Current Events > How skilled were 70s/80s rock legends really?

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Metal_Bug
07/30/21 12:26:32 PM
#1:


Like take Jimmy Hendrix for example. If you took a classical musician of his same skill level (but a different instrument, I suppose. Like violin) would their music career pretty well? Would many of them still be considered among the elite?

If they weren't famous Rock stars, would they have been considered extremely talented musicians?
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CanuckCowboy
07/30/21 12:27:31 PM
#2:


Hendrix was a legendary guitar player.


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R1masher
07/30/21 12:28:40 PM
#3:


Randy Rhodes

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Winrawr
07/30/21 12:29:48 PM
#4:


It really depends on the artist and how you define skill. Most pop rock is just simple progressions, simple percussion, a simple bass line. Go to genres like funk, and jazz the musicians there are far more talented technically

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pinky0926
07/30/21 12:31:17 PM
#5:


Skilled in entirely different ways, by necessity.

There's an interesting phenomenon you witness with extremely advanced classical musicians when they try to improvise. They tend to fucking SUCK at it. Like there are many examples I can give you of the best classical musicians of all time just absolutely dive bombing at other genres of music. Take the greatest classical violinist of all time and get him to try and play some simple gypsy music and he will sound completely wooden and uninspired.

Equally, even the best jazz musicians have awful intonation and clarity. Guys that can improvise at lightning speed and reharmonise anything on a dime suddenly can't recreate a single passage from a classical text with the expected clarity.

Hendrix wasn't famous because he played guitar with the precision of Paco De Lucia or Segovia or like Hilary Hahn plays bach. he was famous because he took everybody's idea of what the guitar was at the time and turned it upside down, inside out and then time travelled it into a different cosmic dimension. The creativity was off the charts. By any guitar teacher trying to teach you how to finger properly, his playing was incredibly sloppy. But then imagine you're a sound engineer in 1965 and you hear THAT. You'd have an existential crisis.

That takes a different kind of skill compared to being able to absorb complex pieces and then interpret them with 100% precision a week after picking up the sheet music.

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Xethuminra
07/30/21 12:34:42 PM
#6:


I mean dude

Performance art is flippin....

yknow?
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Smashingpmkns
07/30/21 12:36:34 PM
#7:


They are rock stars because they're extremely talented musicians tho. Luck is like 85% of it for most but Hendrix probably isn't a good example of that.
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DD Divine
07/30/21 12:38:12 PM
#8:


Very skilled because they were Inventing new
ways to play guitars. They were constantly evolving the sound and things you could do with electric guitar. Especially the bands from the 70s.

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RedJackson
07/30/21 12:38:18 PM
#9:


pinky0926 posted...
Skilled in entirely different ways, by necessity.

There's an interesting phenomenon you witness with extremely advanced classical musicians when they try to improvise. They tend to fucking SUCK at it. Like there are many examples I can give you of the best classical musicians of all time just absolutely dive bombing at other genres of music.

Equally, even the best jazz musicians have awful intonation and clarity.

Hendrix wasn't famous because he played guitar with the precision of Paco De Lucia or Segovia or like Hilary Hahn plays bach. he was famous because he took everybody's idea of what the guitar was at the time and turned it upside down, inside out and then time travelled it into a different cosmic dimension. The creativity was off the charts.

That takes a different kind of skill compared to being able to absorb complex pieces and then interpret them with 100% precision a week after picking up the sheet music.

Absolutely QFT. Not to take away from music from the past, but Jimi didnt even need to be that good at facilitating behind an instrument.. he just created and created

There are kids who can technically play circles around Hendrix, but that they are capable of writing something like Hendrix which results in absolute musical freedom has yet to be seen tbh

Coltrane is about the only other musician I can think of that achieved total freedom of the mind through music.. I think a lot of artists get close, but that they just want to bleed out music from their eyes and fully channel that and form a section of music just indiscriminate of time, meter, key, and let go of who they are and just be music?

nah, imo it hasnt been achieved I guess free jazz and random happenings is like it.. but its not like sending off an arrow straight into the heart of the sun itself

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Metal_Bug
07/30/21 11:50:13 PM
#10:


RedJackson posted...
but that they are capable of writing something like Hendrix which results in absolute musical freedom has yet to be seen tbh

Coltrane is about the only other musician I can think of that achieved total freedom of the mind through music.. I think a lot of artists get close, but that they just want to bleed out music from their eyes and fully channel that and form a section of music just indiscriminate of time, meter, key, and let go of who they are and just be music?

nah, imo it hasnt been achieved I guess free jazz and random happenings is like it.. but its not like sending off an arrow straight into the heart of the sun itself
Buckethead
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sktgamer_13dude
07/30/21 11:54:11 PM
#11:


Metal_Bug posted...

Buckethead

I know Ill sound like a casual Buckethead fan, cause I am, but Soothsayer is god damn beautiful.
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Metal_Bug
07/31/21 12:19:55 AM
#12:


sktgamer_13dude posted...
I know Ill sound like a casual Buckethead fan, cause I am, but Soothsayer is god damn beautiful.
I identify the same as you. Casual Buckethead fan, and Soothsayer is one of my favorite pieces of music.
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weekoldhotdog
07/31/21 12:22:58 AM
#13:


they were entirely skilled for their era of pioneering this kind of music.

of course, over the years it's been perfected and successfully experimented upon by just as talented if not more talented artist.

But these artists are -not- pioneers.

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QueenCarly
07/31/21 12:23:21 AM
#14:


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RedJackson
07/31/21 12:52:17 AM
#15:


Metal_Bug posted...
Buckethead

Hes like the guy that when I started music influenced me the most as far as guitar music went I even bought a white mask lol used the same stretch strap >_>

While Buckethead is fantastic, I think he just achieves something else for me

Jimi Hendrix truly just was like able to channel the force not even, he IS the force

and I think John Coltrane achieved this depth with improv too that sounds like someone reaching higher.. you dont need to be a musician to even hear it youre just like goddamn

its even better when you play music because you just know that feeling, it gives you the shudders really when you hear a piece of music and youre just touched by it whether happy, sad, angry or if youre playing and youre lost in the ritual of good improv

to try and improv whatever Hendrix or Coltrane is incredibly hard tho, its crazy how they were even able to pull that kind of musical freedom.. lots of songs just sound pretty, but they definitely made complete freedom a word available to the vernacular of music specific to instruments

i cant even say Im a fan of every song, its just like as a player its just totally amazing to see the art part of music for guitar or sax >_>

Its hard to describe.. like if every song is a different world and these new worlds come about from the old worlds of music then you see the natural foundations of these words spelt out by Hendrix or Coltrane.. at least the part of music being loose or even rebellious

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NullAndVoidFC
07/31/21 12:54:09 AM
#16:


Technical skill is fine but putting a compelling song together from instrumentation, to lyrics to performance is the highest of skill.
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