That tapping you talked about, it's kinda like the Eddie Van Halen stuff he does on say, Hot For Teacher and stuff on the first Van Halen album? Both hands doing stuff on the neck?
Yep, it's that.
You seem to focus a lot on the technique, and state that Dave and Janick use less different kind of techniques than Adrian. Might be, but still, in my ears, Adrian often plays the same kind of technique(s).
Believe me, dissect his SIT solos or some post 97 stuff (BD stuff, reunion era...), and you can clearly see how much different techniques he can use.
For me his sound, the way he presses the snares, is much more his trademark. It sounds typical Adrian, and is more unique about him, than anything else. His long and deep tones have an unmistakable H sound.
Yes, he has a unique picking hand. But we all know that...i was trying to shed some light on what he does on the fret with the left hand
Now this CSIT solo. Indeed, some parts are very fast, but his fast parts are often around the same notes, while Dave’s solo in CSIT is really going over a big part of the neck.
Dave looks more impressive visually, he is playing all over the fretboard, but in essence he's playing in the same scale all the time.
Ergo, you can play the higher E note while pushing 12fret of the E string, or seventh fret of the A string, or even higher E while playing open high E string, or that same high E on the ninth fret of the G string. His hands are all over the place, but that doesn't necessary mean that he's playing a wider pallete of the notes.
Great example of this can be seen on the Walking On Glass recording from Spectrum (available on youtube). When they both play that harmony at once, before the snowman theme kicks in, Murray's fingers seem dancing around, while H's fingers are essentialy on the single place. However, they are playing the same thing, with two different techniques....while Murray is playing the whole thing on the B string, H is playing on two strings.
Dave's way may look visually more exciting, but H's technique sounds better. Because of two-string picking, the previous string always remains a bit resonant, which adds extra feel.
The whole scaling riff thingie on CSIT solo can be played on the D string only. There's a very noticable difference in the sound if you're playing it that way, even if you start by playing on the seventh fret of A string. The proper way goes all scaling, from 12th fret of the E string. When you start your run that way, the previous string you picked will remain resonant a bit, and it will add that unique feel that H played there.
Thus, Murray's all around the fretboard adventure may seem more complex, but in essence, he is playing simpler stuff than H does.
Dave’s solo is fast, fluently and the fingers of his left hand move very fast and perfect over the notes. That might be more difficult than Adrian's solo, but I guess that depends who you'll ask.
I can play both, and when you play so the thing really sounds like them, every harmonic, every squeal, every tap, every pulloff...H's solo is definetly really really more complex.
I understand people like Adrian, but it seems Dave and Janick are getting more and more underrated on this forum lately.
Adrian is my main influence, started really playing guitar 10 years ago when i heard his stuff from SIT. Up to that point, i was playing acoustic guitar and i knew chords and stuff like that. His playing made me hand out 700 euros for a real normal electric guitar.
But, Murray is my second influence. I love switching to the neck pup and doing legato runs all the way
He is not underrated in my chart by any means, it's just that i think H is more technically proficient player, and i prefer H's sound. Murray is in second place, but they're both above any other guitarist i heard (and i've heard many...).
Regarding Janick, his playing is sometimes below Maiden's standard. His songwriting and an addition to the band is essential.
I don't like his soloing, nor his sloppy shredding over experimental style. But he's a great character and i don't tolerate "janick sucks" stuff either.
To me this says that Dave can do a lot of things but that he doesn't necesarily have to show it all the time, because there's "enough scope in Iron Maiden’s music for all three guitarists to express themselves".
Exactly. But that doesn't mean that H is using all his knowledge and tech stuff for Maiden solos.
On that Youtube vid (his guitar.com lesson), he is asked to demonstate heavy picking. He starts to shred like those big shredders do, and then he says - "well you can do that sort of stuff, but Maiden has a unique sound, so we can't change it".
Therefore, i think that both Dave and H, after 30+ years of active playing, 2000 shows and all stuff they did in between, can play guitar like any other big name can.
It's just that they're limited by Maiden's scope. I love that scope, but it would be really really weird if H started shredding all over the place in a song, and before that Murray performed 30 seconds worth of Van Halen-type double tappings.
They both are doing the best they can in that Maiden scope. H uses fast shreddings from time to time, in a certain dose, so it doesn't ruin the melody troughout the solo.
Oh and Zare, you said you love the solos from SIASL and Prodigal Son? Hell yeah! True awesomeness! Don't forget Wasted Years and The Evil That Men Do!
Heh, of course
I'm not up on all the guitar terminology (convolusion tapping, arpeggio, legato, it's all Greek to me
Ok, a quick lesson
Legato is the technique when you play the notes in a most tight sequence, eg playing a next note without the gap from the previous. That's why the Murray's style seems so fluid. In guitar terms, not general music terms, Murray's playing is filled with successive hammerons and pullofs. Hammer-on is when you hold a note at the fret, and then you hammer some other fret on the string with your other finger. Pull-off is a reverse proces, still holding two fingers on two frets, but now you release the second fret and you pull it off with your finger.
Combinating hammer-ons and pullofs gives great legato style.
Arpeggio is, in essence, a chord played note by note.
Tapping is similiar to hammeron and pullof combination, but you don't pull off the strings, nor you use heavy hammering. You simply touch the other fret, with a unique feeling i can't now describe in words
And, picking hand is different, when using legato hammeron and pulloff combination, you can just hit the string once in every two or four presses of the fretting hand, so it just keeps ringing. At tapping, you can either play by only using your left hand, or pick each note with your right hand.
Convolution sequence is something of a revolving sequence...if you have, let's say, a C-D-E-F-G-A sequence, you can use triplets in convolutionary sequence, thus getting C-D-E, D-E-F, E-F-G, F-G-A.
Convolution tapping would be just like playing convolution scale and also use tapping technique described above.
Well, that would be impressive for an average guitarist, but not impressive for Murray. The "fast" part is really simple double tapping, and even the third tap position doesn't change.
I would suggest watching the Aces High video for his real speed show-off, and the Sign Of The Cross from RIR for his tapping abilities
Moonchild? You mean the 2nd solo? The first one is H, am I right? *It seems to me I have a harder time distinguishing H and Dave on 7th Son. Did either one of them use a different guitar or something?
(listing longer solos, not simpler melody lines ala intro to Infinite Dreams and such)
Moonchild - Adrian, Dave
Infinite Dreams - Dave, Adrian
The Clairvoyant - Dave
Can I Play With Madness - Adrian
Seventh Son Of The Seventh Son - Dave, Dave, Adrian, Adrian, Adrian
The Evil That Man Do - Adrian
The Prophecy - Dave
Only The Good Die Young - Adrian, Dave.
They used very silmilar guitars for recording, Jackson and ESP. I think they both used DiMarzio pup's for that one, but you can tell the difference because Dave is using singlecoil neck position pup for solos, and he has a different rig setup. More mellow and smoother sound on Dave's side, as always.
