Guitarist

A guitarist is a musician who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselves on the guitar while singing.

Contents

Versatility

The guitarist controls an extremely versatile instrument. By using techniques such as bending and vibrato, the guitarist can make the guitar express a near vocal quality.

While with an ensemble, a guitarist can take the role of rhythm (playing with bass in the ensemble) or lead (playing on top of the bass in the ensemble) guitar.

A guitarist can also play along with a harmonica as a second instrument. Famous examples include Bob Dylan and Neil Young.[1]. Keyboards are sometimes also played along. Examples include both Dylan and Young and others such as Chris Martin, Nick Zinner or Pete Townshend.

Techniques

The guitarist has several ways of playing the guitar including the guitar pick, fingernail, and/or fingertip (see Fingerstyle guitar).[2]

Art

The guitarist has long been a popular subject for artists. One of the more famous examples is the painting by Edgar Degas showing the guitarist Lorenzo Pagans playing the guitar, with his elderly father Auguste de Gas in the background. Painted somewhere between 1869–72, the painting is currently owned by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.[3]

Notable guitarists

There are several lists made by magazines or websites with the purpose of finding out who are the greatest guitarists of all time for example The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time by Rolling Stone magazine or 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time by Guitar World magazine. Based on different criteria, these lists, particularly Rolling Stone polls, often meet with criticism and ridicule by many guitarists but they are also praised by others. A 2009 book, The 100 Greatest Metal Guitarists, attempted to define the best players of the heavy metal field and caused much controversy in doing so.

Rolling Stone

In 2003, Rolling Stone magazine published a list called The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time. This highly controversial list included 100 guitarists which the magazine considered the best with a brief introduction for each of them. The first in this list is the American guitarist Jimi Hendrix introduced by Pete Townshend, guitarist for The Who, who was, in his turn, ranked at #50 of the list. The list is heavily in favor of blues rock guitarists. The Top Ten of The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time by Rolling Stone are:[4]

# Guitarist Nationality
01 Jimi Hendrix  United States
02 Duane Allman  United States
03 B.B. King  United States
04 Eric Clapton  United Kingdom
05 Robert Johnson  United States
06 Chuck Berry  United States
07 Stevie Ray Vaughan  United States
08 Ry Cooder  United States
09 Jimmy Page  United Kingdom
10 Keith Richards  United Kingdom

In informing the list to readers, Paul MacInnes from British newspaper The Guardian expressed: "Surprisingly enough for an American magazine, the top 10 is fair jam-packed with Yanks", although he also noted three exceptions in the top 10.[5] The online magazine Blogcritics criticized the list for introducing some undeserving guitarists while forgetting some artists perceived being perhaps more worthy, such as Phil Keaggy or John Petrucci.[6]

The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time is mentioned in many biographies about artists who appear in the list.[7][8][9]

Guitar World

Guitar World, a monthly music magazine devoted to guitar, also published their list of 100 greatest guitarists in the book Guitar World Presents the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time from the Pages of Guitar World Magazine.[10] Different from the list of the Rolling Stone which was introduced in descending order, Guitar World preferred dividing the guitarists by music genre such as "Lords of Hard Rock" for hard rock artists or "Jazzmen" for jazz players. Despite the appearance in other magazines like Billboard,[11] this publication by Guitar World was criticized for including no female musicians within its selection.[12]

Digital Dream Door

Digital Dream Door.com, a site that ranks movies and music, came up with this list of the greatest electric rock, jazz and primarily acoustic guitarists of all time.[13][14] [15]These lists are included by genre as the majority of "greatest" lists are heavily biased towards blues rock and rock guitarists.

Rock

# Guitarist Nationality
01 Jimi Hendrix  United States
02 Jeff Beck  United Kingdom
03 Eddie Van Halen  United States
04 Eric Clapton  United Kingdom
05 Jimmy Page  United Kingdom
06 Ritchie Blackmore  United Kingdom
07 Tony Iommi  United Kingdom
08 Chuck Berry  United States
09 Duane Allman  United States
10 Robert Fripp  United Kingdom

Jazz

# Guitarist Nationality
01 Wes Montgomery  United States
02 Django Reinhardt  Belgium
03 Pat Metheny  United States
04 Joe Pass  United States
05 Charlie Christian  United States
06 John McLaughlin  United Kingdom
07 Allan Holdsworth  United Kingdom
08 Grant Green  United States
09 John Scofield  United States
10 Jim Hall  United States

Acoustic

# Guitarist Nationality
01 Michael Hedges  United States
02 Leo Kottke  United States
03 Chet Atkins  United States
04 Phil Keaggy  United States
05 John Fahey  United States
06 Adrian Legg  United Kingdom
07 Merle Travis  United States
08 John Renbourn  United States
09 Bert Jansch  United Kingdom
10 Tommy Emmanuel  Australia

Others

Following the death of Les Paul, TIME website presented their list of 10 greatest artists in Electric guitar. Like the Rolling Stone's list, Jimi Hendrix was chosen as the greatest guitarist followed by Slash, B.B. King, Keith Richards, Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page.[16] Gigwise.com, an online music magazine, also ranks Jimi Hendrix as the greatest guitarist ever, followed by Jimmy Page, B.B. King, Keith Richards and Kirk Hammett.[17]

See also

References

  1. ↑ http://www.harmonicalessons.com/guitar.html
  2. ↑ http://www.mangore.com/classical_guitar_fingernails.html
  3. ↑ http://www.davidrumsey.com/amico/amico1335159-19270.html
  4. ↑ "The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time". Rolling Stone. 2003-09-18. http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/5945/32609. Retrieved 2010-06-16. 
  5. ↑ MacInnes, Paul (2007-02-13). "Who are the 100 greatest guitarists of all time?". London: The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2007/feb/13/whoarethe100greatestguita. Retrieved 2009-11-18. 
  6. ↑ The Theory (2003-08-28). "The Top 100 Guitarists According to Rolling Stone". Blogcritics. http://blogcritics.org/music/article/the-top-100-guitarists-according-to/page-2/. Retrieved 2009-11-18. 
  7. ↑ The Crisis. The Crisis Publishing Company, Inc.. Autumn 2008. pp. 18. 
  8. ↑ Ogunjobi, Rotimi (2008). The Essential Jimi Hendrix. Lulu.com. pp. 28. ISBN 1411699238. 
  9. ↑ Clement, Vivian (2007). How to Succeed As a Female Guitarist: The Essential Guide for Working in a Male-dominated Industry. Alfred Publishing. pp. 1. ISBN 0739043048. 
  10. ↑ Jeff Kitts, Brad Tolinski (2002). Guitar World Presents the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time from the Pages of Guitar World Magazine. Hal Leonard Corporation. ISBN 0634046195. 
  11. ↑ Billboard, vol. 117, n° 49, pp. 67
  12. ↑ Leonard, Marion (2007). Gender in the music industry: Rock, discourse and girl power. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.. pp. 38. ISBN 0754638626. 
  13. ↑ "100 Greatest Rock Guitarists of all Time". http://digitaldreamdoor.nutsie.com/pages/best_newguitar.html. 
  14. ↑ "100 Greatest Jazz Guitarists of all Time". http://digitaldreamdoor.nutsie.com/pages/best_jazz/best_jazzguitar.html. 
  15. ↑ "100 Greatest Acoustic Guitarists of all Time". http://digitaldreamdoor.nutsie.com/pages/best_jazz/best_acousticddd.html. 
  16. ↑ "The 10 Greatest Electric-Guitar Players". TIME. 2009-08-14. http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1916544_1921910,00.html. Retrieved 2009-11-18. 
  17. ↑ "The 50 Greatest Guitarists... Ever!". Gigwise.com. http://www.gigwise.com/news/40852/The-50-Greatest-Guitarists-Ever. Retrieved 2010-01-14.