David Gilmour - top 5 guitarist?

Hey, I didn't want to hijack Slasher's thread, so here it is:

Originally posted by Incidents Happen
Dave Gilmour in the top 5 guitarists that ever lived? Yeah ****in' right!

I want to know how you figure that; He hasn't improved as a guitarist since 1973; Even admits it in interviews. Says he wants to "Have a life".

~Incidents

Originally posted by Lordathestrings

Originally posted by Incidents Happen
... He hasn't improved as a guitarist since 1973; Even admits it in inteviews. Says he wants to "Have a life"...

...which fits rather well with your hypothesis about non-guitar-playing activities adding to your playing, yes?

As for not improving since '73, that begs the question "What needs improvement?" He's a damn fine player, and if you check out some of his work outside Pink Floyd, you'll find he does what he does at least as well as anyone else does. I can happily listen to his stuff for several hours - while supposedly superior virtuosos sound very stale after about 10 minutes.

I don't see why a guitarist needs to improve to be in the top 5 guitarists of all time. Did Jimi Hendrix improve? How about Yngwie?

With Gilmour, it's never been about his technical prowess, it's been about his phrasing, his soulful bends, vibrato and so on. No one has ever claimed that he's the fastest guitarist of all time - but that's not what this list is about. How can anyone, including Gilmour, improve on his playing? I don't see what there is to improve upon. Maybe you can help me out there.

What's wrong with Gilmour in the top 5? He does more with 8 bars and 20 notes than many other "top 5" guitarists do with 2 minutes and hundreds of notes. Isn't that the mark of a true artist? Someone who expresses himself through his medium in a unique way? If that isn't the standard and great guitarists are expected to be speed freaks who abuse the harmonic minor scale, then Gilmour fails and Yngwie wins. But if it is, I'd put Gilmour in the top 5 without hesitation.

If you're gonna tell me Yngwie hasn't improved since his days with Steeler and Alcatraz...then you haven't listened to a single of his albums since Rising Force.

Even in that horrible poppy period during the late 80s his playing definately improved. And when you listen to his newest album Attack (despite the stupid lyrics and bad production, although the production is very good compared to war to end all wars, he's improved a looot. He may not be playing anything different, but his technical ability has improved a lot. However, if you want to hear Yngwie at his absolute best in the studio, you should check out Derek Sherinian's new album Black Utopia.

I definately think that David Gilmour deserves to be in the top 5 list. In fact, it was he who finally inspired me to try my hand at the guitar for the 3rd time. Like they say: 3rd time's a charm. I've been playing ever since. I love his phrasing and the way he knows which notes to hit and how to hit them. Pink Floyd may very well be the most influential band in the history of time and space.

What do you mean, how can he improve? Dave isn't exactly the most round musician in the world; I'd love to hear some Gilmour-Jazz on a Hollowbody Gretsch, but will I? No, because he didn't take the time to really learn jazz. There's no excuse for Dave not getting better from '73 on; I'll tell you what I think of it; Dave was afraid that if he started getting more influences, that people wouldn't like his lead guitar playing (the change), and that he'd burn out. He sounds exactly the same, if not worse right now, compared to Dark Side of the Moon. His solos are shorter, and now have less of a sparkle than they once did.

A top-5 Guitarist has to continue to innovate; Hendrix did so during his short career, but comparing Hendrix to Gilmour doesn't do either justice; not because of talent level or anything, but because of the fact that Hendrix had an extremely short career, and Gilmour is still around. Hendrix didn't have the chance to show innovation through time, Gilmour did, and Gilmour failed. Would Hendrix do the SOS for the next thirty years, like Gilmour? Who knows.

About my non-guitar playing theory, that's only a supplement; Those were things that you can do while you are away from the guitar for a few hours that can boost you up quite a bit. There's a huge difference between that, and simply not playing much anymore because you are now making mega $cash$.

Originally posted by Incidents Happen
What do you mean, how can he improve? ...

I didn't say he couldnt improve; I said he did'nt need to. And if he's lost a bit over the last thirty years, so what? I don't play as well now as I did thirty years ago either. The difference is that nobody's debating whether I'm one of the top 5 or not. And if some players have more skill with the instrument than Dave Gilmour, it doesn't necessarily mean I prefer to listen to them.

Originally posted by Incidents Happen ... A top-5 Guitarist has to continue to innovate...

That may be one of your criteria, but it ain't necessarily so. For that matter, I don't think Dave Gilmour was ever considered particularly inovative - just very talented and [u]tasteful[/u]!

As I said earlier, I go according to whether I like to listen to somebody play. And most of the guys who make the usual 'Top __' lists sound very stale to me very quickly. Any show I've gone to that was billed as some kind of guitar extravaganza has invariably turned out to be a wankfest! :p

Lord-
I can see your point, it's just that I have a hard time thinking highly of a guitarist who stops getting better, at such a young age. I can see where a 55 year old accomplished guitarist doesn't have the need, the juice, to improve (nobody in particular), but Dave was pretty young when dark side came out.

I look at it this way:

Not only could Dave had been much more 'accomplished' on the guitar, he could have been more tasteful by allowing more seeds of influence into his mind. That's just how I see it.

~Incidents

Dave Gilmour has contributed some of the most memorable licks in the history of rock guitar, which is enough to give him a high ranking in any poll. He is THE master of phrasing and feeling. The solo on 'Another brick..' is worth a thousand cliched shredded riffs.

Originally posted by Incidents Happen
Dave was pretty young when dark side came out.
~Incidents

Are you asserting that Gilmour peaked skill-wise with DSOTM?

My opinion is that what Gilmore did with Pink Floyd is enough to qualify him as one of the best. He makes the guitar "speak" in ways very few others can (Jerry and Jimi also come to mind). His solos are like meaningful, soulful little stories within stories. I don't fault him for not branching out and learning different styles. In fact, I respect him for "having a life" outside guitar-playing.

David Gilmour did great justice w/Pink Floyd....the 4 guys sounded great together. I have heard Gilmour on some callaboration stuff, mainly blues, and it was highly dissapointing. He does what he does well, but like Santana, has not grown much as a musician. So therefor, in my opinion, has become highly predictable as a guitar player.I think the main thing that saves his credibility is that he did not release a plethora of material over his 30yr career, so as listeners we never got burned out on his sound (unlike Santana).

Whoever said Jimi Hendrix did not continue to grow during his short career needs to go back and do some listening.....compare Are You Experienced to the album he was working on when he died, The Cry Of Love, and you can definetly hear the new influences Jimi was taking into his playing. Even the Band of Gypsys Live album is evidence of that. He was scheduled to go into the studio w/Miles Davis prior to his untimely death. The man was a musical genius.

I never denied the fact that Dave Gilmour was a great guitarist; His sound defined Pink Floyd, as much as Roger Waters' lyrics did.

Dave is a great phraser- this is why I would love to hear him play some smooth jazz on a hollowbody guitar, or something different. I always feel shortchanged when I download live Pink Floyd shows, and the solos are almost exactly the same, each show. Hendrix improvised, Garcia improvised, I believe that if Gilmour is to be in the same class as these two, he should have the improvisation ability of Garcia or Hendrix. If he simply improvised alot more, he would have continued to improve, his solos would have gotten better, longer, etc, and he himself would have gotten better. There was no point in following a whole Pink Floyd tour; everything was pretty much the same. There was reason to see Hendrix or the dead on a full tour, because you didn't know what was going to happen; the musicians got better on-stage as well, not just off-stage. I happen to be a huge improviser, and Pink Floyd isn't that difficult to improvise to.

As far as studio albums? Pink Floyd has some of the best studio albums ever created in the history of mankind.

~Incidents

well said :).

This was mentioned earlier on in the thread about virtuoso getting stale after 10 minutes. Its true, when I listen to Gilmour his 6 or 7 minute songs end, and its felt like 2 minutes. After listening to alot of Pink Floyd for the last little while, I definetly rank David Gilmour as a top class player.

:)

I don't think the main topic of this thread was to compare David Gilmour to virtuoso', but to single out David Gilmour as a musician and to seperate his abilities from his body of work w/Pink Floyd. Basically we are judging his 30yr. plus career on 4 albums (Dark Side, Wish You Were Here, Animals, The Wall)4 fantastic recordings with some very fine guitar work. But, as stated by Inc., David has not shown that he has grown as a player within his 30+ yr career, or even attempted to venture out into new territories.

My opinion of David Gilmour (if anybody cares): if you have 2yrs and an unlimited budget to make/record a cd., he's the man to call. Put him onstage w/3 above average guitar players and their gonna blow him away.

Originally posted by Incidents Happen
Dave is a great phraser- this is why I would love to hear him play some smooth jazz on a hollowbody guitar, or something different. I always feel shortchanged when I download live Pink Floyd shows, and the solos are almost exactly the same, each show.

First of all, let me say that I really dislike David Gilmour-era Pink Floyd. I think that Pink Floyd without Roger Waters is not Pink Floyd.

Incidents - what tours have you downloaded? Anything off of the Pulse Tour? Check out the outro solo to Comfortably Numb, the solo to Money, Any Colour You Like, but avoid Another Brick Pt. II.

Part of the reason that I feel Gilmour kept his original solos is that they are as integral a part of the song as the lyrics, the bass line, the drum beat. Imagine if you heard Another Brick Pt. II and didn't hear that familiar 13p10 lick at the beginning of the solo. I'm sure David Gilmour did plenty of improvising when jamming with Syd Barrett.

I agree...Pink Floyd w/out Roger Waters is/would be like the Beatles without John Lennon.