Originally Posted by: RaskolnikovI don't want to nit-pick too much in this thread, but having seen Trey Anastasio live, I can tell you with great certainty that he can be as guilty of technical guitar wankery for the sake of technical guitar wankery (and in total ignorance of what the song/jam needs) as (and in a few cases, more than) anybody you mentioned in that first sentence.

In The Mismeasure of Man Stephen Jay Gould took on the issues of racism and classism in the scientific community. One of the things he warned against was the "reification of statistics" by which he meant "finding some kind of numerical correlation (say... an IQ test score) and assuming that it measures a physical thing (ie: 'General Intelligence')."

His point was that it is very easy to do and that people need to be conscious of it so that they don't fall victim to it.

I think the same general point can apply here.

Makes sense, and well argued- you are right about Trey though- and he knows it. I read an interview with him where he talked about nights where he was playing some (what he called) "contrived-bull****" like he was just doing scales exercises on stage, and he got down on himself about it, but he can do it too- maybe if I knew more, I might do it also!

:D