Rockability said:

I Love Prince he is in My top 5 favourite artists.
Ive been Prince fan since 1983.
I play guitar but Im not on Prince's level.

As for Prince's guitar playing I find Prince reasonably interesting and obviously competent player but yeah I can think of players I find more interesting.
Prince is great but he has that trademark signature style usually uses same effects and tone that doesnt vary so much sometimes he does things that can be bit annoying for example when he was doing the "whole lotta love" solo then spent ages at the end getting the guitar to make all those wacky sounds it was cool till a point but he just milked that too much it became overindulgent. e.

He does often goes for the drawn out bends and fast runs with the distortion right up.
Its interesting watching him play some jazz nd would be great just to watch him play bunch different styles that we havnt really seen him play.

One of Prince's most interesting and unique sounding riffs that I never grow tired of is the intro to "When Dove's Cry" that man that is the shiit.

I alos liked his guitar work on "Just My imagination" it was soulful and dynamic performance, there are many othr examples similiar to that.
[Edited 10/24/07 1:36am]

prince is a producer beside guitar player.he plays what his ears tell him to

If I could change anything about his guitar work, I'd change his tone. Get rid of the 80's distortion.

ndr prince changed his tone few years ago during rave era he had that awful sintetic tone,now he have great natural raw tone

thebanishedone said:

At times, yes, like the Planet Earth solo.

But Whole Lotta Love, for example, sounds way too distorted & not crunchy enough for my liking.

MajesticOne89 said:

I THINK I can play that one ...have to talk to my music teacher next week to give me the sheet music to that one...

1KissAtATyme said:

do they mean the kiddie song or the Stevie Ray version?

NDRU said:

I really do think they mean the kiddie

Prince is a dressed-up blues player who owes much to Hendrix's legacy.

That said, he was very strong (stronger, IMO) at non-blues runs between Purple Rain and Batman. I dug his lead tones (very Brian May-ish) from that era the best, and he had some mad vibrato going on.

Since then, his phrasing has lent itself more toward "straighter" blues, rawer tones and a heavier reliance on effects than I'd like to see. And the vibrato seems to have been replaced by his overuse of the whammy bar on his Strats and Symbols.

Still, a treat in his playing has always been the ghost notes he hits. He's been doing that consistently throughout his career, blinding you with killer passages, and then throwing in throwaway phrases as intervening licks. Neat technique.

prince didnt replace his strong vibrato with whammy bar.he still does it.
whammy bar is only ann improvment to princes style.and it brought freshness to his playing.
prince rave era and prince now days is almost totaly diffrent player guitar .
prince froim these days will kill the shit out of rave era prince.

the only time prince fucked up on guitar is during rave era.awful playing on rave 2000 dvd.
he fucked up purple rain solo with 4 or 5 mistakes and every other solo.

thebanishedone said:

There's a strong difference in his vibrato from the earlier era and today. I know what I'm hearing. Thanks.

ThreadBare said:

I personally don't care for the way he uses the vibrato bar. For me one of the really distinguishing elements of his playing is his finger vibrato. The stuff he does with the bar seems too ornate and to my ear doesn't really sit well with the rest of his playing IMOHO. I'm sure you've heard some keyboardist go overboard with a synth's pitch wheel, Well that's sorta how I feel about his bar work. But hey if he likes doing the ol' mangle & strangle with a Floyd Rose, who am I to judge? LOL!


But I really don't see him as being a "Dressed up Blues player". Sure he's a blues based guitarist, the root is there but I've never found his playing on a whole paricularly bluesy. Same goes for his Hendrix influence. I think his playing more in the spirit of Jimi more than what he's actually putting down on guitar.

As far as his lead playing overall It's the Santana influence I've heard the strongest. A good deal of his melodicism comes straight out of that bag. I think it's safe to say that he copped a lot of bluesier phrasing from Carlos as well.

Princes playing is not faceless, he's got a ton of personaltiy & attitute and I think he's done a repectable job of blurring the seams of influences. What he plays compliments his tunes well enough. What more could you really ask for?
[Edited 10/26/07 14:27pm]

Rockability said:

Question:
Can U play guitar better than Prince?

If so, we should be posting on Ur fansite everyday!