Guthrie Govan Discussion

[alexkhan]

When I was hanging out with Guthrie over some coffee late-June in LA during the Asia tour, we got into a conversation about speed and very fast players and how fast he may be able to play. Of course, we all know that speed is only a small facet of his playing and that it's only a means to an end in his overall style, but I wanted to know if he ever measured himself the way the shred freaks measure fast players' all-important NPS (notes-per-second) yardstick.

I guess he and some of his shred-oriented students went through the process of measuring NPS just for the sake of doing it and giggles. Guthrie non-chalantly said that he was able to hit 21 NPS! And I'm sure he was talking about alternate-picked notes. I'd say things start getting blurry at around 18 NPS and even 15 NPS is considered plenty fast. So there you have it - just a bit of trivia; and it is a rather trivial thing. And when I asked who he thought was the fastest, the only name that came up was: Shawn Lane. After a little while, we just said, "Well, whatever...", regarding speed and moved onto another subject.
_________________
Ed Yoon
Certified Guthrie Fan-atic
BOING Music LLC - Managing Partner
.strandberg* Guitars USA
Ed Yoon Consulting & Management
Guitar Center Inc.

[j.s.bark]

How do you measure your maximum NPS rating?
_________________
Virtuosity is only useful when serving a musical purpose - J.S.BARK

[BluePowder]

I've just got Creative guitar one and two.

It's interesting how Guthrie puts speed into perspective, as a by product of accuracy. I've always believe in slowing things down and working them out at tortoise speed before actually playing it up to shred. It gives your mind an opportunity to digest everything and lay down the foundations of accuracy. I guess it's really encouraging. Though speed has never been something I really strived for it's still a very interesting facet of playing guitar.

But Guthrie's speed is just mind blowing!

[art]

[Lewis]

There seems to be 2 schools of thought nowdays on speed, either feast or famine. People are either avid Michael Angelo/Chris Impelliteri fans who sit down with a metronome every night and pride themselves on the fact they can sweep pick constantly from one end of the neck to the other and back again, or they are avid-shred haters who believe that less IS more, and anybody who goes beyond a certain barrier of speed is a 'fret wanker'.

I personally have always viewed playing an instrument like talking, because after all both are means of expressing yourself. The range of techniques you've learnt, and your speed and accuracy are equivilent to your vocabulary and ability to string sentences together. It is all a means to an end, and a way of getting your message accross. The more techniques you can master, the faster you can play or the length of time you can do 8 finger tapping for are all just ways of using your 'vocabulary' to express what you want to say with as much ease, confidence and fluidity as possible.

What you say with your 'wide vocabulary' is totally up to you... but personally I can't stand people that use long words to garble shit all day about nothing important

[art]

I'd agree with Lewis here, it's all about having your options open. (Good to see another Brighton-er here, you at BIMM?)

One thing that is interesting is mechanicism. Most people would say that you should NEVER play mechanically, rigidly in time. Well why not? It's another flavour.
Sure you aren't going to sound good if your blues solos are counted and all on the beat, but what if you are playing something that you want to sound cold and sterile, a song about apathy perhaps?

Or take hip hop where the drums are often made to sound ridiculously tight, does it not give it a different feel to live loose drums?

What about Rage against the Machine's "Know Your Enemy" Intro where Tom Morello is doing kill switch stuff. The drums come in with a loose groove, but he remains 'quantized' it gives it the sound of a machine or a computer rather than a guitar, and it sounds better than if he went with the groove. Groove vs machine, a strange juxtaposition.

There are no rules in music, only artistic choices as to what you want to hear.

[thelordofcheesecake]

[treeduck]

[gumby3bh]

Holy crap! Are you sure that's alt picking? If so, that's insane!

By the way, the previous fastest clocked is Lane and Theodore Ziras at 18nps. At that speed, 3nps is a pretty big gap.

[alexkhan]

Well, a lot of people can do over 20 NPS if they're just doing legato or tapping, so I'm sure Guthrie was talking about alternate-picking. I've seen Guthrie just noodle at Tone Merchants checking out different guitars and amps and his picking chops are as mind-blowing as that of anyone I've seen - he just doesn't incorporate that super-fast alternate-picking kind of stuff into his music and playing very much. I've seen him play Flight of the Bumblebee a couple of times (once on a fretless guitar, no less! ) and it was an awe-inspiring sight - kinda like looking down on Grand Canyon!

I think the thing about Shawn and his playing is that even when he's not playing as fast as he can, there's a velocity sort of a thing happening in his lines that I've never heard anyone else duplicate. There are certain movements that makes him sound faster than any other player out there. What I'm saying is that there are probably players who are "faster" than Shawn if we measured by the NPS yardstick (Cooley, Batio, Impelliteri, etc.), but Lane just sounds faster, more fluid, more exciting, more difficult yet with plenty of headroom left, etc. I think a lot of it has to do with Shawn's note choices as well.

You know, I'm sure Guthrie would be embarrassed about this talk about NPS. I'm sure he got talked into it by some of his shredfreak students. Overall, he has no interest in speed-for-speed's-sake kind of playing although speed is a big aspect of his overall style. He's more interested in musically interesting lines that fit the context of the tune being played - be they slow or super fast. I don't think Guthrie sees himself as being in Shawn's league as far as that kind of playing is concerned. Guthrie himself has said that Shawn's speed is unrivalled and I don't think speed can only be measured in NPS. I think the context in which the speed is applied is what matters.

I kind of look at it as an athlete playing American football or whatever sports that requires speed. Now, some football players may not win track meets, but they're super fast on the field and outrace the opponents where and when it matters to score a touchdown, score a goal, or whatever. Track stars and 100m dash champions rarely make the transition to being successful in football or most other team sports. One has to know how to run routes and patterns and also avoid obstacles. For a guitar player, that means navigating changes, playing in time, and knowing what's going on around him with other musicians, not just play zillion miles per hour alone to the tick of a metronome.

I think that's where Shawn and Guthrie stand out. They play music with other great musicians and use speed where and when required in their own inimitable musical ways. And they never sound like they're trying to play the fastest they possibly can. They have "headroom" in their playing and don't push the pedal to the metal for the sake of doing so. Most music don't require for one to play 20 NPS. I can sure tell that Guthrie doesn't play any faster than what the song requires. The fastest I've seen him play was when he was noodling on different kinds of gear at the music store. If the music calls for it, he'll burn it up, but it still has to sound musical depending on the tempo and the mood of the song.
_________________
Ed Yoon
Certified Guthrie Fan-atic
BOING Music LLC - Managing Partner
.strandberg* Guitars USA
Ed Yoon Consulting & Management
Guitar Center Inc.

[j.s.bark]

Great observations Ed!
I feel that this practice regime of playing along to a metronome is being taken way too far especially amongst todays generation of young players.
Unfortunately, they see a guy like Petrucci say that it is important to build up your speed by increasing your bpm and take it as the ONLY way of practicing. Therefore other really important techniques are being overlooked.
_________________
Virtuosity is only useful when serving a musical purpose - J.S.BARK

[Carlo]

[sumis]

shawn lanes speed -- think coltrane.

[James W]

[Mattriani]

I was thinking about this today in the car.. and remembered OHF* saying that it's impossible to be aware of evey note you're playing beyond a certain speed.

I suppose the contour of the note pattern is what players keep in mind when they're playing at absolute speed. Nonetheless, I would like to know what goes through OHF's mind when he's really shredding.

*OHF = Our Hirsuite Fretlord. I'm trying to launch this as a trademark for GG