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Eddie Van Halen has died

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Re: Eddie Van Halen has died

#31

Post by golemiprague »

lmedinas wrote: post #22

RIP Eddie Huge talent and very innovative guitar player. Known for his guitar playing style, dive bombs, tapping, usage of Floyd Rose, custom guitars (Frankenstrat), brown sound, solos, instrumentals, heavy sound and huge music hits. I cannot think of many influential Rock guitar players as Eddie.

I don't know, I have never cared so much about the technique but more about the outcome. For me he was just another generic rock guitarist with good technique. I prefer people like Johny Marr from the Smiths who created a new unique overall sound. I guess there is a place for both.

Re: Eddie Van Halen has died

#32

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

brtkdotse wrote: post #15

This deeply saddens me, the pool of people I admire is draining faster than it’s replenished. It also reminds me that Death just dragged another bead on his abacus and before long my bead will be up. Also, while I respect and admire what Eddie has done to further the art of playing electric guitar, I must confess I much more enjoy Eddie The Songwriter rather than Eddie The Guitarist.

> This deeply saddens me, the pool of people I admire is draining faster than it’s replenished

Then you need to stop wading in the shallows of the people you admire and get out in the insane expanse that is the rest of the creative world.

In terms of just music alone, there's more talent out there now than there ever was before. Two generations or more of musical education where none really existed before, plus an entire generation that saw making a living as a musician as a possibility (whether or not that was true) has led to a situation where almost every town of 50k people or more has musicians in it who are as almost as good or better than any who ever lived.

I am fairly confident that the same thing is true of writing, painting, photography, dance: the pool of talent is out there. If you're as old as you semi-suggest, it gets harder and harder to encounter it. I'm 57 and I have to work quite hard to ensure that I keep exposing myself to new artists and creatives - the natural tendency is to just look back on all the people I discovered between 17 and 27 and then lament them dying. Don't do it! YouTube is a miracle in this respect. There's so much incredible talent and invention out there. Every generation has people in it for you to respect, and they too will die and become the "legends of old".

[* edited "wallowing" => "wading"; did not mean to sound so harsh ]

Re: Eddie Van Halen has died

#33

Post by jjulius »

oxymoran wrote: post #17
gumby wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "thus allowing the player to create new techniques and sounds previously unknown to any player" Not including players of the pedal steel. But that's the patent system for you. In any case it's all about what you do with it.

That’s like comparing a turn table used for DJ’ing to a record player used to just listen to records. Completely different application, accessories, and technique.

Not really. The patent just takes the guitar and stabilizes it in a horizontal position, instead of a vertical position, allowing you to do something different with the same instrument. Nothing about the guitar itself changes whatsoever, but the orientation provides for the guitar to be used differently.

The better analogy would be, say, if you took an SL-1200 (a turntable manufactured for DJ'ing) and it rotated it "battle style" - same instrument, same accessories, but a different orientation resulting in a fundamentally different use of the device.

Re: Eddie Van Halen has died

#34

Post by woodpanel »

anonAndOn wrote: post #30
woodpanel wrote: post #27

Never knew until recently, that the amazing guitar solo on Michael Jacksons Beat it was played by him. I can't find any transcripts, but in an interview on the Howard Stern show, van Halen said (if I remember correctly) that the infamous knocking at the beginning of his solo was him knocking on his guitar, like a professional who is giving his workhorse a friendly tap before the race - and that he was amazed Michael…

IIRC, the solo is also completely improvised and totally off-script.

Yes! And he was neither credited nor payed for it!

Re: Eddie Van Halen has died

#35

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

woodpanel wrote: post #27

Never knew until recently, that the amazing guitar solo on Michael Jacksons Beat it was played by him. I can't find any transcripts, but in an interview on the Howard Stern show, van Halen said (if I remember correctly) that the infamous knocking at the beginning of his solo was him knocking on his guitar, like a professional who is giving his workhorse a friendly tap before the race - and that he was amazed Michael…

He wanted no credit for it - he didn't want other Van Halen members to know about it because they agreed to never do side projects. He wanted no payment for it except a case of beer and Michael teaching him to dance "sometime".

Re: Eddie Van Halen has died

#36

Post by AdmiralAsshat »

woodpanel wrote: post #27

Never knew until recently, that the amazing guitar solo on Michael Jacksons Beat it was played by him. I can't find any transcripts, but in an interview on the Howard Stern show, van Halen said (if I remember correctly) that the infamous knocking at the beginning of his solo was him knocking on his guitar, like a professional who is giving his workhorse a friendly tap before the race - and that he was amazed Michael…

Wikipedia disputes this story, although it does not cite any sources on the "real" story:

> Right before Van Halen's guitar solo begins, a noise is heard that sounds like somebody knocking at a door. It is reported that the knock was a person walking into Eddie's recording studio. Another story has claimed that the sound was simply the musician knocking on his own guitar.[25] The sound, however, is that of Jackson knocking on a drum case, as he is credited in the album's liner notes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beat_It#Eddie_Van_Halen's_guit...

So I suppose if you've actually got a source from Van Halen's mouth, that's probably more authoritative.

I also enjoyed this tidbit:

>The engineers were shocked during the recording of Van Halen's solo to discover that the sound of his guitar had caused the monitor speaker in the control room to catch fire, causing one to exclaim, "This must be really good!"[26]

Re: Eddie Van Halen has died

#40

Post by golemotron »

sgt101 wrote: post #18

Don’t waste your time, Leuconoé, living in fear and hope of the imprevisable future; forget the horoscope. Accept whatever happens. Whether the gods allow us fifty winters more or drop us at this one now which flings the high Tyrrhenian waves on the stone piers, decant your wine: the days are more fun than the years which pass us by while we discuss them. Act with zest one day at a time, and never mind the rest. –Der…

> On 1 October 2020, Mahon died in Cork after a short illness, aged 78 - wikipedia

Poignant. Thank you.

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