This sound and looks to me like a completely new style of shred since it’s so different from they style of anyone else I’ve ever heard. His approach includes a lot of very big intervals, and "licks’ that I hesitate to call "licks’ because they’re really not licks so much as they’re just portions of the song. I think this is really groundbreaking rock guitar music. Tell me what you think of this:
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I think that’s amazing guitar playing and I’d love to be capable of that…
HOWEVER.
For me it lacks the right amount of melody. I feel that the more technically proficient a player becomes, they tend to explore really “outside” ( for lack of a better work) type stylistic concepts in their music.
As a guitar player of 30 years I can hear the melody he is putting forth, but for the average Joe non-musician I’d bet that it just sounds like a cluster of notes with no defined hummable melody. It’s guitar music that only guitar players will listen to.
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It’s all in the ear of the beholder I guess… as the poster above said, it might be ‘good’ from a technique point of view but it’s not very musical for me and I hear intonation issues with it.
[edit - less harsh reply… I should really refrain from posting until after I’ve had my coffee…
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I think that’s an overly strict parameter of potential listeners, sort of like saying John McLaughlin’s music is guitar music that only guitarists will listen to. Certainly there are a lot of guitar players in the audience at a John McLaughlin concert, bt my guess is that there are plenty of musicians who play instruments other than guitar and then there are non- musicians who simply like to listen to viirtuosic musicianship. The same goes for fans of Dallas Perkins. f
Man, well, you asked us what we thought…
Pros: some wider intervals and interesting contours
Cons: (if the player winds up reading this, please read my whole post - I mean no offense, just answering the original post) The consistency of time was pretty off, the intonation was rough, compositionally the harmony was really stale, there was some interesting contours but it was just he same up/down patterns of movement throughout the whole thing, and the tone was also pretty weak. Also as far as the shredding goes, it’s not super fast (which is fine!) or all that technically impressive compared to a lot of what’s out there these days.
NOW here’s the thing, I’m a pretty critical listener, and I listen to any of my own playing and could come up with a much longer list of critiques and things that need improvement, so I’m really not saying this is so terrible, but I definitely don’t think it’s ground breaking. I think it might be good for us as listeners to be aware of things that could be stronger in a performance or composition, even just mechanically.
In terms of the originality, the main concept of the sequencing is kind of neat, I agree, but I feel like a lot of people have broke a lot of interesting ground with these sequencing kinds of ideas in rock, fusion, and jazz, and in many cases mix these types of patterns in diverse ways.
However, there’s a cool Mick Goodrick quote: “Nobody does what you do better than you do it, but also, nobody does it worse.” That is to say, nobody plays exactly like this, of course it is the players’ original style and original music. Maybe some of the similar artists I’d suggest would be too jazz-oriented to seem comparable, and maybe some of the rock guitarists I’d bring up would seem more straight forward than exactly this.
Maybe there’s an intention here that the player isn’t developed enough to achieve - or maybe he’s actually achieving exactly what he wants here.
So maybe the bottom line is - it didn’t grab me like it did for you, but if you found it really interesting and inspiring, that’s awesome!
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Yes, I agree with you. I should have worded that better. I guess what I meant is that this type of music will appeal to a limited audience. Mostly musicians and likely to a lesser extent the type you mentioned of the non musician that enjoys a more technical style.
I think it’s great playing but for me to want to hear more, I need a stronger more memorable melody.
That’s a fair comment. Thanks for taking the time to listen and write your opinion, Gtrjunior!
I don;t know if it was his intent to write the most technically impressive song he could write but I’m pretty sure that wasn’t his intent. The phrases he plays in this song may not be nearly as fast as a lot of what’s out there these days but I think you;d agree that if you took a random sample of some of the fastest, technically oriented songs being composed and recorded these days, I think you’d agree that the vast, vast majority of today’s shred songs have much simpler phrases to play, in general…
I have a couple questions for you - not with the intent of arguing with you but with the intent of trying to hear some things I apparently didn’t hear yet in this song that you did hear. So, here are my two questions:
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When you wrote “the consistency of time was pretty off” could you be as specific as you can by what exactly you mean by that? Fo example, in a run of straight eight notes, were some of the eight notes held longer than others? Or do you mean that the song slowed down and speeds up as it went along? Or something else entirely?
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When you wrote “The intonation was rough”, are you referring to the intonation as it was set up on the guitar, do you mean when he bends a note he either over or under-bends, or something else entirely different?
I’d really appreciate what you have to say in response to this post and I greatly appreciate the time you’ve already spent giving your honest opinion of it. It’s very easy (in several ways) to answer “great song, I thought the performance was flawless” but it doesn’t accomplish anything either. Having a critical opinion can be difficult, especially if we had been having this discussion face to face, but I’m very interested in that Dallas Perkins could do to improve himself as a guitarist and composer.
Cool style here!
That’s what it sounds like to me. Like maybe he’s just pulling too hard on the pulloffs, and a lot of the lines have them so the whole line is off a bit. It’s almost like what you’d hear on fretless or violin when whole phrases go out just a bit. This may be one reason why a lot of legato-oriented players try to do more of a hammer-only style. Whether it’s actually hammer-only, or just a light pull that doesn’t sound “pull-offy”, there may be an intonation benefit.
Anyway, again, cool style here. I don’t have a problem with the notey-ness of it per se, but sure, minus the intonation issue and maybe a little more balance between melody type lines and the busy ones, I might like it even more.
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Thank you Troy! I’m glad you thought so!
You mentioned how the intonation is off because it seems he’s puling to hard on the pull-offs… I’ll have to listen to it again to see if I can detect that. I’m curious as to what you think of the intonation of his bends. Do you think his intonation is off when he bends because he either over-bends or under-bends and if that’s the case then which is it - over-bending or under-bending?
Thanks again Troy!
Only listened to it once, you’d have to step through it more closely. In this case whole phrases sound off to me, and it makes it a little hard to listen to in parts if I’m being honest. What’s happening? Well considering it’s a fretted instrument, sharp is pretty much the most common way to be off, and either pressing too hard on big frets or pulling to hard on pulloffs or bends is what will do it.
Nevertheless, I think this is something that has cool potential, and the technique to achieve it is interesting, looks kind of like a crosspicking finger movement for outside picking which is one way to go for string skippy things like this.
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You know me, I like to be permanently positive, like a goth version of Buddy the Elf 
Haha!
I like it, it’s certainly unique, and I really like all the intervallic stuff. I try to do that a lot in my own music. I agree there are few lines that sound a little bit out, which does make it slightly harder to listen to for me, however, if he cleans that up a little, then I think he could really be on to something!
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It has the same feel as Marty Friedmans “Whiteworm” but with more outside playing. Some of the phrasing is nearly identical.
Also, I don’t know if the slight out of tune sound is intentional, but the playing immediately draws the attention because it sounds so unconventional in a rock/shred setting.
Dallas is one of the very few players who uses his fingers as the primary driver for his pick. I happen to know for a fact that he relies on his fingers pretty much exclusively to achieve his picking motion and there’s a good reason I know this. In case you noticed I showed a little more than typical interest in what people think of Dallas, it’s because he used to be my guitar teacher back when I was living in Tampa and going to The University Of South Florida where I earned my B.A. in Marketing. he taught lessons at Thoroughbred Music and son went on to be the lead guitarist for Tampa Glam legends Roxx Gang!
Dallas told me that when he went to G.I.T. he had been roommates with Paul Gilbert! Anyway, after he got the gig with Roxx Gang I think they all moved to Hollywood so I only needed getting maybe 4 months of lessons with Dallas. But he taught me how to sweep pick and some other cool things too.He had at that time just release maybe a year earlier an Ep named “The Looking Glass Project.” He’s going to re-rlease it thins year and it is absolutely an essential buy!!! Keep in mind that the songs and performances on that EP are from the late 80s but the playing, especially the sweeping are out of this world!!!
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I think it sounded bad to be honest with you. It was like the whole thing was too technical and he was having problems playing it. I bet if he slowed the tempo down a little he could play it alright.
Carl Verheyen is a master of that wide intervallic style, although using too much of it, as in this case, does get stale very quick.
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I was just about to mention Carl Verheyen as well. There are times where Carl really lets it rip with those rotating, wide leap arpeggios and this newer guy sounds very similar, except it’s basically the entire tune. Carl is super classy with it. Mika Tyyska does stuff like this too.
For those unfamiliar:
There are some pretty badass runs in the OP video and I woulnd’t mind getting some of those shapes under my fingers but the playing is kinda sloppy so hopefully he can develop it a bit more.
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IMO if the phrasing was better, he could get away with the outside stuff. If you don’t have good phrasing then no matter what outside notes you or how you compose your outside sounding lines, it’s going to sound bad.
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That was… unusual. I think it’s a case of aspiration being further along than execution. I mean, I can hear he’s trying to do something interesting over banal chords but is missing even the basics of playing in tune or intonating. Maybe he’s using really light strings cause you can literally see him fretting notes out of tune. There were a lot of notes that were either flubbed or played out of key just for convenient fretboard patterns. I don’t think I could listen to that more than the 2 times I did.
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Agreed, atonal piano music (Schoenberg, Webern, etc.) is super challenging to play but it just isn’t enjoyable to listen to.
I agree with the general consensus. It had some interesting ideas but the intonation basically ruined the performance in my opinion. It’s like watching the voice or Americas got talent and seeing a singer that can’t quite keep it together. The guitar is not a perfect instrument and even though it’s fretted you really have to keep your ear on things. Some people may not care or even notice… For example, the interlude in master of puppets, the lead part over the acoustic is off and annoying to listen to for me. But this is a technical forum so go figure. Thanks for posting though. It was interesting
This sounds fresh, interesting
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