tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/guitarists-66354/articlesGuitarists – The Conversation2023-02-28T19:18:28Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1973872023-02-28T19:18:28Z2023-02-28T19:18:28ZDoc Watson at 100: The virtuoso guitarist brought Appalachian music to a worldwide audience and influenced generations of musicians<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512586/original/file-20230228-20-g95ir3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C7%2C5273%2C3457&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Doc Watson was the finest guitar picker of his time.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/portrait-of-guitarist-doc-watson-chicago-illinois-april-20-news-photo/531409355">Paul Natkin/Archive Photos via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Arthel Lane “Doc” Watson was born on March 3, 1923, in Stony Fork, North Carolina, in the Blue Ridge Mountains, but his music <a href="https://docat100.com/">is as influential now</a> – more than a decade after <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/30/arts/music/doc-watson-folk-musician-dies-at-89.html">his 2012 death</a> – as at any time during his long career. During that time he was arguably America’s most beloved folk musician. Today, Watson is viewed by artists and fans as one of the greatest guitarists of American roots music.</p>
<p>Making music came naturally to Watson, who grew up in a large <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/30/arts/music/doc-watson-folk-musician-dies-at-89.html">music-loving family</a>. Recordings made in people’s homes by folklorists during the early 1960s documented music gatherings featuring various Watsons alongside neighbors and friends, collectively celebrating their community’s musical culture – a shared repertoire of Appalachian ballads, songs and tunes. </p>
<p>Watson is widely credited with <a href="https://www.flatpick.com/category_s/2221.htm">popularizing the guitar style known as flatpicking</a>, a rapid-fire approach to playing notes and chords on guitar strings by use of a plectrum, or guitar pick. Virtually all guitar players who have used a pick over the past six decades have labeled Watson a pioneer of that style. These include roots music masters like <a href="https://www.bluegrasshall.org/inductees/clarence-white/">Clarence White</a>, <a href="https://thebluegrasssituation.com/read/end-of-the-road-a-conversation-with-norman-blake/">Norman Blake</a> and <a href="https://www.nodepression.com/iconic-bluegrass-guitarist-tony-rice-dies-at-age-69/">Tony Rice</a>; newer bluegrass stars like <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/mar/24/i-was-running-away-from-poverty-the-remarkable-rise-of-bluegrass-virtuoso-billy-strings">Billy Strings</a> and <a href="https://variety.com/2023/music/news/molly-tuttle-interview-best-new-artist-grammy-nomination-bluegrass-1235513365/#!">Molly Tuttle</a>; and guitarists in other genres, like <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Bob-Dylan-American-musician">Bob Dylan</a>, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/05/03/606072797/first-listen-ry-cooder-the-prodigal-son">Ry Cooder</a> and <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/artist/stephen-stills-mn0000021744/biography">Stephen Stills</a>.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Doc Watson inspired generations of guitarists.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Watson was also an accomplished practitioner of <a href="https://guitaralliance.org/2013/10/15/history-fingerstyle-guitar/">fingerpicking</a>, a guitar style involving plucking strings with the thumb and one or more fingertips using fingerpicks or fingernails. Watson’s agile and rhythmically intricate <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCl1emxubWM">two-finger approach with fingerpicks</a> is widely considered to be the apogee of the style.</p>
<h2>From Appalachia to the folk revival circuit</h2>
<p>Though remembered as a guitarist, Watson initially played other instruments. </p>
<p>The harmonica preoccupied Watson until he was 11, when his father made a maplewood fretless banjo for him and taught him basic techniques. Two years later, Watson’s father bought him a US$12 Stella guitar. Watson loved the instrument and practiced constantly. He eventually <a href="https://www.npr.org/2012/05/30/153704132/fresh-air-remembers-traditional-music-legend-doc-watson">purchased a Martin</a> guitar on a payment plan and took to playing on the streets of Boone, North Carolina – a town about 10 miles away from the Watson home – to pay for it. </p>
<p>Traveling to Boone and, in subsequent years, to more distant locales was no easy feat for Watson because an eye infection in infancy had left him <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/30/arts/music/doc-watson-folk-musician-dies-at-89.html">permanently blind</a>. But Watson did not allow blindness to limit him. During the Great Depression, Watson’s father encouraged him to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/30/arts/music/doc-watson-folk-musician-dies-at-89.html">do his share of household chores</a>, including cutting firewood.</p>
<p>At the age of 23, Watson married his neighbor Rosa Lee Carlton, the daughter of fiddler Gaither Carlton, and the union brought two children, Eddy Merle Watson and Nancy Ellen Watson. To support his family, Watson did odd jobs including tuning pianos and played music on the street. In the early 1950s he joined a Johnson City, Tennessee-based country band, which required that he play an electric guitar. When this band played at square dances, Watson would play fiddle tunes on his Gibson Les Paul Goldtop with a flatpick. </p>
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<p>This blind musician with a strictly local reputation might never have entered the national folk music spotlight without serendipitous intervention. In September 1960, musician and folklorist <a href="https://folklife.si.edu/legacy-honorees/ralph-rinzler/smithsonian">Ralph Rinzler</a> arrived in the Blue Ridge from New York City to document old-time music in informal recording sessions. These sessions were led by <a href="https://wilkesheritagemuseum.com/hall-of-fame/previous-years/2010/clarence-tom-ashley">Clarence “Tom” Ashley</a>, a journeyman country musician known for “The Coo-Coo Bird,” his 1929 recording made in Johnson City and incorporated onto Folkways Records’ influential 1952 multi-LP set “<a href="https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-recording-preservation-board/documents/AnthologyOfAmericanFolkMusic.pdf">Anthology of American Folk Music</a>.” When Rinzler asked about nearby musicians to include in the sessions, Ashley recommended Watson. </p>
<p>Upon meeting Watson, Rinzler was baffled because Watson brought his electric guitar to an acoustic jam session. Watson had been playing electric guitar and didn’t own an acoustic guitar at the time. He had to borrow an acoustic guitar for the session. Rinzler’s recordings were released on a 1961 Folkways album, and Watson was soon recognized as a generational talent. Playing acoustic guitars exclusively, Watson toured the folk revival circuit, publicly showcasing his broad and deep repertoire and his unparalleled instrumental technique and tone.</p>
<h2>‘Traditional plus’</h2>
<p>Watson initially toured the U.S. as part of old-time ensembles headlined by Ashley, but it was Watson who received the lion’s share of the attention. He wowed audiences with his musical skills as a vocalist as well as an instrumentalist and delivered entertaining anecdotes, reflections and good-natured quips. Before long, his management booked gigs nationally for Watson as a solo act, including an <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2012/may/30/doc-watson">appearance at the 1963 Newport Folk Festival</a>. </p>
<p>While Watson had previously played a broad range of music – commercial country, blues, rockabilly, pop, jazz and Broadway – his management initially encouraged him to perform music associated with the rural culture of Appalachia. But as Watson expanded his on-stage repertoire in defiance of the perception that folk revival audiences only wanted to hear “authentic” folk music, no one complained. Indeed, <a href="https://misterguitar.us/bios/watsonbio.html">his fan base steadily increased</a>.</p>
<p>Watson recognized that any sustained success he might achieve as a full-time professional musician would depend on appealing to younger people. After touring alone and recording his eponymous debut album solo for Vanguard, Watson decided in 1964 to invite a musician half his age to be part of his act – someone who could help him reach younger fans and guide him from gig to gig. That someone was his son Merle, then 15, whose slide and fingerstyle guitar would complement his father’s vocal and instrumental work.</p>
<p>The father-son duo became a top concert draw and recorded a string of beloved albums for United Artists and independent labels Vanguard, Poppy, Flying Fish and Sugar Hill. In 1972 Doc Watson contributed memorably to the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s legendary collaborative album “<a href="https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-recording-preservation-board/documents/WTCBU%20essay.pdf">Will the Circle Be Unbroken</a>,” and that recognition dramatically expanded interest in Doc and Merle Watson.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">President Jimmy Carter hosted a performance by Doc Watson at the White House on Aug. 7, 1980.</span></figcaption>
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<p>While they knew countless traditional tunes, songs and ballads, Doc and Merle were equally devoted to interpreting newer material. Doc began to refer to the repertoire the duo performed, which drew from several genres of American music, as “traditional plus.” After <a href="https://www.upi.com/Archives/1985/10/23/Country-musician-Merle-Watson-who-teamed-with-his-father/3414498888000/">Merle’s tragic death</a> in a tractor accident in 1985, Watson continued to perform a “traditional plus” repertoire in collaboration with other musicians, including bassist T. Michael Coleman, guitarist Jack Lawrence, multi-instrumentalist David Holt and guitarist Richard Watson, Merle Watson’s son and Doc Watson’s grandson.</p>
<h2>‘Just one of the people’</h2>
<p>Watson said that his blindness had allowed him to <a href="https://www.npr.org/2012/05/30/153704132/fresh-air-remembers-traditional-music-legend-doc-watson">focus on honing his musical talents</a>. As Coleman said in my interview with him for the notes I wrote for the Doc Watson album “<a href="https://craftrecordings.com/products/doc-watson-life-s-work-a-retrospective-4-cd-box-set">Life’s Work, A Retrospective</a>”: “Doc told me that, being blind, he was not afraid to be anywhere or to do anything.” Certainly, Watson was fearless in many of the things he did throughout his life: cutting firewood, climbing a ladder to repair an upper-story window, constructing a utility building, hitchhiking to nearby towns to play music on the street, traveling by bus to perform in faraway cities and appearing on stages before thousands of people.</p>
<p>Fearlessness also infused his live performances and recordings. Whether playing fiddle tunes on his guitar at lightning speed with a flatpick or singing traditional and contemporary songs to fingerstyle accompaniment, he was a daring improviser.</p>
<p>Watson received numerous honors during his lifetime, including the <a href="https://www.arts.gov/honors/heritage/arthel-doc-watson">National Heritage Fellowship in 1988</a>, the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/videos/showbiz/2012/05/30/von-doc-watson-national-medal-of-arts.pool">National Medal of Arts in 1997</a>, the <a href="https://www.bluegrasshall.org/inductees/arthel-doc-watson/">International Bluegrass Music Hall of Honor in 2000</a> and the <a href="https://www.grammy.com/awards/lifetime-achievement-awards">Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2004</a>. But fame did not matter much to Watson. He considered himself “<a href="https://outsider.com/entertainment/music/just-one-people-remembering-doc-watson/">just one of the people</a>.” Watson committed himself to a life in music because he loved entertaining others and because he was <a href="https://youtu.be/i5mZlriOogU?start=398">proud to make a living for his family</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197387/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ted Olson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Doc Watson’s popularity and influence came from his virtuosic guitar playing, powerful voice, broad musical taste, folksy storytelling and lack of pretense.Ted Olson, Professor of Appalachian Studies and Bluegrass, Old-Time and Roots Music Studies, East Tennessee State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1880752022-08-08T20:03:55Z2022-08-08T20:03:55ZWith the strokes of a guitar solo, Joni Mitchell showed us how our female music elders are super punks<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477808/original/file-20220805-12-dhsykg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=21%2C0%2C3573%2C2398&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Carlin Stiehl for The Boston Globe via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The iconic Joni Mitchell’s recent surprise performance at the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxiluPSmAF8&feature=youtu.be">2022 Newport Folk Festival</a> prompted a world-wide outpouring of love and respect. </p>
<p>This was her first musical performance since suffering from a brain aneurysm in 2015 that left her unable to walk and talk. Last year, she spoke of having <a href="https://www.nme.com/en_au/news/music/joni-mitchell-addresses-health-issues-in-rare-speech-at-2021-kennedy-center-honors-3112447">polio as a child</a> as “a rehearsal for the rest of my life”. </p>
<p>The tributes for Mitchell celebrated her triumph from illness to recovery, but they also paid homage to Mitchell’s career that has pivoted on protest. </p>
<p>Mitchell is largely associated with folk scenes of the 60s and 70s. She has produced a prolific body of work, advocating for social change. As a committed activist she has spoken against environmental degradation, war, LGBTQI+ discrimination, and most recently, removed <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2022/1/29/22907696/joni-mitchell-spotify-joe-rogan-podcast-misinformation-covid-19">her music catalogue</a> from Spotify in a protest against anti-vaccine propaganda. </p>
<p>Now, with the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7wOdpxGctc">strokes of a guitar solo</a> she repositioned herself from folk hero to punk provocateur, defying the “permissible” ways older women “should” behave. </p>
<p>In commanding public space and using one of the most traditionally masculinised expressions of popular music practice, she directly challenged the sorts of expectations many people have around gendered norms, particularly what women in their elder years look and sound like.</p>
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<h2>Not everyone gets to age on stage</h2>
<p>Some of the most persistent social restrictions placed on women and gender diverse musicians are in relation to age. </p>
<p>Ongoing expectations of older women are to be passive, quiet and very much in the background. They are rarely asked, or expected, to “take up space” in the same ways their male counterparts do. </p>
<p>Whereas men step through phases of youthful experimentation into established music legends, there are tiresome obstacles for female and gender diverse people to do the same. </p>
<p>And while exceptions are often exceptional, they are not plentiful.</p>
<p>It’s not just age. Women have long been sidelined when it comes to acknowledging their skills on the electric guitar. Much like Mitchell. </p>
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<p>The electric guitar has been an important part of rock and punk genres. There is a symbiotic relationship between how these genres – and the instrumentation that defines them – have unwittingly become gendered. The electric guitar solo in particular has come to be associated with machismo: fast, loud, expert, brave. </p>
<p>If you like to imagine a world where women don’t exist, google “best guitar solos ever”. </p>
<p>A recent <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/04/02/opinion/grammys-rock-guitar-solo.html">New York Times article</a> suggested things are starting to change. Citing guitarists like Taja Cheek and Adrianne Lenker, the Times suggested the guitar solo has shifted from a macho institution into a display of vulnerability, a moment (perhaps many) of connectivity. </p>
<p>Mitchell’s performance sits somewhere in this domain. </p>
<p>For the hundreds of thousands of women and gender diverse guitarists world-wide, myself included, the electric guitar and the genres it is entwined with offer a cool, optional extra: to test the cultural norms of gender with other markers of identity like class, culture, sexuality and age, to blur ideas of what we should and shouldn’t do. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/we-crunched-the-numbers-on-ten-recent-worlds-best-guitarist-lists-where-are-the-women-111598">We crunched the numbers on ten recent ‘world’s best guitarist’ lists. Where are the women?</a>
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<h2>Australian women to the front</h2>
<p>Australian women and gender diverse rock and punk musicians are often subject to a double act of erasure – missing from localised histories, and also from broader canons of contemporary music, which often remain persistently rooted in the traditions of the UK and the US. </p>
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<p><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/55669013-my-rock-n-roll-friend">Tracey Thorn’s brilliant biography</a> of the Go-Between’s drummer Lindy Morrison is a love lettered homage that steps out the complex local, emotional, personal and structural ways that Australian women and gender diverse people are often omitted from cultural spaces. </p>
<p>“We are patronised and then we vanish,” writes Thorn.</p>
<p>The work of women and gender diverse artists is often compared to the glossy pedestal of the male creative genius.</p>
<p>In this light, we don’t play right, we don’t look right, we don’t sound right. </p>
<p>And then, somehow, we don’t age right. </p>
<p>Other reasons are far more mundane. Women contribute around <a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/au/en/blog/economics-blog/2019/Value-unpaid-work-care.html">13 hours more unpaid work</a> than men each week. </p>
<p>Carrying plates overflowing with generous gifts of labour, the maintenance of a music practice – a largely underpaid endeavour – is often the first to fall by the wayside. </p>
<p>Add to the mix ingrained social networks of knowledge sharing, and the dominance of men making decisions higher up the chain, and it is easy to see how women and gender diverse musicians stay submerged as men rise to the limited real estate of music elders. </p>
<p>The problem isn’t so much about starting up. It’s about finding the time to keep up. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-punks-legacy-40-years-on-60633">Friday essay: punk's legacy, 40 years on</a>
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<h2>Our female and gender diverse music elders</h2>
<p>There are so many Australian female and gender diverse music elders. Some are visible, but many ripple beneath the surface. </p>
<p>Regardless of genre, in maintaining decades-long practice, they are the super punks whose legacy can be heard in venues across the country. </p>
<p>The challenge now is to support the current crop of excellent musicians beyond the flushes of youth so that we have a more sustainable, textured and diverse Australian music culture. One where Mitchell’s defiance of expectations represents the status quo of how older women should and can be.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/her-sound-her-story-shows-that-womens-voices-are-louder-than-ever-in-australian-music-96205">Her Sound, Her Story shows that women's voices are louder than ever in Australian music</a>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Janelle K Johnstone has received funding from Creative Victoria and the Australia Council. </span></em></p>Joni Mitchell’s performance at Newport Folk Festival defied the ‘permissible’ ways older women ‘should’ behave.Janelle K Johnstone, PhD Candidate, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1476522020-10-07T05:58:13Z2020-10-07T05:58:13ZWith his signature guitar style, Eddie Van Halen changed rock music<p>The legendary guitarist Eddie Van Halen <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-1ttle-with-cancer/127382880-07/eddie-van-halen-dies-aged-65-after-ba">has died</a> aged 65. One of the most influential guitarists of the modern age, Van Halen was known for his mastery of the <a href="https://seeitlive.co/van-halen-guitar-tapping/">two-handed tapping</a> technique and for bringing the virtuosic rock guitar solo back into the popular music mainstream in the late 70s and 1980s. </p>
<p>One of the great innovators, Van Halen formed a bridge between 1970s rock styles and heavy metal sounds of the 1980s. He delivered his best work with a nonchalance that belied the training and dedication driving him and his band to succeed.</p>
<p>Born in the Netherlands in 1955, Van Halen came from a musical family. His father played saxophone and clarinet professionally and ensured Van Halen and his older brother, Alex, started piano lessons from a young age. </p>
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<p>The boys’ training in classical music and theory would influence Van Halen’s guitar playing, particularly the famous two-handed, finger tapping technique, where harmonic ideas derived from the keyboard found new expression on the electric guitar.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/redefining-the-rock-god-the-new-breed-of-electric-guitar-heroes-80192">Redefining the rock god – the new breed of electric guitar heroes</a>
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<h2>Young tour de force</h2>
<p>The family immigrated to the US in 1962 and the young Van Halen brothers later discovered rock music, with Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton as early heroes. </p>
<p>In his <a href="https://www.guitarplayer.com/players/eddie-van-halen-talks-revolutionary-gear-mods-and-the-death-of-rock-in-his-first-ever-interview-from-1978">first Guitar Player magazine interview</a> in 1978, Van Halen mentioned Clapton as a formative influence, having learnt his solos note for note.</p>
<p>In 1972, while still in high school, the brothers formed the band Mammoth, hiring a public address system from David Lee Roth. Van Halen originally sang as well as playing guitar, but he tired of combining duties so Roth (and his PA) joined the band. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">This recording, live on the Sunset Strip circa 1976, captures the energy of the band.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Mammoth caught the attention of Kiss’s Gene Simmons, who financed an early demo tape, and then producer Ted Templeman who signed the group to a record deal. Their first album, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Halen_(album)">Van Halen</a> (1978), was recorded quickly, drawing on their live sound and set list. </p>
<p>It was the album’s second track, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sI7XiJgt0vY">Eruption</a>, that captured the attention of guitarists.</p>
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<p>This tour de force shows Van Halen had already developed his signature style by his early 20s. Opening power chords signal a call to attention while licks based on blues and rock phrases are transformed through sheer speed and intensity. The tone has a power, presence and clarity rarely heard in rock guitar recordings of the time. </p>
<p>The climax of the piece is the famous two-handed tapping section. With a concluding dive bomb – a pitch descent courtesy of subtle manipulation of the <a href="https://www.sustainpunch.com/whammy-bars/">whammy bar</a>, Van Halen ushered in a new era in electric guitar playing. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Van Halen demonstrating his two-handed tapping in 2015.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>True innovation</h2>
<p>The sounds and techniques used in Eruption seemed to be only possible on the electric guitar, exploiting the instrument’s responsiveness and tactile immediacy.</p>
<p>But Van Halen continued to seek new means of musical expression and on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Halen_II">Van Halen II</a> (1979), he gave us an example of what was possible when his virtuosic approach was adapted to the acoustic guitar. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Spanish Fly is a great example of his drive to innovate and adapt as a musician.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Van Halen was always modifying his guitars. Early experiments led to him creating his “Frankenstein guitar” in 1974, fusing the neck and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humbucker">humbucker pickup</a> from a Gibson guitar onto a Fender Stratocaster body. He added the stripes that became his signature.</p>
<p>He remained involved in designing new instruments throughout his career, collaborating with makers such as <a href="https://www.guitar-list.com/music-man/electric-guitars/ernie-ballmusic-man-edward-van-halen">Music Man</a>, <a href="https://www.themusiczoo.com/blogs/news/guitar-showcase-ten-eddie-van-halen-signed-charvel-evh-art-series-touring-guitars">Charvel</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JT0exTVXIHI">Fender</a>.</p>
<h2>‘The brown sound’</h2>
<p>Van Halen’s sound was loud and distorted but also clear and focused. Often referred to as <a href="https://www.roland.co.uk/blog/guitarists-brown-sound/">the “brown” sound</a> for its feeling of organic warmth, this sound has gone on to inspire generations of guitarists. </p>
<p>The band’s biggest commercial success was the album <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_(Van_Halen_album)">1984</a>, where Van Halen turned to keyboards in both writing and recording.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">A good example of the ‘brown sound’ can be heard here on Unchained, live at Oakland Coliseum Stadium in 1981.</span></figcaption>
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<p>On the single Jump, keyboard chords ground the song but an improvised, high energy electric guitar solo reminds the listener of Van Halen’s virtuosity as he leads the band into a Bach-inspired, keyboard fantasy.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Jump showed Van Halen’s skills on both keyboard and guitar.</span></figcaption>
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<p>From 1978 to 1998, the band released 11 studio albums, with their 12th and final album, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Different_Kind_of_Truth">A Different Kind of Truth</a> (2012), appearing 13 years later. But it is the searing lead break on Michael Jackson’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beat_It">Beat It</a> (1983) that bought Van Halen to global attention. </p>
<p>Jammed into 32 seconds, Van Halen’s solo is a masterpiece of construction, featuring pitch manipulation with the whammy bar, squealing harmonics, rapid-fire two-handed tapping, scurrying scalar licks (or quick scales) and a final ascending <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tremolo">tremolo line</a> that soars to the upper reaches of the fretboard and makes you wonder what just happened.</p>
<p>It is one of the most famous rock guitar solos around.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Van Halen’s work on Beat It.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Van Halen was diagnosed with <a href="https://www.nme.com/news/music/van-halen-1225779">tongue cancer</a> in 2000, and declared cancer free in 2002. In 2019, it was first reported he had been battling <a href="https://consequenceofsound.net/2019/11/eddie-van-halen-hospitalized-report/">throat cancer</a> for five years.</p>
<p>In 2015, Rolling Stone named Van Halen as number eight on a list of the world’s <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/100-greatest-guitarists-153675/eddie-van-halen-3-159410/">greatest guitarists</a> of all time. But as his career shows, his talent wasn’t simply in his musical virtuosity, but in his innovation: creating a brand new sound for rock music, but also in the design of the guitar itself.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/147652/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ken Murray does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Eddie Van Halen has died aged 65. He will be remembered for his virtuoso playing, particularly his groundbreaking, two-handed, finger-tapping technique.Ken Murray, Associate Professor in Guitar, Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1434712020-07-27T12:21:36Z2020-07-27T12:21:36ZPeter Green: troubled Fleetwood Mac founder leaves legacy of brilliance that shines still<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349573/original/file-20200727-35-1ycbwv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C900%2C677&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Blues virtuoso Peter Green in 1970.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nick Contador via Mikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>One of rock’s clichés, originating in a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cawk2cMTnGo">Neil Young song lyric</a>, is that “it’s better to burn out than to fade away”. And indeed, many of its most celebrated casualties – from Jimi Hendrix to Kurt Cobain – departed the stage in sudden, shocking fashion thanks to tragic premature deaths. But even those whose play-out was lengthy, after a brief initial burst, can leave a hefty legacy. </p>
<p>Such was the case for Peter Green, founder of Fleetwood Mac, who passed away on July 25 aged 73, leaving an indelible stamp on generations of guitar players based primarily on a core body of work between 1966 and 1970.</p>
<p>Born Peter Greenbaum in 1946, the youngest son of an East End Jewish family – and, like many of his generation, transfixed by imported blues records from America – he emerged just after the initial wave of British blues-rock guitar heroes – notably the celebrated triumvirate of Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page.</p>
<p>He made his name by filling Clapton’s shoes in John Mayall’s <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/artist/john-mayall-the-bluesbreakers-mn0000238506/biography#">Bluesbreakers</a> – a kind of <a href="https://web.musicaficionado.com/main/article/why_guitar_gods_love_john_mayall_by_jimfarber">academy and clearing house</a> for many who would move on to some of the biggest rock acts of subsequent decades. Having substituted for Clapton on the occasional gig, Green took up a place in the band when Clapton left to form Cream. Green, in his turn, would be replaced in the band by Mick Taylor, before Taylor joined the Rolling Stones in 1969.</p>
<p>Replacing Clapton was a daunting task for Green. Clapton’s fan-base among London’s blues aficionados <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=-DWxyYapaBwC&printsec=frontcover&dq=waksman+instruments+of+desire&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiq696z6OzqAhWko3EKHekLCSUQ6AEwAHoECAIQAg#v=onepage&q=clapton%20is%20god&f=false">was vocal</a> – famously demonstrated by the graffiti “<a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/artists/eric-clapton-still-god-fellow-musicians-weigh/">Clapton is God</a>” that appeared on a wall in London at the time.</p>
<p>Green rose to the challenge, however, stamping his mark on the next Bluesbreakers album, A Hard Road (1967), both as a singer, and with instrumental compositions such as The Supernatural that established him as an eminent instrumentalist in his own right.</p>
<p>Importantly, he did this by veering away from the overt virtuosity of the other guitar heroes of the day. As Mick Fleetwood <a href="https://www.loudersound.com/features/fleetwood-mac-green-s-the-best-blues-guitarist-the-uk-s-produced">would put it</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>He went immediately for the human touch, and that’s what Peter’s playing has represented to millions of people – he played with the human, not the superstar touch.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Forming Fleetwood Mac</h2>
<p>A key tension within Green’s career – and personality – was between ambition and independence, on the one hand, and diffidence and fragility on the other. This was clear when, keen to set up his own group, he split from the Bluesbreakers after one album – taking drummer Mick Fleetwood and, later, bassist John McVie with him – but naming the new band Fleetwood Mac after his rhythm section and sharing lead guitar and vocal duties with new recruit Jeremy Spencer.</p>
<p>In this new outfit, his capacity for innovation came to the fore. A series of hits drew on his growing confidence as a songwriter and pushed the boundaries of the blues. Others, including Clapton, drove the role of the “guitar hero” forward through ever-lengthier expositions of fretboard dexterity. But Green, despite his technical ability, focused on the more nebulous merits of “feel” and “tone”, eventually making these indispensable facets of the rock guitar arsenal. He would <a href="https://www.guitarworld.com/features/the-story-of-peter-green-one-of-british-blues-most-mythologized-and-influential-players">recall</a>, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Playing fast is something I used to do with John Mayall when things weren’t going very well. But it isn’t any good. I like to play slowly and feel every note.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>A trip too far</h2>
<p>His comparatively brief sojourn with Fleetwood Mac yielded standards including <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-C6p-GwHfA">Oh Well!</a> (which inspired the Led Zeppelin staple Black Dog) and Black Magic Woman – later a signature song for Santana. </p>
<p>But in his songs, the fractiousness of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKRfCkx8KCM">The Green Manalishi (With The Two Prong Crown)</a> – its sonic density a forerunner of heavy metal – and the uncertainty of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IkNgwQNy2w">Man of the World</a>, evidenced a growing unease that would crash his career. On tour in 1970, following an LSD trip at a commune in Germany – one of <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=i0r_DAAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&dq=Fleetwood%20Mac%20on%20Fleetwood%20Mac&pg=PT107#v=twopage&q&f=false">several</a> he took – he abruptly quit the band, unable to cope with his growing fame.</p>
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<p>Fleetwood Mac would spend the next few years with a rapidly rotating line-up – including a brief return by Green to help them complete a tour after Jeremy Spencer <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2005/nov/26/familyandrelationships.religion">left to</a> join a cult. They relocated to America and, having recruited Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, delivered one of the defining albums of the 1970s: the <a href="https://observer.com/2017/02/fleetwood-mac-rumours-album-anniversary-review/">hugely successful Rumours</a>. </p>
<p>Green himself struggled. Like Pink Floyd founder <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/12/arts/music/12barrett.html">Syd Barrett</a>, whose band achieved stratospheric success after his own LSD-exacerbated mental illness precipitated his departure, Green made occasional recordings in the early seventies, but never found his equilibrium. </p>
<p>Later <a href="http://www.schizophrenia.com/newsletter/buckets/newsletter/197/197fmac.html">diagnosed with schizophrenia</a> he oscillated between stints as a gravedigger and hospital porter. There were episodes of erratic behaviour – trying to give away all of his money – and spells in psychiatric hospitals, where he received electroconvulsive therapy.</p>
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<p>He re-emerged sporadically, first with solo recordings in the 1980s and then, on a series of albums with <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/1999/may/13/artsfeatures4">The Splinter Group</a> in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Leaning heavily on standards and cover versions, and garnering a respectable, if sympathetic, following, they rarely troubled the upper reaches of the charts, or recaptured his earlier fire.</p>
<h2>Rich legacy</h2>
<p>If the headlines mainly remembered Green as a tragic figure, like other innovators of his generation that were brought low by drugs and collapse, his quiet influence was much deeper. Not the first, or most famous, of the British guitar heroes, his emphasis on tone, economy and space nevertheless shaped the vocabulary of rock guitar. </p>
<p>The likes of Jimmy Page and Gary Moore – the latter of whom <a href="https://www.musicradar.com/news/classic-interview-gary-moore-talks-blues-for-greeny-jack-bruce-bb-king-albert-collins-and-never-playing-with-clapton">recorded an album</a> of Green’s songs – attested to his impact. No less a luminary than BB King <a href="http://fleetwoodmac.org/peter-green.php">would remark</a>: “He has the sweetest tone I ever heard; he was the only one who gave me the cold sweats.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/143471/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam Behr has received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council. </span></em></p>A virtuoso guitarist and songwriter, Green’s career was blighted by drug-amplified mental health problems.Adam Behr, Lecturer in Popular and Contemporary Music, Newcastle UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1131542019-04-29T10:44:13Z2019-04-29T10:44:13ZHow air guitar became a serious sport<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270294/original/file-20190422-28084-x8rxrp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Matt 'Airistotle' Burns performs during the 2017 Air Guitar World Championships in Finland.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Finland-Air-Guitar/6f7e71f6f4b74ff39d907c9b372164d1/17/0">Eeva Rihel/Lehtikuva via AP</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Advertised as the “greatest thing you’ve never seen,” the 2019 <a href="https://www.usairguitar.com/">U.S. Air Guitar Championships</a> will take place this summer. </p>
<p>Competitors from around the country will don elaborate costumes, construct fantastical personas and perform comedic pantomimes of famous rock solos. Impaling themselves with their air guitars, swallowing them and smashing them to smithereens, they’ll elevate guitar playing to heights only imagined by real guitarists. </p>
<p>The winner will go on to represent the U.S. in the <a href="https://www.airguitarworldchampionships.com/">Air Guitar World Championships</a>, which will take place in Oulu, Finland, in late August.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.ethnomusicology.org/members/group_content_view.asp?group=156353&id=754686">As an ethnomusicologist</a>, I’ve studied air guitar competitions as a scholar, audience member and competitor. In fact, I was named the third best air guitarist in Boston in 2017 – truly one of my proudest moments. </p>
<p>Beyond the humorous, ironic façade of these performances is a sincere craft that has exploded in popularity over the past couple of decades.</p>
<h2>Origins in ‘shadow conducting’</h2>
<p>The phonograph, which became a common household item in the the first decade of the 20th century, inspired some of the earliest known instances of solo air playing. The Minneapolis Phonograph Society <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520261051/capturing-sound">described how some of its members</a>, from the privacy of their homes, had “taken to ‘shadow conducting,’ that most exhilarating phonographic indoor sport.”</p>
<p>The privacy aspect was important: At the time, many feared the mass consumption of music could have a corrosive effect on <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3052656?mag=the-gender-politics-of-the-first-boy-bands&seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">people’s bodies and mental health</a>. Air playing could be viewed as a sign of madness and pathology – a symptom of music overtaking the body. </p>
<p>One journalist for the Washington, D.C., Evening Star <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/711844/pdf">wrote an article about patients at an asylum</a>, including “one young girl [who] appeared to be fingering an imaginary guitar.” And a 1909 article in The Seattle Star described a pantomiming prisoner who “spends his time in jail playing on an imaginary piano, hoping thus to give the impression that he is insane and so escape a more severe punishment.”</p>
<p>Air playing also has deep roots in musical comedy. In vaudeville and variety shows, performers could get quick laughs by pantomiming to background music. Later, actors Fred Astaire and Jerry Lewis would continue this tradition of comedic air playing in films like “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfRWbynDGu8">Cinderfella</a>.” </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Jerry Lewis plays along with invisible instruments.</span></figcaption>
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<p>These performances also paved the way for lip syncing. During World War II, <a href="https://www.questia.com/library/journal/1P3-1169100291/borrowed-voice-the-art-of-lip-synching-in-sydney">live singing in drag</a> and lip syncing were used to entertain soldiers stationed on military bases. Lip syncing eventually became an enduring feature of <a href="https://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9781137411839">drag performance in LGBTQ subcultures</a>, where performers would simulate singing to recorded music as a cheaper alternative to hiring live musicians. </p>
<h2>Fans get in on the fun</h2>
<p>Some of the first known instances of live musicians breaking out the air guitar occurred during the 1950s and 1960s. Notable examples included Bill Reed and the Diamonds air guitaring on the Steve Allen Show in 1957, and Joe Cocker famously shredding an air guitar during his performance at Woodstock in 1969. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Joe Cocker riffs with his ghost guitar.</span></figcaption>
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<p>But rock fans didn’t really start taking up air instruments of their own until the 1970s, when they found themselves unable to resist mimicking their favorite performers, who had become more and more inventive with their guitar playing.</p>
<p>Inspired by African American guitar virtuosos of the first half of the 20th century, artists like Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Eddie Van Halen, Rick Nielsen and Lita Ford adopted showy stage antics. Some shredded up and down the fretboard with breakneck speed. Others soloed with a powerful and sustained emotional pull. And others played guitars behind their backs or lit guitars on fire. </p>
<p>Fans soon began copying the wild gestures of their favorite guitarists to mirror their onstage energy. As journalist Chris Willman <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/711844/pdf">wrote</a>, Eddie Van Halen possessed “the fingers that launched a hundred-thousand air-guitar solos.” And in the late 1970s, fans famously started bringing cardboard cutouts of guitars to Iron Maiden shows at <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkQx7CNolRo">The Bandwagon Heavy Metal Soundhouse in London</a>.</p>
<p>Air guitar playing was goofy. It was energetic. And it was fun.</p>
<p>But it was also a way to sincerely engage with music. It allowed many men move their bodies to music, while avoiding gendered stereotypes that dancing should be something <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/279332410_Putting_Some_Air_on_Their_Chests_Masculinity_and_Movement_in_Competitive_Air_Guitar">feminine and unmanly</a>. </p>
<h2>The golden age of air guitar</h2>
<p>By the early 1980s, air guitar had gone mainstream. </p>
<p>Beer companies, radio stations and colleges staged lip sync battles and air guitar competitions all over the United States. John McKenna and Michael Moffitt published “<a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Complete_Air_Guitar_Handbook.html?id=ATh7Cp_95AUC">The Complete Air Guitar Handbook</a>” in 1983, a how-to guide and psuedo-history of air guitar playing. There were famous air guitar scenes in the films “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096928/?ref_=nv_sr_2?ref_=nv_sr_2">Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure</a>” and “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086200/">Risky Business</a>,” while amateur music competition television shows, such as “Lip Service,” “Puttin’ on the Hits” and “Great Pretenders” featured contestants riffing on invisible guitars.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Tom Cruise shreds his air guitar in ‘Risky Business.’</span></figcaption>
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<p>In 1996, the Oulu Music Video Festival in Finland arranged to have an air guitar competition. Since the competition featured mostly local performers with a few foreigners, the organizers jokingly called it the “Air Guitar World Championships.”</p>
<p>The debut was a hit, and organizers decided to make it a permanent feature of the annual festival. A group in the U.S. heard about this international competition and formed an American branch in 2003. Air guitar’s popularity in the U.S. was further bolstered by the release of the 2006 documentary “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0799915/">Air Guitar Nation</a>” and the 2006 memoir “<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/524156.To_Air_is_Human">To Air Is Human</a>,” which detailed journalist Dan Crane’s quest to become an air guitar champion. </p>
<p>Today, the U.S. Air Guitar Championships continues to organize competitions, allowing performers to advance from local to regional to the national competition. </p>
<h2>Competition is in the air</h2>
<p>This year marks the 17th annual contest, and air guitarist Georgia Lunch will be competing as the reigning champion. </p>
<p>In 2018, her routine included carrying a lunchbox onstage, sipping Jägermeister out of a hamburger flask and a spastic strumming style.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Will someone be able to take out defending champ Georgia Lunch?</span></figcaption>
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<p>Her challengers include a group of well-known names from the air guitar circuit: Airistotle, Cindairella, Shred Nugent, Lieutenant Facemelter, Kingslayer and the Rockness Monster. She’ll also face some first-time competitors, who hope to unseat the air apparent. </p>
<p>United by this profound and peculiar practice, they’ll show that the history of the guitar solo is still being written.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/113154/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Byrd McDaniel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>An ethnomusicologist traces the origins of the practice, from early 20th century ‘air conductors’ to Joe Cocker’s air riffing at Woodstock to the rise of international competitions.Byrd McDaniel, PhD Candidate in Ethnomusicology, Brown UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1115982019-02-13T19:19:43Z2019-02-13T19:19:43ZWe crunched the numbers on ten recent ‘world’s best guitarist’ lists. Where are the women?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/258618/original/file-20190213-90501-7msami.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">There are some great women guitarists but they struggle to make it into the rock canon.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Who is currently regarded as the greatest guitarist of all time? It’s a hard question to answer but plenty have tried. In the last decade, a plethora of lists have sought to rank our guitar greats, drawing variously on panels of experts, lone “specialists”, and public opinion polls. </p>
<p>My <a href="http://www.utas.edu.au/profiles/staff/education/bill-baker">colleagues</a> <a href="http://www.utas.edu.au/profiles/staff/music/nicholas-haywood">and</a> I recently <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331062351_The_best_guitar_player_in_the_world_A_meta-analysis_of_ten_top-tens">analysed ten such lists</a>, which were published on the websites of music journals such as <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/100-greatest-guitarists-153675/lindsey-buckingham-39147/">Rolling Stone</a>, <a href="https://www.loudersound.com/features/the-50-greatest-guitarists-of-all-time/5">Louder</a> and <a href="www.guitarworld.com/features-news/readers-poll-results-100-greatest-guitarists-all-time/%0916495#article-gallery">Guitar World</a>, industry groups such as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZMOsDT6mfk">WatchMojo</a> and <a href="https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/top-50-guitarists/">UDiscover Music</a> and online guitar communities including <a href="https://www.guitarhabits.com/top-150-greatest-guitar-players-of-all-time/">Guitar Habits</a>. </p>
<p>Overwhelmingly, we found Jimi Hendrix in the number one spot with Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page often locked in a wrestling match for second ranking. Remarkably, among the 33 guitarists mentioned in the top ten places across these lists, not one was a woman.</p>
<p>By giving each guitarist a score from one to ten for their positions across the lists, we created an assimilated meta-list showing the top ten guitarists of all time (as inferred by industry and popular media discourse). This list contained from one to ten: Hendrix, Page, Clapton, Eddie Van Halen, Robert Johnson, B.B. King, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Chuck Berry, Keith Richards and Dave Gilmour. </p>
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<p>Other guitarists mentioned in the lists included Jeff Beck, Queen’s Brian May, Carlos Santana, Dimebag Darryl from Pantera, Slash from Guns N’ Roses, and Duane Allman.</p>
<p>Joni Mitchell was the highest ranking female in any of the lists at twelfth spot on the <a href="https://purpleclover.littlethings.com/entertainment/8167-greatest-guitarists/">PurpleClover</a> ranking. But where were female blues legends Bonnie Raitt (who scraped in at 89 on the Rolling Stone list) or multiple Grammy nominee <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Tedeschi">Susan Tedeschi</a>? Where is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orianthi">Orianthi</a>, a young Australian guitarist who shared a stage with Michael Jackson and continues to tour the world with other major artists? Why are women being written out of the canon in this way?</p>
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<p>The author of the <a href="https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/top-50-guitarists/">UDiscoverMusic article</a> wrote:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Believe us when we say, women guitar players are in short supply on these lists, and as much as we love Susan Tedeschi, Bonnie Raitt and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chantel_McGregor">Chantel McGregor</a>, to name just three, they just did not make the grade. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>But are talented women guitarists really in such short supply?</p>
<p>Guitar wielding female rock legends certainly exist. Think of Joan Jett, Melissa Etheridge, Tracy Chapman and the genre defying St. Vincent. Consider the American virtuosos <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNyQpe80TRA">Nita Strauss</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Batten">Jennifer Batten</a>, renowned freelance guitarists who have performed respectively with Alice Cooper and Michael Jackson. (Batten played lead guitar on Michael Jackson’s Bad, Dangerous and HIStory world tours). </p>
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<p>Young female guitarists are out there in large numbers around the world, some having developed impressive on-line followings, including Swiss fingerstyle artist Gabriella Quevedo and French rock virtuoso <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwoVfWTo2nU">Tina S.</a>. </p>
<p>A recent <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/fender-study-finds-half-of-new-guitarists-are-women-738025/">study by Fender</a> suggested that 50% of new guitar players are women; Guitar World magazine <a href="https://www.guitarworld.com/artists/taylor-swift-new-eddie-van-halen">cited the influence of Taylor Swift </a>as the reason young girls are taking up the instrument.</p>
<p>Is part of the problem here the age and gender of the people who compile these canonical lists? There is also a bias towards certain musical genres. All the guitarists in the top ten positions on the lists are rock or blues players: there are no jazz, classical or world music guitarists. There is also an Anglo-American monopoly – no Australian made it to any of the top tens, not even AC DC’s Angus Young – and the youngest guitarist on the meta-list is baby boomer Eddie Van Halen. </p>
<p>Is the guitar hero a creation of the 1960s and 70s and therefore outdated? Do we need a <a href="https://theconversation.com/redefining-the-rock-god-the-new-breed-of-electric-guitar-heroes-80192">new perspective</a> on guitar godliness? Do these lists perpetuate the idea that <a href="https://theconversation.com/harder-faster-louder-challenging-sexism-in-the-music-industry-58420">only men of a certain age</a> can be “greats” in these genres?</p>
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<p>Our study suggests online guitar community discourse is simply granting more exposure to already venerated guitar heroes. What role music education has had, or will have, on this is unclear. When I called for students of contemporary guitar to participate in my research project, currently in progress at the University of Tasmania, on the influence of tertiary music education in Australia, 95% of respondents were male. (Of course this may say more about who responds to surveys than the gender balance of university contemporary music courses.)</p>
<p>But given that plenty of young people are learning guitar, one wonders if music teachers are teaching their favourite music to the next generation - and thus replicating old ideas of the canon.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/111598/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniel Lee does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There are numerous women guitar virtuosos, from Joan Jett to Orianthi to St Vincent. Why are they so conclusively excluded from the rock canon?Daniel Lee, Graduate Researcher, University of TasmaniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.