Tell me if you agree with my dad's statement of all metal guitarists?
My dad being ignorant, he said " Metal guitarists are good but they aren't TALENTED. Usually it's a bunch of fast chords." So last night, he watched Jari Maenpaa from Wintersun and he said to me "You see, he's actually talented, while others aren't." My dad is into the bands liked Led Zeppelin, Yes, Rush, Pink Floyd etc....I asked him which metal he has heard...and you know wtf he was talking about? 80 HAIR METAL! He doesn't know jack about the modern metal bands....or about melodic death metal or power metal, or progressive metal, anything. He onlys know the bands like Metallica, Megadeth, Judas Priest, and then ALL the hair metal bands. So tell me, do you all agree that metal guitarists aren't talented, they are good for what they do, but not talented?
He said he can't take all the screaming (assuming that ALL metal bands scream just because the ones I listen to do in fact scream.) So obviously he is very ignorant about metal.
2008-07-10T16:40:56Z
BTW, my dad is stuck up on the thought that technicality is what makes a good guitarist while I STRONGLY disagree...my favorite guitarist isn't anywhere near real technical, but I like his simple guitar solos, they sound better, IMO, than the ones that are technical. My dad doesn't think about that, he only cares if it's technical....like the guitarist Steve Howe I can't stand him. He's not playing any real melody, just fast notes and all these different kinds of picking....that's not what I wanna hear, I wanna hear a good melody or riff, whether it's simple or not, but my dad doesn't think that way...so he thinks the metal guitarists aren't technical enough because they aren't like Steve Howe.
2008-07-10T16:56:05Z
Yeah Darth, I guess that's what it is. He just won't get it...I know you like the prog rock too, like him. He wants to hear something that's really hard to play despite whether it sounds good, IMO. I don't even know if he pays attention to the fact that it sounds good, all I hear him raving about is how fast, or complicated it was.
2008-07-10T17:07:06Z
oh Peaches, I need melody in my music. I'm not a guitar player, but those bands like Suicide Silence, it doesn't seem hard because it's like a 3 minute long breakdown through the whole song! I'm not "brutal". lol
Anonymous2008-07-10T16:51:32Z
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Dude I understand where You're BOTH coming from. All this Grunting, Squealing, and Screaming absolutely sucks to Me. I can't stand it and would rather listen to Someone's nails being drug across a blackboard, and I'm 41. So I kinda understand Your Dad's position.
BUT, I vividly remember being 17 and having MY Dad tell Me "Son that stuff is just noise, it takes no talent to play, it takes real talent to play Classical Music" The Bands He was referring to that "sucked" and were "talentless" to Him at the time were Judas Priest and Def Leppard. Obviously he was wrong. But it was His age and the fact that the Music was so alien to His frame of refrence that distorted His viewpoint. Exactly the same way with me and most modern Metal. I hear it, I hear rubbish, so does Your Dad. It's the Generation gap at work all over again. So I understand where You're coming from too.
But He's wrong about the Music not requiring talent. It does.
*Edit* I'm with Your Dad on the Technicality issue. It's obvious to Me that the more technically sound a Guitarist is the better of a Guitarist they are.
*Edit 2* Before anybody jumps My weathers remember I said "most" modern Metal NOT "all" modern Metal
*Edit 3* I understand Your frustration here Holy River. I used to fell exactly the same way trying to convince My Dad that KK Downing and Glenn Tipton's Guitar Work has just as much Musical value as a Beethoven Sonata did. I hope you have better luck than I did. over 20 years later and My Dad still hates all Rock Music
Sorry but your dad is just like every other ignorant person out there. How can you be not talented in a genre that features the most talented musicians out of any rock or rock type genre? It just doesn't make sense. If he likes technicality you should show him a band like Origin or Decapitated or Brian Drill. Maybe show him some Atheist and see if he thinks that they aren't talented. Basically, your dad falls into the category of most of the population that thinks that screaming automatically makes any band bad. Obviously his ears aren't trained to listen to metal music. And I can say this with objectivity, it's not like metal is the only genre that I listen to. As a matter of fact, I have played classical piano since age 4, so I would say that I have an extremely varied taste of music and an acute sense of what classifies as talented and what is not talented. To me, fast shredding on a guitar can be impressive if it is extremely clean, but it doesn't compare to guitarists like Satriani or Buckethead that put immense feeling into solos. Maybe show him some Death, they are another band that have extremely musical solos.
EDIT- I also think that what may bother your dad most is just the screaming, so he can't look past the screaming and actually hear what is going on. My parents do the same thing and also think my music is sh1t but I just have come to ignore them. Their loss, they don't get to hear the best music that is being put out today because they won't have their ears adjust to screaming, which I admit can be a hard task. I was not open to screaming at first, but now when bands don't scream it almost feels empty (depending on the style of music). But anyways, I don't think you'll be able to convince your dad.
I don't agree with your Dad on his comments. The truth is... metal guitarist are definitely "talented" and here are some clear examples of that...
1. Eddie Van Halen 2. Vinnie Vincent - ( was in KISS from 1982 - 1983) 3. Dave Mustaine 4. Yngwie Malmsteen 5. Steve Vai 6. Joe Satriani 7. Warren De Martini - Ratt 8. George Lynch - Dokken 9. Randy Rhoads - Ozzy 10. John Petrucci -Dream Theater
Even though I tend to agree with your Dad on this issue, I'm happy to see that your interested In rock. My sons will only listen to Hip Hop or Rap, or whatever that crap is. I think that music is generational, that is to say that, my Dad enjoyed the Big band era, he liked music that was popular when he was 12 years old. I like music that was around when I was 12, and earlier to (say about 64 to 79) by the time the 80's rolled around everything started to sound crappy. My sons are the same way, they started to like rap when they were 12, and now there hooked. give them a couple of more years and new rap will start sounding bad to them. If I was your Dad I wouldn't even argue with you about this, at least you like rock, but wait for 5 or 10 years, and all the new stuff you'll hear will sound like crap.
The equipment improves every decade, since thrash and grunge there has become a huge gap between the old and the new that wasn't there before. In the eighties you loved the rock from the sixties and seventies as well. Now the music is just too hard for someone from that era to consider as good. In fact it probably sounds like a joke.