How good is Prince as a lead guitarist?

How good is Prince as a rhythm guitarist?

Are the two things really separate skills or just two parts of a whole?

Why does Pete Townsend say he can never play lead and why does Yngwie Malmsteen sound horrible when he plays the blues?

When will I stop asking music questions?

Alasseon said:

[Edited 5/3/05 2:58am]

Alasseon said:

Proficient but there are many better lead guitarists IMO.

I have to agree with Hectim here that he is top 5 material, the guy is a blast on rhythm guitar, his timing is sublime!

Yep, separate skills.


Dunno.

creatively Prince is the very best.

The answer to your ?uestion can be answered in one word:

Both!

don't worry, no one will ever believe you....

But the reality is....we're studying greatness!



jshua

Alasseon said:

Great and extraordinary lead guitarist, but average rythm guitarist...

Prince has never created great riffs though....

I've never really dug Prince as a lead guitarist.He's got the fire, though not a technically great player.
Just something about his sound that doesn't touch me.

As a rhythm guitarist however, that's another story. For funk he's pretty much at the top of the game.
I gained more respect for him as a rhythm guitarist in general after seeing his solo set a few times during the Musicology Tour.

To be a competent all around guitarist I just think you've got to have strong rhythm chops.
Not enough is made about having strong rhythm/accompanyment guitar skills it seems.
Let's face it, to the uninitiated, rhythm/accompanyment guitar is not the glamour-guitar spot.
But it's just simple math (don't freak, music is just the creative use of mathmatics).
Unless you're doing the guitar-god thing where all you do is play solos all night,
at some point you generally have to accompany someone else. Be it the vocalist or another instrumental soloist.

I had to learn this the hard way...in public!

Back in the formative years I thought i'd swallowed all great solos of the day. (Hendrix, B.B., Beck, Clapton, etc.)
And could regurgitate a veritable vomit-fest of these at will. Looking for a playing gig in Orlando, someone told me to check out this local cat named Bobby Williams. Turns out that Bobby had a full blown James Brown-clone "Show and Revue" thing happening.
He let my silly ass sit in one night and in the course of a 45 minute set I think I got to play one 16-bar solo (approx 30-40 seconds).

Here's where some of the math comes in. What the hell was I doing the other 44 minutes and 30 seconds?
At the end of the set, Mr. Williams called me to the side and said something like, "You're a nice fella but I need somebody that can play some rhythm. Why don't you go learn your chords and come back and see me."


Talk about a "Wanna Get Away" moment...



...You are now free to crawl about the ground, underneath that snake's belly.


In any case, i'm grateful to Bobby Williams to this day for pulling my coat about this issue.


To paraphrase the Bob Dylan tune Gotta Serve Somebody...

You might be a rock 'n' roll addict prancing on the stage
You might have drugs at your command, women in a cage
You may be a business man or some high degree thief
They may call you Doctor or they may call you Chief

But you're gonna have to accompany somebody
Yes indeed, you're gonna have to accompany somebody
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you're gonna have to accompany somebody


tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...rmusic.htm

krayzie said:

Then who do you consider to be a great rhythm guitarist?

Oh and for The Audience!
[Edited 5/6/05 2:09am]

hectim said:

Thanks hectim.

Let me bring up a contrarian to the "guitarist must play some rhythm" rule...

I don't like guitars. I like drums and I like Coltrane.
People used to get mad at me when I'd get hired for gigs.
I'd say, "I ain't gonna play chords. That's guitar. I'm a horn player."

~Sonny Sharrock

There's always that exception.

tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...rmusic.htm

Alasseon said:

1.I think Prince is great as a lead player not because he has chops (which he does to a certain degree) but moreso because of what he plays. I think he plays a lot like Miles did back in the 50's in that he didn't play a lot, but what he DID play was tasteful, melodic, and it made you anticipate what he was gonna play next.

2.Top notch!

3.Yes. Just because you're good at one, doesn't mean that you'll be good at the other. How many guitar players have you seen get up and play this incredibly fast solo but it's completely out of time with the rest of the band? But both parts make up the whole that is any harmonic instrument.

4.a.Pete actually is a pretty good lead player! Check out The Who's "Live At Leeds!"

b.Blues just isn't Yngwie's language. It's like when a lot of classical players play blues or jazz or anything outside their normal language. Conversely when you hear many non-classical musicians try to play classical music, it's a disaster, because they think that it's all notes on a page.





BTW The Audience's post regarding that learning experience with the funk band was great! I used to gig out with my dad a lot, and he used to subject me to what he called, "On-The-Job Training." Have me taking solos on tunes I'd never played before in terrible keys, with lighting so bad I couldnt' even read the chart if I wanted to....and all this in front of lots of people!

There must be silence, before, during, and after any music. Especially in a Live performance. Silence qualifies every note & chord & beat that is played.

No answer to what is best or what is easier, is ever answerable to myself. Technique is important, but without the moment at hand and the effect a performance, or recorded music has on the individual listener ; all judgements are personal taste, as it should be.

Today, where we can pull out recordings and analyse the crap out of music things are very subjective. We don't have to rely solely on our memory of what was the only music a 100 years ago; live music.

Personally I like Prince's Lead guitar tone, but the guy is so multi-faceted judging him on his individual skills becomes secondary to what you like about him as a whole, within yourself. Things I've heard on Record / CD. etc. can sound totally different live, as the Artist interprets the moment. We all percieve things differently

Keith Richards is a renowned Rhythm guitarist for what he doesn't play rather than what he does. Pretty esoteric stuff. Then again we are talking Art. Technically Prince is skilled in both Rhythmn and lead guitar. The rest is your palate, or taste.
IMO.

FLUX said:

u ARE the man.

FLUX said:

YES to silence as well as sound (See also Angus Young of AC/DC - very good at knowing when not to play as well as knowing when one emotive note will work better than three-hundred super-fast wank-off solo notes)

YES to Keith Richards as a great rhythm player (Brown Sugar, Honky Tonk Woman etc etc show what a difference having a good feel for a song can make) Pretty crap lead player, but hey.

and YES to Prince as a great rhythm AND lead player. Some players will be better at one or other, sure, but you should always have a good coverage of both, no.?
[Edited 5/17/05 3:24am]

Sheesh. Hulllooo? ERUPTION?

Sheesh you people. There's never enough notes on the speakers.

More = quality. Less = scaredycats.

I KID I KID