Personally, I have absolutely no clue. All I know is he’s one of the fastest I’ve heard, both picking AND fretting - this was the lesson I was talking about, though I’d be shocked if the video links still work:
http://www.chopsfromhell.com/columns/guest_cooley_7ds1.html
The speed at which he plays the final Wrath lick is stupendous when you consider the fretting hand stretches involved. It’s inhuman.
This is an interesting point actually.
Rusty Cooley is about the same age as Jason Becker. Guthrie Govan is about the same age as Richie Kotzen.
The vid clips are on youtube if you just search rusty cooley seven deadly sins and each example comes up
You knw, you’re right. I always think of Cooley and Govan as “roughly” in the same generation of guitarists as guys like me (who I’m sure is a player everyone has a deep appreciation of the musical importance of my work 
) or guys like Angel Vivaldi or Tosin Abasi or whatnot, but I suppose they’re really not, they just didn’t make a name for themselves until much later in life than Gilbert or, idunno, Andy Timmons did.
So, do we need to separate “generation” from age and instead think about the period where they were musically active? That’s my gut inclination, but… I’m thinking out loud as I type.
Good thought. The frettinng hand side of this is, well, something else. 
I’ve tried to play this here and there in the past, hut have made peace with the fact that my hands just don’t move like this.
This is interesting to me, I’ve never really identified with a generation of players.
I really don’t know what’s appropriate here. Yngwie Malmsteen made his name years before Eric Johnson, but EJ is older by nearly a decade.
Rusty’s stretchy licks are terrifying. Spans beyond what even Holdsworth and Lane would attempt, often using all four digits instead of leaving one free to allow some slack in the hand.
This is the stuff of nightmares.
If it’s any consolation, slow down the video. Rusty isn’t actually managing to play all of the notes at the fast speed, especially on the lower strings low in the neck. Still an absurdity.
Edit: This is absolutely not a dig at Rusty. How the hell is anybody supposed to know if they’re really “doing it” at these speeds without slowing down the audio?
Watching Rusty Cooley makes me feel like I’m getting tendonitis.
I think by and large, most guitarists could stretch far further than they think they can if they assume proper hand positioning.
However, many people just won’t have the the range of motion in finger abduction to do some of the things Rusty does. Even when the muscles are flexible, the joints can only go so far.
The RSI I keep talking about is specifically from trying to play an Outworld lick, hahaha:
It’s just stretch diminished lines around the 10th+ fret, but it wrecked me.
Okay well, I just listened to the newest Lorna Shore release and uhh how did I forget Adam Dimicco
Pretty sure he has a dart thrower DBX mechanic to play that crazy nonsense aromatic be a minute in on the second video
On the subject of fretting hand stretching, here’s another video by John Vullo on Holdsworth:
I can manage some of these, but some just aren’t possible for me. I have average sized hands, but I have a very significant length differential between my 3rd and 4th fingers. The GMaj9#11 chord from “Home” is an almost impossible shape for my hand, I have to be much higher in the neck to play that shape.
It’s a little disheartening to know that some of the music which I’ve found to be the most beautiful and inspiring is literally out of my reach, but you just have to make the best with what you have.
Or change the rules a little. I never went all in with this but I wrote a track once that had some dissonant Holdsworthian chords in it. I intentionally split the part between 2 guitars. It wasn’t a matter of comfort but orchestration. Not even Allan could have played these chords because each track had 3 notes on the E B and G strings forming some 6 note clusters. Just not humanly possible on one guitar (unless it was tuned way different or maybe Nashville strung).
Most of the sounds I find most beautiful are either choirs or orchestras. Sometimes it takes more than one person, working together, to get the best results.
All that said, Holdsworth"s stretches were insane. When I am near a guitar I’ll have to give the chords in that video a go and see how bad it hurts (or if I can even do them…). I had to do some crazy stretches in a few of the Barrios pieces I played long ago. Curious how they stack up to the man himself.
Depends on what you mean by “better.” To put things into perspective, contemporary guitar is still a relatively new instrument. There are people alive today who were alive before the electric guitar was invented, let alone stuff like super strats and floyds. There is also thousands of times more resources of much higher quality today, such as cracking the code, for people to access now. So yes, as a general rule, modern players are more technically proficient. I also think we tend to idolise a lot of older artists a little too much. I like any x player as much as the next guy, but I still hear people from older generations speak as if guitar was “finished” after their favourite player came out.
On the other hand, the fact that we had the 80’s wave of virtuoso players given that they basically had to invent shredding is more historically significant to me than the fact that the overall average is better today. I am also not a fan of the instagram/tiktok wave of players who put out a flashy 45 second clip and call it a song. Nor do I particularly like some of the songwriting or mixing these days. If I had to describe it, it feels like a lot of what’s coming out today is made for social media more so than an album.
I went through the whole thing. They all were very uncomfortable lol! There were 1 or 2 I simply couldn’t play, at least at the exact location specified. I can’t imagine switching to these chords at the drop of a hat like he did.
I remember when I was studying classical guitar, the chord I could not physically do (at first, it isn’t difficult for me at all now) was this one:
The big stretch right at 1:02
When my instructor presented me with this piece, my hands would not physically reach no matter what twists and turns I made with my hand, wrist, elbow or shoulder. But, I got it. So that makes me think with some work I could get a little better with the Holdsworth chords. After all, I’ve been not playing classical for the past 2 or 3 years so my left hand finger independence (and flexibility) is a little rusty (i.e. out of practice, that is not a reference to Mr. Cooley). But these Holdsworth chords are absolutely more challenging than the chords featured in most of the hardest classical pieces I’ve played. One sneaky challenge in the classical pieces, that I don’t know if an equivalent exists or not in Holdsworth’s world, is that we typically would hold chords like this while removing/changing fingers that followed a melody or harmony change. Sometimes those changes were harder than landing the chord to begin with.
But back on topic, I can’t think of another player with this level of innovation. Who did he have to look up to so that he could form this vocabulary? I know for decades prior to him there were ‘challenging’ chord melody arrangements in the jazz guitar world, but Holdsworth dials that up to 11. Is it possible for anyone to go beyond this? We are up against some very real physical limitations. And I think this stuff is off the table for individuals with smaller hands.
gambale tuning or two handed tapping to the rescue
Sometimes you see a lick or an exercise or whatever and think “even if I get that to 90% that’s worth having in the locker”
This is the rare one that even 50% is probably good going
edit: just went and tried it (though I’m sans 7 string at the moment), may have to revise that estimate down
edit to the edit: I do have an 8 string but it’s 29.2 at the long end and I have…let’s call it a suspicion… that that won’t make the 1-3-5-8 reach any easier
Sure, younger folks have perhaps greater technical proficiency, but I’ve never heard any live performance that rivals this…
Try to find other ways to play some of those chords. With that particular chord, which I also can’t play like Allan does, i use the index finger of the right hand and stroke the chord with the thumb of the right hand.
I have really small hands, but with good left hand positioning and hanging the guitar very high using some workarounds I managed to play that beautiful piece of music.
Hope this link works so you can see how i play it.
I might give this a try!
I’m an honest 6’ tall (not a Tinder 6’) and I have long arms and legs for my build, but my hands and feet are about average. I’m able to play some pretty terrifying stretches during leads by optimising my position and approach, but with some chords it’s just not possible.
I know for many, Allan’s music is like Everest. They want to play it because it’s there, and the challenge of playing it is the appeal. For me, I find the music to be uniquely beautiful and deeply moving. His music resonates within the very fibers of my being.
Unfortunately the link doesn’t work. I would love to see it.