Originally Posted by: Jolly McJollysonOh, come on, at LEAST pick Buddy Guy or Muddy Waters if you're going to compare a blues guy to one of the best shred guys. I mean, I don't even honestly think of Satriani as shred.

To be honest I probably chose Satriani just to be contentious because I know he's got a huge following on this site :p

But yeah, I'd say Satriani embodies everything I understand shred to be. Let me explain my position - I'm the wrong side of forty, rapidly approaching 50 so you can pretty much guess my influences. When I was learning guitar shred hadn't even been invented (or at least the name hadn't - There were always guys out there like Alvin Lee (Ten Years After) who made a career out of playing faster than anyone else) but playing twenty notes in the time a real blues guy took to bend one never turned me on.

Think back to the ill-matched 1996 G3 tour when Eric Johnson and Steve Vai toured with Satriani. I recall one particular song where Eric opened with some beautiful soulful blues licks which Vai and Satriani mimicked proving they knew the 'technical' side of blues but they used three dozen notes for Eric's handful - to my mind demonstrating that they just didn't 'Get' blues (On the other hand Johnson is technically as good if not better than either - Steve Vai is reputedly in awe of him). What this tells me is that people who are grounded in the Blues first (Johnson lists his earliest influence as the Clapton in his bluesbrerakers and Cream days) will find it far easirer to progress to shred if they choose to rather than the other way around.

Back to Plastic's original question - He was asking for people's own opinion on what lessons to take up first. He stated that he will eventually learn both styles so everyone to answered with 'Hey man learn both' really hasn't read the question. :rolleyes: