EVH - Visionary

[Firebrand]

Have to disagree with some of the comments...

I believe EVH was truly visionary - WAS. He isn't now. But with DLR in the mix he was...his music was completely original, nothing else like it. Dave may have provided some untrodden ground for the feel of VH, and for that he was visionary as well. But musically, for how he 100% changed the way rock and roll guitar was played, EVH was visionary for sure.

Some may not want to hear this, but Vai, Satch, and yes, Rhodes, to a degree, were riding EVH's coattails. Without EVH, none of them ever exist. Sorry to all the RR fans, but that's the truth.

I think 5150 had flashes of brilliance, but from there on, the Sam Experiment was a horrible train wreck for EVH's inner gears. Sad.

Yngwie did something different, yes, but did it really affect people? I say no...I am a guitarist, and while I admire his technique, I keep longing for the soul...and never find it.

Eddie Van Halen rewrote the way people played guitar - lots of people. Again, the only other person I can think of that can make the same claim is Hendrix.

For that, I think they both share the top of axe mountain. With that said, it just eats me up, though, to look at the last 20 years and think, "what if.....?"

[DLRdelight!]

No matter what, whenever looks of for the history of how the guitar was played, Ed willalways be there, and he deserves to be there. Sure he wasnt hot after the Dave era, but he still changed the way guitar was played

[ELVIS]

Originally posted by Firebrand
I believe EVH was truly visionary - WAS. He isn't now. But with DLR in the mix he was...his music was completely original, nothing else like it. Dave may have provided some untrodden ground for the feel of VH, and for that he was visionary as well. But musically, for how he 100% changed the way rock and roll guitar was played, EVH was visionary for sure.

Some may not want to hear this, but Vai, Satch, and yes, Rhodes, to a degree, were riding EVH's coattails. Without EVH, none of them ever exist. Sorry to all the RR fans, but that's the truth.

I think 5150 had flashes of brilliance, but from there on, the Sam Experiment was a horrible train wreck for EVH's inner gears. Sad.

Yngwie did something different, yes, but did it really affect people? I say no...I am a guitarist, and while I admire his technique, I keep longing for the soul...and never find it.

Eddie Van Halen rewrote the way people played guitar - lots of people. Again, the only other person I can think of that can make the same claim is Hendrix.

For that, I think they both share the top of axe mountain. With that said, it just eats me up, though, to look at the last 20 years and think, "what if.....?"

You're talking purely guitar, and to the "regular music fan", as you stated, that does not compute...


Ed was awesome, but the only thing new he did was hammer on's and poll off's...

Everything else he did was based on the technique of countless guitarists of the time, namely Eric Clapton, and Tony Iommy, as well as many others...

Edward stated as much...

I remember reading the interviews...


The only true thing you said, as far as Ed being a visionary, was "But with DLR in the mix he was"....


Isn't that what I said ??

[Terry]

Think Ed more than anything else just synthesized a bunch of techniques within rock music into his own style.

Pinched harmonics, tremolo bar antics and fast playing were all around before EVH burst onto the scene. He definitely took the two-handed tapping thing further than anyone else had before (as far as I know), but there were examples of that out there on record before Van Halen was released in 1978.

All of that, combined with building his own guitars and being an early advocate of the Floyd Rose...it all came together for the guy, and he had the fortune to be releasing his early records at a time when most of the previous guitar heroes were on autopilot.

[ELVIS]

I give Ed alot more credit than you just did...

[light 'em up!]

Even back in the day, The really badass jazz and classical players looked upon Ed as a joke... fast pentatonic player who slings a lot trickery and covers up his deficiencies w/ a whole lot of reverb, flange and delay.

Mainly, what I dug about Ed was his personalty chemistry w/DLR... we're talking rock and roll people, ain't a whole lot of vision to it.

[DavidLeeNatra]

it takes a bit of a vision if you get a technique like the hammering on called the "van halen"-technique in a lot of books...

[ELVIS]

To me, the most impressive part of Edward's playing is his ability to seemlesly connect his phrases and techinques...

He had alot of 'flair'...

Probably more than any other guitarist I know of...

His early guitar sound is amazing as well; bigger than the sum of it's parts...

[nosuchluck]

Mattias IA Eklundh is worth checking out if you're looking for innovation.

back in 1978, there was a 15 year old guitarist called Shawn Lane who could run circles around EVH. he toured with Black Oak Arkansas...
EVH was good no doubt, but Dave made a huge difference...

[fe_lung]

What makes Ed unique is the was he integrated what, for other guitarists, would be their "bag of tricks" into his style. Tappings, harmonics, and his mastery of the (then new) floyd rose were not just flashy little tricks used to show off, but rather basic songwriting tools.

Others had used any and/or all of Ed's tricks before he did but he fully realized the potential of those tricks.

[Northern Girl]

Re: EVH - Visionary

Originally posted by Firebrand
EVH was

Originally posted by katie
DLR is

[lms2]

Its nice to see a thread about EVH that doesn't include "wish he would die".

[Terry]

Originally posted by ELVIS
I give Ed alot more credit than you just did...

Kind of sounded like I was downplaying EVH's contribution to rock guitar there, but he had a unique approach and influenced a ton of players, myself among them.

He put a lot of time and practice into what he did, but the techniques he used weren't really anything he "invented", as it were. He distilled a lot of things into a style recognizable as his own. That's the mark of genius to me: taking what came before you and turning it into something different. In that sense he was a visionary, sure.

Look at what Stanley Clarke did with the two-hands-on-the-neck thing. He can do shit with that technique that Ed couldn't pull off in 100 years.

Guess it comes down to how much credit is enough for Ed? I don't rate guitar players...no such thing as the 'number one player of all time' nonsense in my book.

[nosuchluck]

surely you mean Stanley Jordan? about the 'two hands on the neck thing'.
Stanley Clarke was a bass player.

[ULTRAMAN VH]

In my opinion, Eddie is the best. It is a shame that alcohol seems to be more of a priority than playing the guitar. And reuniting with Hagar was another monumental chip off of the VH legacy. The new millenium has not been kind to Ed VH. But then again, he is digging his own hole.