i grew up without a father. and when i discovered allan holdsworth, it was like i had found a figure to believe in. someone who would show me the way to sound like myself. allans music has shaped my very personal view of the world, has reshaped my idea of music all together. whenever I listen to his music i have to retain the tears, just because i love it so much. it is almost like a mental illness. thats how much i love him. he became like a father to me when i was 18 years or so old. i just cant believe i'll never again get the chance to meet him. all of you who love allan's music, i am with you and i love you.
Thanks for that, it is very touching. I know that I felt the huge presence of Allan, his boldness, originality, intelligence, how inspired he was, from his music. He is a musical guide / father figure to me as well, although I did grow up with my biological father, he didn't understand my music, or me, I didn't understand his love of golf either. We were very distant from each other. I saw Allan's IOU tour, I was about 19. I had a friend of my age, Jim Juhn, an accomplished fusion guitarist that could play McLaughlin and DiMeola, pefectly, learned by ear, he was a true prodigy, had a fusion band the opened for IOU in Cleveland. Jim was not just the best around he was a world class fusion player by the age of 18. I never saw anything like him, back then, or since then. Again, he was a true prodigy. He was teaching himself Allan's chords, entire songs, solos, properly played, by ear way back then. I have amazing stories about his musical powers but I won't get into all that here. Jim and I were both into making our guitars play as easily as possible, refretting, sanding down necks, stuff that few kids were doing back then. He used to say "For what I'm doing, I don't have time to push the strings down." So Jim's band played their opening set for IOU, he comes out afterward, sits on the floor in front of the stage right next to me, very excitedly he says "I got to play Allan's guitar back there, you couldn't see air under the strings!" Coming from Jim, right then, that seemed like a goldmine of information. In those days pro guitarists would lie about their gear in magazines, say they liked high action, they liked to fight the guitar...what was the real truth? Well, the greatest guitarist on the planet, with the greatest tone had super low action and light strings, and still got "that Holdsworth tone" I know this sounds weird, but that experience, linking me to Allan through Jim Juhn made me feel very close to Allan. It made me realize that my own path, if it involved low action and my own experimental sounds, it was all good, stay on my path and don't be concerned with what anyone says about my guitar set-up, or my music, just be me, stay on my own path. Allan was and is very important to many of us. The greatest guitar playing musician of our time to be recorded, and perhaps the greatest at any time in history.
This is such a great familiar testament. I believe I shared some of what you were saying first with Pink Floyd’s Animals album, I was still in Neu-Ulm, W.-G., but then got introduced to Allan by Lyle Workman. It was a rough stretch getting here to the states with a divorced family with no nucleus, but I always stuck to music. Allan, well what can you say, the absolute pinnacle that sudden brought out a flamethrower from all the prior Molotov cocktails on guitar. And when flamethrower spoke, shivers embarked. -Whappocosta
I was fortunate to live close to Allan and saw him perform probably as much as anyone. He always denigrated his performance. I had a friend who was a knucklehead that would agree with him. Allan got really irritated.😅
5:08 Listen to Holdsworth's wisdom about learning from Charlie Christian. People inspired by Holdsworth need to adopt this musical insight. They don't, which is why they sound like clones. "I started trying to learn some of his solos, but then I realised I wasn't really learning anything, why don't you think about what he might have been thinking about rather than what he was actually doing" It's all there in that one statement.
Novices -should- imitate the best players thathey can and want to, no matter what their motives are. If they have their own original ideas, they'll come out soon enough, with the copied technical skills as a bonus. If they don't have any original ideas, well, at least they'll have the tricks & the chops.
Met Allan several times in Chicago and London. One time we were laughing so hard at his response to the question about him practicing with golf balls in his fingers. Really miss Allan!
And that was his quickest, most decisive answer. His musical output was not routine either, it makes sense his time alone with the instrument would not have been by a standard routine either.
Its crazy to see how skinny he was here, and how much weight he quickly gained leading to his death. I presume the stress of life and his love for beer took it's toll and ultimately his life
It's not really about that, It's because people love how holdsworth sound they aspire to sound like him, but most of the good guitarists that "copy" licks from holdsworth do so to study them, as have all music scholars done in the past, they copy that which they like to understand it and to build their own expressions from that. I think it's a lot more rediculous how people copy stylistic approaches like those that copy vai, cause it's so much more noticable since it's basically just "tricks".
But I hope people keep copying and sharing each others ideas and build their own ideas from them without concern for "sounding" like eachother, cause if you've got something strong enough to tell with your music, you wont ever come out sounding like a clone. At least that's what I hope
bofuscrapshaw I'm not being a grammar cop. When you typed "he does not play a note", I thought you meant to type "he does not play a sour note" or "he does not play a note outside the scale" or something like that. I didn't know that you meant that he just talks about stuff without actually playing anything in this video. I misinterpreted what you typed, and wasn't sure what you meant, but now I know what you meant.
+johnebgood108 Most likely this is just some video a person there took of it. I doubt Holdsworth would have agreed to have a recording made for later public consumption.
johnebgood108 You think knowing that a world class musician is conducting a q and a they could get a mic organised and turn off the store phones. I even heard someone playing sax in the background. Embarrassing.
which is why I don't like instructional videos, they tend to promote counterfeits. Anybody can access musical knowledge, there are reams of study materials out there, how does it help to put an artist's signature on display? There is no philosophical insight conveyed doing this, instead, there's way too much attention on being like this guy or that. The guitar is a pretty odious instrument because of this
I don't understand his playing, it is not accessible to all as most jazz/fusion is not either, its like "what are you trying to say" when he solos? its like he is speaking in a foreign language or speaking gibberish I just dont get it, coming from rock world anyway..I had his album metal fatigue as I recall...
Have you listen to any jazz? Like Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Miles Davies? His music is very harmonic, with many changes, you gotta get used to it to appreciate. I've been there, for many years it didn't speak anything to me Allan's music, but today I love it, I have no doubt of its greatness.
Denis Taaffe really understanding what holdsworth does requires some knowledge and experience in fusion and jazz. I also thought the same at one point about 15 years ago when all I liked was black metal and thrash, but over the last couple of years I've really gotten into his style. It also may just not be your idea of good music, but understanding holdsworth hasnt taken away from my appreciation for players like SRV, herring, govan and malmsteen.
His vocabulary is largely self created, he has "borrowed" very little from other players according to himself. If you listen to horn players you might find some similarities
Denis, I'm no musical genius, but I find his music greatly appealing and not too abstract. On the other hand, I've never cared for classical music, or heavy metal (to pick two) despite both of those having their fans. If you like it great, otherwise don't worry about it and find your bliss.
