which is more important speed or feeling

Hey Skee1, no offense taken, glad that we can be settled and that nothing gets in the way of our ability to talk about our guitars and the music we love to play. Everyone here always has a lot of respect for each other, and that's what I love about this site. I think mc9mm might have a point though... this thread is getting pretty long.

ROTFL... you are mean led zepllin you should have given me more time... i can now feel the wee dribling down my leg...

Skee1: lol, did your medication have a budwiser label on it? hahahahahah...

Originally posted by educatedfilm
..Skee1: lol, did your medication have a budwiser label on it? hahahahahah...

Pay attention, dude! The man doesn't drink anything stronger than Diet Pepsi.

Originally posted by Lordathestrings

Originally posted by educatedfilm
..Skee1: lol, did your medication have a budwiser label on it? hahahahahah...

Pay attention, dude! The man doesn't drink anything stronger than Diet Pepsi.

You got it i can get high on (Ibuprofen)


Mark

Speed is important:
our appreciation of music is limited by the efficiency of our memories. As we listen to music the memories we form of the previous music fade away or go into storage so the sense of a melodic line may be lost if the line is too long. On the other hand long melodic lines are what interests a lot of us musos. For this reason it is often important for a musician to play at speed to fit in the notes quickly enough to remain active in our minds until the phrase is completed and the melody resolved.
On the other hand our memories are also constrained by how fast we can take notes in, to me a blur of speed is just a blur of speeds, more of a rhythmic device than a melodic fragment.

Interesting phrases often have a wide variety of different note lengths in them. If a musician wishes to include a great variety of different note lengths it may be important for them to play the fastest note runs very fast to ensure that the whole melody does not exceed our attention span.

There is a tradeoff between the speed we play at and how individual and pleasing we can make our notes. You can't bend/violin/wah/shake/pinch individual notes above
a certain speed. Fast playing is consequently less articulate and vocal in quality. Also the faster one plays the more of the time is occupied by the messy sounds of pick attacks and fret noise, the tone looses purity.

Some of the most soulful players I know of vary their speed enormously and consequently their playing styles are very technically demanding.

Also, I think the demands of trying to process the aural imput of blinding fast runs can be quite invigorating. This said most shred patterns are very simple which can make them melodically boring. Players who vary the kinds of intervals they use in their playing make their music more challenging to comprehend without having to up their tempo as much and are much better in my opinion.

There's a big difference between such people and your run of the mill shredder practicing metronomic runs just to show off. Personally great shreds do impress me even if they aren't very musical simply 'cause I know how much effort it takes to develop that level of technique but I'd far rather listen to (for example) Alex Lifeson than Malmsteem or some clone of his.

i think everyone who joined this argument and took a side, has lost what music is really all about. whether you have speed or FEELING doesnt mean anything to anyone, except yourself. so if you have to choose a side, that doesnt really have a side in the first place, then i think you shoudl sit down and stare at your instrument for awhile, until you remembered why you started playing in the first place. by saying you play with feeling doesnt mean that you bend a note like BB, or that you sweep cleaner then becker. it doesnt mean you can play jazz or rock or classical, because none of that really matters.

i think everyone should just play how they play, and whatever results you get at the end, whether its a standard blues tune, or a rippin shred piece, you settle for that.
cause really the end of the argument is that speed is useful but if you dont really have anything to play, from your heart, while attaining that speed then there isnt any point. so feeling is always the most important thing. not to anyone else, but to yourself. and whatever you think it means then thats what it is.

PERIOD.

Feeling and an instinct for melody are much more important than speed. If you can't put a group of notes together to make a pleasing melody then all the speed in the world will sound like so much noise.

I try to play at a medium speed without much feeling, and try to ignore the melody or anything else that might sound good....... I'm just not ready for commitment........

Give two equally technically skilled guitarists the same average difficulty tablature (something they could both easily sight read). Feeling is the difference between their two performances. One piece can sound SOOO different when played by different players.

The more I play in front people the more you realise "feeling" is more important than speed, cos when you play covers and it doesn't sound like or better than the real thing its quiet embrassing. I used to really hate those blues lovers and acomplished players who went on and on about "feel". Ignored those players for years from telling me speed isnt everything. Well that phrase is kicking into my brains now. But I still want to shred like a madman with whole lotta emotion :)

I think both speed and feeling is important.

Speed gives you the opportunity to create the sound you like to. Speed is nothing without feeling, but feeling is much more easy to create if you have the right technique.

The very practice of speed must hold a level of accuracy and conviction...I think speed and feeling complement each other.While speed is limited to certain situations and musical styles,so is feeling.Keep in mind my idea of feeling is slow power solos and melodies.Feeling dosnt always result in slowness...the notes you hit determine the feeling.

I was all about speed and part of me still is. When I started to record songs, I realised most people hooked on the simplest of riffs, something they could hum easily.

When I find myself closing my eyes to visualise the guitarist play his solo, then I know he plays with feeling. I can play relatively fast (after 11 years I should lol) but I rarely use my speed when I work on songs. I keep my speed for GuitarWar, and showing off to shut up little cocky guitarist ;) you've stumble upon them too I'm sure.

In the end it's all about dynamics for me, a song with all blazing speed solo is a not a good song, the same goes for a song with mellow feeling solos. You must use dynamics to hook the listeners and variance to keep them.

The hardest thing is to have a good balance of both and when you do, you just know it.

Listen to A song for Rachelle by Greg Howe, it's the perfect exemple. Well for me at least.