dave better than some of the best in his own way

[Sciaracastro]

i know this might sound crazy, but compared to a lot of guitarts, and i know i have a point. Could Dave be better than some of the great guitarists out there in his own way? I mean Daves songs might be simple melodies, but hes a strong guitar player holding his riffs that would fatigue the best of some of them especially strumming and picking away a 20 song set. Take a song like Two Step, holding the chord rythm and then into the verse? Idk about anyone else but that can get too. Loving Wings? Holds the same riff together for more than 6 minutes, One Sweet World intro? AATW The verse then into the Jam back? "Stay" esp the outro. Talk about endurance. Just a thought.

peace

Personally I think he's very underrated. People say 'oh if i bunch of teenage kids can learn his stuff off of a message board he can't be that good.' but his creativity, solid playing and writing are all exteremely impressive.

i agree.

i agree too. and I respect him because anyone can play a clapton song just like clapton, very few people can play a dave song like dave. his ability to mute certain strings and play with that continuous strum is insane.

i totally agree...the problem is that ppl is impressed by very fast solos and not by those things...

[Davy28]

Yeah, Dave is underrated because unlike big solo guitarists like page, trey, jimi, and haynes, he is a rhythm guitarist, and one of the best, up there with Pete Townsend and Keith Richards.

[Kukini]

Dave is a great guitarist. Despite what Guitar Magazine or whatever has to say. I want a mediocre guitarist to pick up a guitar and try to fight through a song and get the rythym and correct strumming patterns down without practicing for days. His shit is a lot harder than most make it out to be.

[c_tietze]

Underrated - overrated, whatever. A point of argument that makes music snobs out of some of us.

By attempting to separate ourselves from others because we either do or don't like Dave Matthews or do or don't think he's better than John Mayer, whatever, defeats the purpose of good music.

I've grown so tired of certain Phisheads claiming DMB is too commercial (lol! coming from a Phish tee-wearing teen no less) or Dave's better than John Mayer, or this band or that band is better because they haven't 'sold out'.

Music snobs are truly missing the point that good music can touch a great number of people achieving a greater good and good music shouldn't divide people.

[jellyfish]

On the topic of Dave being a good guitarist. I think many of you here missed the point of the question.

Is Dave a good guitarist, NOT is Dave somebody you can copy easily. Playing guitar has more elements than just tough chord stretches or tricky muting. Those elements in conjunction with his ability to write great percussive melodies in a coherent & concise manner make him a great guitarist. It's much harder to write your own music than to copy/mimic somebody elses playing style.

For example, Phunkdified by Justin King.

Praisedave hosted a video of him playing Justin's song. I thought Praisedave's version was good for how little he has been playing the guitar. However, I don't consider him a good guitarist. He simply copied somebody else, which granted is a hard song but like I said earlier, copying is much easier than creating.

Anyway, I personally love Dave's guitar style and the music he writes. ( referring to earlier material) To play his songs verbatim is really hard, and it should be.

[a1075dd63aa12]

not to mention the rocking tunes he has created on an acoustic, before dave it seemed mostly like the acoustic was meant to be somewhat mellow, and folky. also, he somewhat mixes lead and rhythm into his melodies, to the point where they dont need a lead guitarist.

[mlb1399]

I am going to go with Jason here. It is definitely a lot easier to copy someone else than it is to come up with really good stuff on your own. A lot of people claim that it's easy to play DMB stuff and especially when teenagers are playing this type of music. When you spend a year or so of your life just trying to get down 1 person's style it's a lot easier than Dave going through the growing pains of creating this stuff on his own.

Every now and then and I will play some tunes for friends and they think it sounds great(not trying to toot my own horn here) but I know it is far from perfect and that I am making mistakes here and there. I have heard some covers of songs that sounded close to perfect but have heard very few people play a dave song all the way through perfectly. I have met people who say they know dave songs to listen to them only play riffs or to not play it right.

I don't think we realize that Dave plays all these songs while singing playing near flawlessly. Remember that part of perfecting a song is just not knowing the chords or the notes or the strumming pattern, but also playing the notes for the exact length with the exact amount of pauses in there.

I know as humans we like to make comparisons. It is really hard to compare different guitarists. Some guitarists are great at certain aspects while others are good at totally different aspects. I think you guys are right that generally the magazines appreciate the fast guitar solos then they do awesome rhythms. Let's be real here, Dave has been playing guitar a lot for almost 30 years. Anyone who plays that long is certainly a master at what they do.

[jellyfish]

I am going to go with Jason here. It is definitely a lot easier to copy someone else than it is to come up with really good stuff on your own. A lot of people claim that it's easy to play DMB stuff and especially when teenagers are playing this type of music. When you spend a year or so of your life just trying to get down 1 person's style it's a lot easier than Dave going through the growing pains of creating this stuff on his own.

Every now and then and I will play some tunes for friends and they think it sounds great(not trying to toot my own horn here) but I know it is far from perfect and that I am making mistakes here and there. I have heard some covers of songs that sounded close to perfect but have heard very few people play a dave song all the way through perfectly. I have met people who say they know dave songs to listen to them only play riffs or to not play it right.

I don't think we realize that Dave plays all these songs while singing playing near flawlessly. Remember that part of perfecting a song is just not knowing the chords or the notes or the strumming pattern, but also playing the notes for the exact length with the exact amount of pauses in there.

I know as humans we like to make comparisons. It is really hard to compare different guitarists. Some guitarists are great at certain aspects while others are good at totally different aspects. I think you guys are right that generally the magazines appreciate the fast guitar solos then they do awesome rhythms. Let's be real here, Dave has been playing guitar a lot for almost 30 years. Anyone who plays that long is certainly a master at what they do.

I have been playing Dave for ten years and I don't think I have any of his songs mastered. I can make it sound 90-95% close but I can't capture his "style" no matter how hard I try. I have my own style and am happy with that.

I don't think I've ever heard a recording on these message boards that sound exactly like Dave's. If so, I would like to hear. Then I would say good job on perfectly copying somebody's style.

To CREATE music is the ultimate.

[a1075dd63aa12]

i agree, there are two aspects to playing the guitar. some people treat it as a hobby and learn/attempt to copy songs that they like. then there are others who create. personally i picked up the guitar to create stuff not to play songs other people have already written. the stuff dave has written IMO are really really good, the thing that makes dave who he is i think has to do with the way he sings while playing those tunes. ive run into many people who say they can play dave, who cant put the whole song together correctly, play the song either way too fast or too slow and when muting the song dont even do it close to right. i can play dave songs, but to say i play them exactly right would be way off. they are his songs, he wrote them he has an idea in his head how they should sound, so when it comes to copying them exactly it is a very tough thing to do. its like when you come up with something and you show it to someone else, and when they play it back, it never sounds exactly right because what you have in your head doesnt exactly come back the same when someone else is playing it, whether it is better or not can change. i think everyone hears stuff differently so to duplicate something is really tough.

[jellyfish]

i agree, there are two aspects to playing the guitar. some people treat it as a hobby and learn/attempt to copy songs that they like. then there are others who create. personally i picked up the guitar to create stuff not to play songs other people have already written. the stuff dave has written IMO are really really good, the thing that makes dave who he is i think has to do with the way he sings while playing those tunes. ive run into many people who say they can play dave, who cant put the whole song together correctly, play the song either way too fast or too slow and when muting the song dont even do it close to right. i can play dave songs, but to say i play them exactly right would be way off. they are his songs, he wrote them he has an idea in his head how they should sound, so when it comes to copying them exactly it is a very tough thing to do. its like when you come up with something and you show it to someone else, and when they play it back, it never sounds exactly right because what you have in your head doesnt exactly come back the same when someone else is playing it, whether it is better or not can change. i think everyone hears stuff differently so to duplicate something is really tough.

I used to play guitar in 8th grade but then picked it up in college so that I can "play" Dave songs.

I create alot of songs, mainly rythym and some lead with no vocals. I like making instrumentals cause my voice isn't so good. I recorded Watchtower with vocals the other night and I almost slit my wrists cause the vocals sounded so bad.

[a1075dd63aa12]

i agree, there are two aspects to playing the guitar. some people treat it as a hobby and learn/attempt to copy songs that they like. then there are others who create. personally i picked up the guitar to create stuff not to play songs other people have already written. the stuff dave has written IMO are really really good, the thing that makes dave who he is i think has to do with the way he sings while playing those tunes. ive run into many people who say they can play dave, who cant put the whole song together correctly, play the song either way too fast or too slow and when muting the song dont even do it close to right. i can play dave songs, but to say i play them exactly right would be way off. they are his songs, he wrote them he has an idea in his head how they should sound, so when it comes to copying them exactly it is a very tough thing to do. its like when you come up with something and you show it to someone else, and when they play it back, it never sounds exactly right because what you have in your head doesnt exactly come back the same when someone else is playing it, whether it is better or not can change. i think everyone hears stuff differently so to duplicate something is really tough.

I used to play guitar in 8th grade but then picked it up in college so that I can "play" Dave songs.

I create alot of songs, mainly rythym and some lead with no vocals. I like making instrumentals cause my voice isn't so good. I recorded Watchtower with vocals the other night and I almost slit my wrists cause the vocals sounded so bad.

ive honestly never really recorded my voice or sang it front of others, so i dont know the quality of my voice but i dont think its too good. so i feel your pain, i enjoy just playing, singing would be great but id rather just play.

[jellyfish]

i agree, there are two aspects to playing the guitar. some people treat it as a hobby and learn/attempt to copy songs that they like. then there are others who create. personally i picked up the guitar to create stuff not to play songs other people have already written. the stuff dave has written IMO are really really good, the thing that makes dave who he is i think has to do with the way he sings while playing those tunes. ive run into many people who say they can play dave, who cant put the whole song together correctly, play the song either way too fast or too slow and when muting the song dont even do it close to right. i can play dave songs, but to say i play them exactly right would be way off. they are his songs, he wrote them he has an idea in his head how they should sound, so when it comes to copying them exactly it is a very tough thing to do. its like when you come up with something and you show it to someone else, and when they play it back, it never sounds exactly right because what you have in your head doesnt exactly come back the same when someone else is playing it, whether it is better or not can change. i think everyone hears stuff differently so to duplicate something is really tough.

I used to play guitar in 8th grade but then picked it up in college so that I can "play" Dave songs.

I create alot of songs, mainly rythym and some lead with no vocals. I like making instrumentals cause my voice isn't so good. I recorded Watchtower with vocals the other night and I almost slit my wrists cause the vocals sounded so bad.

ive honestly never really recorded my voice or sang it front of others, so i dont know the quality of my voice but i dont think its too good. so i feel your pain, i enjoy just playing, singing would be great but id rather just play.

When I first started gigging, I never sang. And I don't think I ever will.
I always let my friends becasue he has a killer range and sounds pretty good singing Dave. It was nice just to sit there and play lead Rythym while he fiddled with some chords and sang all the songs.