Okay, every time I ask some variation of this question, I get great responses but some faction starts a flame war.

Here's the deal: I'm a beginning music student. I'd like to hear from some experienced guitarists and / or hardcore listeners.

What kind of guitarist is Prince? What is the Prince "style"? I don't mean that he is Andres Segovia or anything else. He is his own man. I also don't want to imply that he is the "greatest" this or the "worst" that.

Just want some insight into his technique, his influences, his artistic choices, his use of the guitar as a composition tool, etc.

To further focus the discussion: how would you break down Purple Rain as a guitar composition? How was it done?


Thanks in advance, (I'll shut up now...)

Alasseon said:

to get an idea of what kind of guitarist prince is, a good place 2 start would be his influences which have been said to be claydes smith,carlos santana and jimi hendrix among them...but as far as style goes, no one's been able to put an exact label on his style 'cause he changes with every album....

I'd have to say a very good guitarist. He is normally playing what he's hearing in his head. If you have ever seen him play...he's almost mouthing the notes and playing them. The guitar speaks words sometimes.

In my opinion Prince is many guitarists in one.
His influences stem from santana, hendrix ,mainly the clean flowing licks like little wing and castles made of sand,Brian may "3 chains o gold" the guitarist from "boston" eddie hazel from funkadelic and steve Vai
His techniques range from beautiful embellsihed chordal phrases ie "she loves me for me"
real aggresive riffing ie bambi through to chaos and disorder
improvised licks and harmonies that float around and add fluidity to tunes like "glam slam "and and "anna stesia"
On the funk tip, influcences- jimmy nolan and the p-funk army.he also has this improvised thing called "Spagging"were Prince usses fuzz and a wah wah and goes beserk in background of tunes Ie "Rock hard in funky place" "shockadelica"
solo wise he can create scorching sonics that bring Hendrix to mind using blues and dorian scales.but more uniquely he seems to play like a true genius playing over major key songs, check out "Purple rain" and the cover of "just my imagination" on the small club album

The song "Purple Rain" is composed using four chords, One of his flavours for chords are sus2 chords short for suspened chords which give a hauting sound, listen 2 "Sometimes it snows in April "and When u were mine". A bold composistion technically due to finishing the verse and staring chorus on same chord.,
The licks in the 2nd and 3rd verse combine major and minor keys and the solo is a beautiful piece that shows prince as true craftsman with a haunting lick and some graet phrares using the pentatonic and major scale
Hope this helped

great reply, percy28

percy28 said:

You just gave me enough to think about for an entire year. Thank you SO much.

OH, and umm, which four chords make up Purple Rain? Every tab transcription I find on the net changes them. They rarely agree...

I've said it before...I LOVE THIS GROUP!!!

Prince is to be honest a bit of a "gimmicky" guitarist, which is pretty typical for anyone whose roots are in funk music. That means very few of his compositions actually rely on the guitar - they work on completely different grounds and the guitar is often there as just an extra. On most Prince cuts you could replace the guitar lines with synths or something else and the songs would still work as compositions.

The chords for purple rain are
Bbsus2 this is played on the "a" string. Play a Bb minor chord then take your middle finger out.
Bbsus2/G.Same chord but put your middle finger on the "G" on the sixth sring.
Fadd9. hard chord to fret. Barre the whole of the 1st fret. put 2nd finger on 3rd fret astring.little finger on 5th fret d string and 3rd finger 3rd fret g string, a real bitch!if its too hard play a normal f chord.
Ebadd9. played on the "A" string fret all 5 strings on the 6th fret,put 3rd finger on 8th fret d string,little finger 10th fret g string.
glad I helped.
Give us a shout if theres anything else.