Kirk Hammett

this IS a guitar site right? john coltrane played guitar?? either im an idiot (which is possible) or whoever made that post is a 'tard.. when we are having these arguments which are stupid and pointless anyways since like everyone keeps saying, its all about personal taste, at least try to stay on the subject of guitars.. i can handle most of these people that whine about what is "great music" but seriously at the very least lets stay in the context of guitars when possible

comparing some guy who played guitar to some guy who played flugelhorn just doesnt work, apples and oranges people!

oh and yeah if all those guys played guitar i apologize for being stupid and uninformed, i was sure coltrane was a trumpet player but i didnt feel like researching it k thx

Guitar, piano, banjo, accordian, trumpet...

They all make notes bud, they're comperable.

Originally posted by atc323
this IS a guitar site right? john coltrane played guitar?? either im an idiot (which is possible) or whoever made that post is a 'tard.. when we are having these arguments which are stupid and pointless anyways since like everyone keeps saying, its all about personal taste, at least try to stay on the subject of guitars.. i can handle most of these people that whine about what is "great music" but seriously at the very least lets stay in the context of guitars when possible

Hahaha oh man, note I said 'MUSICIANS' not 'GUITARISTS'.

i dunno about that. if you talk about skill levels thats some shakey ground to tread when trying to compare different instruments, if you just try to say which sounds better then once again it's just a matter of taste

that post said "good jazz" not "good jazz guitar" and there IS a difference in my book. each instrument is used to express things in completely different ways, saying a note is a note is a very narrow viewpoint.

Did you ever here anything that Jimi Hendrix played out of tune or badly even? Half the stuff he played was played really crappy. Bet you rate him as one of the best guitarists ever don't you. If Jimi can play crappy and be revered then so can Kirk. I'll bet Kirk has inspired as many guys to pick up a guitar as Jimi has anyway.If not, more. The guys a living legend.

Originally posted by atc323
i dunno about that. if you talk about skill levels thats some shakey ground to tread when trying to compare different instruments, if you just try to say which sounds better then once again it's just a matter of taste

that post said "good jazz" not "good jazz guitar" and there IS a difference in my book. each instrument is used to express things in completely different ways, saying a note is a note is a very narrow viewpoint.

I think it's a very broad viewpiont- and probbably a very scarry one to a lot of guitarists. Jeebus, it could lead to brilliant and bizzar musical ideas that would change music forever, cross polination on a whole new level, swapping licks with assorted folk instruments and a far more amorphous vision than the Guitar-Drums-Bass-Vocals-maybe Keys notion of a band we all grew up with.

God forbid, the band pecking order turned right over!

Really - it's music, it's about expressing yourself and moving people. Everything in music relates to everything else, it's interchangable, and it's all comperable.

Originally posted by hrckid
Did you ever here anything that Jimi Hendrix played out of tune or badly even? Half the stuff he played was played really crappy. Bet you rate him as one of the best guitarists ever don't you. If Jimi can play crappy and be revered then so can Kirk. I'll bet Kirk has inspired as many guys to pick up a guitar as Jimi has anyway.If not, more. The guys a living legend.

Jimi redefined the instrument, took blues to a new level and was an incoragable experimentor. Hammett has done none of those. He does have a very destinctive sound, and is definately a key figure in modern music though.

He was an early hero of my friend Mike, who after seeing Metallica live retired his wah pedal for months because he was so sick of the way they sound after seeing that show.

Originally posted by Parrot Head 1970
Personally, I think he's Joe Satriani's greatest student ever.

Hmmm . . . I didn't know that Kirk took lessons from Satch. It seems to me like something went horribly wrong.

Vai turned out so well, after all. And I heard that he had lessons from Satch too.

This thread is comical, how come there is never any discussion over who is taller? personally I think Vai is taller than Hammett, and Ynigwie too!

Originally posted by Christoph

Hmmm . . . I didn't know that Kirk took lessons from Satch. It seems to me like something went horribly wrong.

Vai turned out so well, after all. And I heard that he had lessons from Satch too.

Amen.



My final though - Seems like the majority of people here dig Pentatonic and Wah-Wah in every song! If thats your think, cool!!!!!! If you wanna be inspired by that so be it, if you wanna do something with your playing I suggest burning your selloutica Cd's :)

Originally posted by hrckid
Did you ever here anything that Jimi Hendrix played out of tune or badly even? Half the stuff he played was played really crappy. Bet you rate him as one of the best guitarists ever don't you. If Jimi can play crappy and be revered then so can Kirk. I'll bet Kirk has inspired as many guys to pick up a guitar as Jimi has anyway.If not, more. The guys a living legend.

thats why i dont think Hendrix was the best either.
You wanna talk about people who inspired others to play?
We have mr. Cobain on one of the first places..
conclusion: Yeah this is right kirk did inspire many people to play, but it doesnt make him good. He is just another lead guitar player. There are thousands of them, and they are all the same. One of them can play faster, and the other has better feel, but by the end only one player from 100,000 is a real genious, and kirk is simply not.

Originally posted by lukather/timmons
if you wanna do something with your playing I suggest burning your selloutica Cd's :)

Though I don't paticuarly like Metallica, I don't think calling them "sellouts" is even remotely fair.

To sell out, you have to change your sound/act for the sole purpose of gaining popularity. That means doing what people want you to do. Metallica has been doing what NOBODY wants them to do for many many years now. Case in point: Load and Reload combined haven't sold as many records as The Black Album.

I'm convinced that they're making the music they want and are acting as they please because that's what they want to do, not because they're motivated by money or anything else.

They're just not as good as they used to be.

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They're just not as good as they used to be. [/B][/QUOTE]

I don't agree with that. They've just kept evolving. I'm pretty sure if they went back to do Ride the lightening II in the early nineties they'd be in the same boat as Testament, Exodus, Anthrax, Slayer and Megadeth.NOBODY INTERESTED.Each album shows a fair bit of progress. A lot of people were shocked by the change in direction when they made the Black album. I can remember being a bit disappointed with it as I was really into Justice For All with it's 20 riffs per song and quite liked the dry sound at the time. The first time I heard 'nothing else mattters' I was like....no thrashy bits at the end....what the HELLL! I don't think Load was selling out though.If this had been a 'grunge' album I would have said they were total sell outs as Nirvana were huge around this time .Remember that Load-Reload should really have been a double album so you've got to look at them like that to judge. In hindsight I'd bet they wish they had made it just one album and if you took all the best bits from those albums it would have been one of their best.

I predict that the next album is going to be HUGE as the kids today are into really heavy stuff like slipknot etc. I reckon they're going to be able to release something really heavy and brutal this time and millions of kids are going to dig it.( I don't mean they are going to do 'drop d', play with one finger and Hetfield's going to sing like 'cookie monster' though! Maybe NOW is the time for Ride the Lightening II?

here's a question for more argumen... err i mean discussion: what makes a good guitarist?

plenty of people like kirks playing, but according to many of you he is not a good guitarist, so i guess that means people dont have to like you for you to be good..

i dont believe metallica can be considered 'sell-outs' because of the same reasons already mentioned, they basically did what they wanted to.. kirk expresses himself however he wants to - and we can like it or dislike it, but can we say he's a bad guitarist?

think about it, if you play some music and i dont like your style.. do i have the right to say you are a bad guitarist? i dont think so

seriously i think some people have some personal issues about kirk(and his acclaimed guitar skills) and im not sure why.. but its interesting to hear about, thats for sure

I think of guitar as a bit of a balancing act. There are several areas you can be proficient with the guitar, that's how a very drunk Joe Walsh can smoke Vai, Satch, and May at a Spanish guitar festival - he out toned and out styled them. They and the bassist were busy trying to out do eachother while Walsh played some sloppy ass slide guitar and his signature talk box solo (the song was of course Rocky Mountain Way) which unlike the high speed wanking going on around him actually fit the song.

With Hammett I just don't hear the creativity or "substance" to make up for how sloppy the guy is. Listening to him really does nothing for me in the least.

As I sit here and read all these replies to the question, "Is Kirk Hammet a genious or is he crap?" it seems as though we've lost sight of why we all play music to begin with.

What everyone should be asking themselves is, "Do I enjoy listening to Kirk Hammet's guitar?" His talent is irrelevant. The joy you receive from listening to him (or lack thereof) is what counts. I think Benoit's signature says it all:

"The greatness of a guitarist is not based on how many different techniques he mastered but on how much joy he gets out of playing."

I just think that we shouldn't lose sight of this point.