yeah, you should do just that - make nonsensical criticizations when you realize a 1-year player is actually playing better than you do. "no attitude and feeling" - "weak" 'pick attacks' - "snappy and not very emotive" slides, "sucky" vibrato... yeah man, those were really definitive and exactly to the point! go play nothing else matters.

I just said that you didnt capture the "feeling" and all that stuff, the stuff that really matters.
If you really think that sounds good, slap yourself in the face. It doesn't

You said you could play it as well as mikael, and then i see that shit? what the fuck man?

My skill level is irrelevant as well.