It’s really unfair to compare guitar players from one genre of music to another. Technically, it’s akin to comparing violin players to fiddle players to cellists. With the guitar, there are chasms between genres. You shouldn’t pit a picker like Chet Atkins against a shredder like Yngwie, though you’d be surprised how it would all go down.
Having said that, Jack White is all about performance. He admits to playing grossly inferior guitars in the studio and on stage (I can vouch for this) just for the thrill that a string could break at any moment or the guitar will go out of tune because of a weakness in the neck joint, etc. and he’d have to do some pretty hefty improvisation to make it through a song. This makes his songs come alive in ways that players like Yngwie will never completely understand. Part of me instinctively respects this, but I don’t have the balls to stand on stage with a $60.00 instrument that may leave your shit in ruins at any moment. He has balls, and that comes through in his music.
But he isn’t even on the same planet as a shredder or a studio musician or a bluegrass musician, technically speaking. He admits this himself.
The ‘Grunge’ movement was an extinction level event for the 80’s and early 90’s shredders (at least in America–and much to the approval of many of my friends). There is no shortage of opinions that guitar players that have made names for themselves by running fret board blistering 64th note scales until the sound of each note becomes a rumbling cacophony of incoherence are all style over substance. They are accused of having no soul in their playing. I tend to agree with this assertion despite having been forged in the fires of this era. I listened to every shredder out there and at one time or another, could mimic them all. Once you learn to really play the instrument, the faster it is, the easier it is to play.
The obvious exceptions to players from this era are the real talents like Paul Gilbert and Nuno Bettencourt who can shred with the best of them, yet can also write beautiful and compelling work. Extreme’s Pornograffiti is a fabulous example of technical mastery of a guitar and the entire album is basically a kick-your-teeth-in, smash-the-dashboard finger board hoedown that will compel most seasoned and professional guitarists to just put the instrument down and take up firefighting or something.
For myself, I find that I am appreciating blues more and more. Chalk it up to whatever you like, but one note coming from the soul speaks infinitely louder than a thousand scale runs set to a metronome firing off like a playing card in the spokes of a turbine.
I believe the term for shredding without any meaning is “guitar masturbation.” In this respect, Jack White is far superior to the guys who play at 120 mph just because they can. I thought the question, though, was if he was technically as proficient as these people. Technical, to me, implies mastery of the basic guitar skills irregardless of what you do with them. So can he play arpeggios as fast as Yngwie (almost universally considered to be all show and little substance)? I haven’t heard anything to say yes. Can he write songs, put on a great show, is he capable of filling out a song with just himself and some very minimalist drumming? Yes, definitely. I have yet to hear anything “technically” demanding from him though. As I said, I’ve only heard his first album and a few songs on the radio, so it’s very possible that I’ve missed it. Also, the White Stripes brand of music really doesn’t lend itself to displays of virtuosity.
Best response yet. Too many people think good == fast. Although White can be surprisingly fast. I’ve seen him in concert do some amazing shredding. But he does it only occasionally, because that’s not what he’s all about.
Jimmy Page is an excellent comparison. Both are heavily rooted in the blues. Listen to White kick out the jams on Son House’s “Death Letter” (from * De Stijl*. Nothing fast about it, but the groove is just amazing. His sense of timing is superb, and his slide playing is great.
I’ve never been a fan of shredders. I can admire the technical skill, but it’s in the service of nothing. Did anyone see ‘Crossroads’, the move about Robert Johnson’s legend starring Ralph Macchio? It’s a so-so movie, but at the end there’s a very interesting guitar competition between Macchio and the Devil’s stooge, played by Joe Satriani. Macchio’s guitar part was played by Ry Cooder. They match lick for lick, with Satriani shredding lighting fast, and Cooder playing slower but more soulfully. Cooder’'s playing just kicks ass over Satriani’s in my opinion.
Vai was a late bloomer (in as much as he didn’t pick up the guitar until he was in high school) and actually took lessons with and from Joe Satriani, and then went on to Berklee School of Music in Boston when he was 18. I am certain that once he was there he began formal classical training. Not certain about Yngwie, but I would guess that he took a similar path.
On the other end of the spectrum you have greats like Jeff Beck who upon first seeing sheet music in a studio commented that it looked like birds perched pn telephone lines and Stevie Ray Vaughan who couldn’t tell you what key he was playing in.
Undoubtedly some of them were. Yngwie has written a concerto suite for orchestra and electric guitar which is worth hearing even if you don’t particularly care for his normal style.
I’ve got to pass comment on this Though it’s utterly off topic.
After the lick-swapping and a couple of blues choruses Vai --as the Devil’s guitar-slinger – launches into an absurdly virtuosic burst of axemanship (which we all know Vai is utterly capable of - he probably did it one take) which ends in him waving the guitar by the whammy bar in Macchio’s face before signing off with the good-ole Devil’s interval. The point: this has nothing to do with taste or soul and everything to do with showing off. Showing off can be fun and there should be room for it.
BTW I think I read a Mr Clapton complain that it was wrong that the Karate Kid had to resort to classical (Vai’s Paganini bit) to win the contest, he should have been able to win playing blues. Which would have fitted the spirit of the film better too.
Well, Paganini was rumoured at the time he was around to have sold his soul to the devil in return for his violin chops, so it’s probably fairly appropriate.
Though it’s utterly off topic.