Originally posted by Incidents Happen
I agree with Slow Driver; Nobody gives a sh|t about Steve Vai, except guitarists themselves. Yeah, he can play fast; big deal. Speed isn't everything.

I totally agree. I always tell people 'I love Vai's music and I'm NOT appologising for it to anyone' but if I wasn't a guitarist I doubt his name would mean anything to me - he's a musician for musicians, but I don't see this as a bad thing at all.

I've come to appreciate that although I can only listen to Vai for short periods before becoming bored and some tracks are pure shred-overkill, Vai is a brilliant theorist. The amount of studdI have leanred about music since I started to deconstruct and learn his songs is huge, it got my out of simple blues progressions, pentatonics and the kind of 3-chord-modern-rock we're seeing so much of from the likes of Blink-182 etc music like that is often uninspired and easy to write. I'm quite fond of the simple song and I love blues improvisation but when it's all simple its just as boring as it is when it's all complexity and hardcore-shred. You have to acheive a balance, and Vai gave me so much more knowledge to express myself.

In his later work I think Vai achieves a nice balance of speed and non-speed. Anyones who heard and disliked stuff like 'Blue Powder' and 'Bad Horise' and feels like giving the old shred-monger a second chance try listening to 'Dyin day' 'Hand on Heart' and 'Sisters.' If you fancy a whole album, try 'Fire Garden.'

Vai's teaching methods are worth taking a look at too....not all of his techniques work for me, but hey, don't knock it till you've tried it. :D