when are you considered a "good" guitar player?
 

Maybe the better question is... When do YOU consider someone a good guitar player?

Backstory:
I have a few snobby guitarist friends who act above me, act like I don't know how to play guitar, and I'm really confused... it's really easy for me to learn songs and come up with decent riffs and I actually know a few non-power chord chords and I can tremolo pick really well, finger pick a little bit, play decent slide guitar, and can tap and do all that other extended technique bullshit pretty well. The only thing I can't do is bust out an insane shred solo. I can play some pretty technical stuff, like Beefheart and Hella stuff, yeah I'm sloppy at times but not too bad.... I've personally asked one of my snobby friends and he said everything I play sounds like Interpol (?!) and it would only sound good if it was through a million effects. Then he showed me 10 new drop-d riffs that everyone around us thought were badass. And I don't personally care if I'm considered a good guitarist, this isn't about me, it just inspired me to ask what YOU guys consider "good".

Creative.
Technical skill means nothing to me.
Like dragon force, yeah they can play fast as fuck but it lacks a lot.

It's hard to say, because "good" doesn't really mean anything.

I know this might start shit, but: A lot of people consider Malmsteen to be a shitty guitarist; a lot of people consider Cobain to have been a shitty guitarist. Both opinions are, in my opinion, completely retarded. A good guitarist is a guitarist who can get up and do something with it. They don't have to have heart, and they don't have to have technical genius, but they have to have something that makes them work toward completion--of whatever goal they may be striving toward. (In the examples I gave, that would be technical proficiency and accessible aggression, respectively.)

I would consider "good" to be something bewteen humility and persistence, and I care very little what it sounds like, as long as they're going for something real.

I'm better at guitar than a lot of people I know, but I am not a good guitarist. I don't have whatever I just tried to describe. It's just a hobby for me, and I'm not very confident in it. If that makes sense.

Yeah, I have a friend who can solo decently but seems to refuse playing chords which is perhaps the biggest problem when jamming with him. My bass riffs were not created so that you could toss a mediocre solo over it. A lot of guitarists use technical skill as an excuse for creativity which is the exact opposite of how I approach music writing. Of course said friend hates Sonic Youth and loves the Mars Volta.

The land between creativity, developed skill/talent and raw expression.

The way I see it is: every instrument is like speaking. If you only use a few sentences or words to describe things, then it gets kinda boring after a while (for most listening), developing a vocabulary helps you be more creative and expressive.

being creative i guess. i'm not big into what's good and what's not tech wise. i'm a horrible guitar player, but a lot of the sounds i make i find to be really great.

This forum has raved more than is healthy about Kevin Shields', Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo's guitar playing, they're creative and innovative guitarists. Yet I still don't think most guitarists would rate them as being actually 'good'. For me, the innovation accounts for everything, I just don't care whether they're objectively skilled/fast at playing guitar.

Unfortunately, in this age of Dragonforce and Guitar Hero Rocks The 80s, that is being seen in many quarters as the pinnacle of guitar playing.

I dunno...I don't really think I'm that good a guitarist, but I'm always having people come up to me after shows and tell me how much I rock. I guess it's because the leads, fills, and occasional solo bits I come up with seem to complement whomever I'm playing with pretty well.

doesn't matter whether the guitar player is playing insanely fast and technical, or if they're playing like they don't know anything - just as long as i find the sound original and innovative.. i'll say to someone "man, thats a good guitar player"

When the guitarist creates sounds that are aesthetically pleasing for me, then that is "good" guitar playing to me. Same with any instrument.

The old cliche is that when Lou Reed finally learned how to play guitar he made Rock 'n Roll Animal which is nowhere near as good as the Velvet Underground stuff. I have no idea how precisely true that is historically, but the essence of the point is hard to argue. The Ramones best records are certainly the first few where nobody claimed whatsoever that they knew how to play with any level of technical skill.

Doesn't mean I don't like some Eric Clapton and Kirk Hammett solos, but I also think Jandek is a good guitarist since he plays songs on the guitar that I think sound great.

what the fuck do i know, i just play it and see what comes.

It's all relative. I have friends that are all into metal, so they are not going to think I am a great guitarist. But I know that in my mind, I usually pull off what I am trying to do, at least for the moment. Skill + Creativity = Talent. There are many skilled muscians, and, guitarists especially, who forget the second part of the equation.

Josh, good morning to you sir!

I think that's true to a point. Although I also think it's possible to acknowledge that someone is a 'good' guitarist even if what they do doesn't please me. (Pat Metheny, for example, is not a guitarist I like, but is, I believe, a 'better' player than, say, Julia Cafritz, who I do).

I suppose for me, a 'good' guitarist is someone with the technical ability to play a number of different styles and not have to avoid more complex ones because their skill-levels won't permit it. It's likely that Metheny could get to grips with any Pussy Galore riff fairly quickly, while it's unlikely that Cafritz could cover a Metheny tune. Which has nothing to do with whether I actually like them or not.

I say this as someone whose guitar playing makes Julia Cafritz look like Django Reinhardt.

I would go with this, too.

like the ever mentioned sentence is such situations.
music is NO competition.
but a lot of guys try to make it kinda like that.
creativity far over tech skills, like in every creative environment

Indeed it is. Indeed it is.

I think it's when the sound you're making sounds like you, and not like someone else. I know quite a few shredders, and there's one who sounds like himself. He's a good guitarist. I know a few SY-ers (as it were), and there's none of them sound like themselves to me. Hardcore guitarists - I know loads, again, and only two that sound like themselves. It's less to do with their technical ability, but to do with how they forge an identity for themselves on their axe.

i consider a good guitarist by how they break their guitar.

^^
That fit with the perception of many people, that Hendrix is the best guitarist ever.
He was the first one to set his guitar on fire, not just commonly smashing it, like many others.
What a genius!

I'm sorry, but if you can't play at least two 25 minutes Dream Theater solos, you can't consider yourself as a part of the guitar elite.
Sorry, better luck next time.

hah.

Best response yet.

Should be the title of my biography

i think what swa(y) and dead air said are correct.
it depends really on the guitarist. i dont think that technical ability should be frowned upon. because an understanding of your instrument could only benifit the player. look at marc ribot, nels cline, django reinhardt, those people were and are incredible musicians, but they play tactfully. i think a good trait is to be able to play really complicated stuff but have the luxury to decide not to...
i unfortuantly can play well enough to play whatever my bands are playing and to write interesting stuff. but i still try to better my playing.
and its important to know chords/scales, what notes the strings are etc.

when you can play stairway to heaven. backwards.

Classes? Eh...?!

I'm talking from my experience as a pianist, but I think it works with guitar as well.
I've taken piano and musical theory lessons for 6/7 years and I think it has both benefits and drawbacks.

Benefits -> well for sure, it gave me technique, a knowledge on a lot of things - and I am able to play Deerhoof's Fresh Born on the piano since they released the score!

Drawbacks -> when I'm improvisating, I can find myself falling back on "classic" schemes (like for instance, basic chords) that I often played when I took lessons. So I sometimes have to do efforts in order to get out of those schemes

I'm not sure what your point is, but Bailey is a sickeningly talented guitarist. The best my fair nation ever produced, I sometimes think. But it's that problem of Vivaldi making more sense than, say, Strauss - I know who's the more amazing person, but the world at large doesn't really like Dicky Strauss, do they?

NO POINT. AM PISSED.

Strauss is OK when rendered by a 23-piece kazoo ensemble.

I say you are officially a guitar player when you can either pull off a proficient solo performance or hold your own in a band of some sort, and play music which outside ears determine as palatable. This solo performance, if necessary, could be substituted for a decent recording, however stage-shows are where you really cut your teeth as a musician and earn the stripes so to speak.

you're a good guitarist when you can please yrself and others with yr sounds/ songs.

Dude, - Strauss is my homeboy, get me? Elektra. That's the real shit right there. Any motherfucker who can break his shit down when he's dead and being raped by kazoos is a badass motherfucker if you ask me.

When you stop thinking about your guitar the same way most males go on about cars and driving them. They are different things. A guitar is also not an extension of your cock because it's a guitar, not a cock.

i like vivaldi...
(i do need to start listening to more strauss though)

you took the words right out of my mouth

A good guitarist doesn't necessarily have to be innovative. For me, a good guitarist may or may not have versatility, a decent knowledge of theory, innovation, good technical ability

a good guitarist has to ROCK. no more no less.

I've no idea how I'd go about deciding whether someone else is a good guitar player or not, but if I was trying to decide the same about myself, I'd consider myself good when I was able to get the sounds and melodies that are going on inside my head to come out of the guitar exactly as I imagine they should be.

in my opinion a good guitarist is someone who uses the guitar in order to work for/serve the composition.

theres also the technical part... depending on the music you make, you'll know what to use.. if long solos, effect pedals, bending, pullo-ffs/ hammer-ons, feedback, harmonies, weird noise, fuzz... in order to be a good guitarist you need to know what works best with the composition.

to me, a good solo is something like the instrumental part in Chapel Hill or Purr... a sequence of riffs that somehow fits the song more than some cheap-rockstar-lesson-cliched bullcrap

and 'becuz' instrumental part is one of the best '''solos''' i've ever heard

Wow.

I'm a good guitarist afterall. Thanks guys!