Blackmore on Satriani

Below is an interesting article at Guitar World where Ritchie comments on other guitar players, like Satriani, Hendrix, Morse, and Jeff Healey: Ritchie Blackmore on Joe Satriani: "If You’re Always Playing the Correct Notes, There’s Something Wrong"

I think what he says makes a lot of sense, kind of funny in parts, but overall fairly insightful. We all have read or listen to guitar players who make outrageous statements. I don't here that degree of hubris here, despite Richie's reputation as difficult to get along with.

 

Well... allow this guitarist to make an outrageous statement... "If you always drive to the correct destination, then you must have taken a wrong turn somewhere"...

Just because someone "important" says something does not in any way suggest that what that person said was of any "importance"...

If you consistently play the "wrong" notes it doesn't mean that you're a more adventurous guitarist - it just pretty much means that not a particularly talented player and that perhaps you should have practiced more and talked less...

Ritchie Blackmore can play the guitar... whether he can play the guitar and be coherent (or even chew gum) at the same time is the question to be asked...

Talented guy... not particularly bright...

 

Blackmore, for me.

 

“There are no wrong notes; some are just more right than others.”
—Thelonius Monk

“It’s not the note you play that’s the wrong note – it’s the note you play afterwards that makes it right or wrong.”
—Miles Davis

“When you make a mistake, make a loud one, because if you're timid about it, then it really sounds like a mistake.”
--Dizzy Gillespie

"Do not fear mistakes - there are none”: The Mistake as Surprising Experience of Creativity in Jazz

 

Blackmore being diplomatic, shocking.

 

Blackmore on Satriani

sounds like a sci-fi book.

 

That’s..... shockingly nice for Blackmore.

And I definitely hear him, and mostly agree with him. While I defintely love some technical music, I still love music from the soul, I still love to hear a band just bang out three chords and rock out.

 

"If I hear someone really technical running up and down a fingerboard, I can hear that for a couple of minutes and then I start to kind of get bored and think of other things like playing football or something. But I do like to hear someone reaching for something, not quite making it and then sometimes they do make it."

I think this sums up the point perfectly. Except I'd be thinking of something besides football.

 

It's interesting that you took his comments as being diplomatic - maybe your reading is more accurate than mine - but I thought that it was a not-so-subtle backhanded compliment... Maybe I'm just reading too much into it but I always felt that he was second-tier at best and that's being generous... so my take is probably going to lean more towards the negative but I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt... I just don't think that his take on "wrong notes" is anything other than rubbish... pure and simple...

 

"I personally am into the minstrel technique—if I hear someone playing a lute or playing a crumhorn, it just moves me."

Maybe Satch should give up guitar and take up the crumhorn.

 

I don't care for Satriani. If that's a current pic of Blackmore he looks pretty good. I like that.

 

Blackmore's comments make perfect sense to me. Blackmore (and Hendrix, who he offers as example) is a musician who came to prominence in a much rawer, less professional time in music, when people brought a lot of talent and skill to bear but also went off on a limb and sometimes fell off of it. Satriani exemplifies a much more professional approach to the guitar, and it's probably much more advanced and progressive than Blackmore, but it also never held my interest. As I get older, I've come to realize that a lot of the music I like has a certain amateur aspect to it - I came to realize this years ago when I was playing a live Mountain album in the car and a friend of mine said, "What the heck is this - it sounds like a garage band!" At that moment I realized, yeah, that's what it sounds like, and that's why I like it. Any time I've heard Satriani's solo recordings, I've thought privately, "So what?" Yeah, he's a virtuoso guitarist. He's so virtuoso it sounds like it's too easy for him. There's none of the grease, sweat and blood that I hear when I listen to Blackmore's playing from back in the days when he was really smokin'. Now maybe, just MAYBE, there's a certain cynicism at play in my opinion - perhaps if I'd heard Satriani first when I was 14 I would have a different opinion - but as it is, I find the playing of many of the recognized industry super-pros of the last thirty years to be strangely less than entirely captivating. And it may be because of just what Blackmore describes - these guys aren't searching for the note, they found 'em all 20 years ago. They're tooling around a familiar neighborhood, hitting all the houses in order.

 

While reading that and what he had to say I chuckled and said to myself, he must love some Zappa. Haha. With that thought I did a quick search . . .

"Jeff Beck is my idol .. sometimes he finds notes that I just do not have on my guitar. Frank Zappa's another one .. I loved Frank Zappa ... I do think Van Halen reinvented the guitar ... he's an excellent musician, a shrewd guitarist and as a person he's wonderful." Ritchie Blackmore

There are other interesting quotes on the page I copied that from >

TOP 25 QUOTES BY RITCHIE BLACKMORE (of 54) | A-Z Quotes

 

Not the point of the thread in the least. Did you read the article or the OP?

 

Blackmore is a great guitar player and will be remembered long after Satriani and his ilk are forgotten, no question about that. He basically created neoclassical metal if you're into that kinda thing, which I'm not. Nevertheless, he is not second tier by any stretch and Satriani would never say that. In fact, "But ultimately, I was haunted by the fact that I was a big Ritchie Blackmore fan and I couldn’t get used to the sound of my guitar with the classic sound of Deep Purple. I just couldn’t figure out how to get around it and when I weighed that against the fact that I was so lucky and fortunate to have a solo career and I thought, I can’t walk away from this solo career to pursue a dream that’s somewhat haunted because I’m such a Ritchie Blackmore fan." Joe Satriani

As far as his pontificating, he's entitled to his opinion and he's an entertaining character unless you're easily offended. He's a quirky guy obviously as he walks around in medieval clothing playing a lute, and so on. He has some interviews on YouTube that are a laugh riot.

 

I read the title too fast. I thought it said pick one. As far as the topic goes, I've heard the interview and his thoughts on Satriani. While I agree with most of what he said, you can still play technical and with feeling. For me, Surfing with the Alien is a masterpiece.

 

I'm sure many people said the exact same thing about Blackmore, especially during his time in Rainbow. It astonishes me how Blackmore forgets how often he received these same exact criticisms all throughout the '70s and early '80s.

 

Satriani is a different generation of guitar players. He grew up with ProTools recording. He could record everything at home. Blackmore prefers a simple playing, while Satch loves layers over layers.

Technically he blows Blackmore out of water. Compare the technical progress of guitars in the 70’s and today! A lot more possibilities for guitarists.

I like Blackmore for his fantastic playing btw 69 and 78. Ten years of great riffs and solos.

 

I'm not a big fan of Joe's playing, but he was doing his thing well before protools. He's currently 61 years old. His first three albums were released before protools was a thing (first released in 1989).

 

Right, but listen to Not of This Earth (86) and Surfing with the Alien (87). Everything sounds constructed like on computers.

 

Yeah, he was intentionally going for a spacier and "futuristic" tone as indicated by the album's very title. That doesn't mean it was recorded via a computer program. What a daft statement.

 

I've not yet picked up the new Rainbow album that came out last month, though I am planning on getting it. Ronnie Romero is quite a good singer and I think the band sounds pretty sharp. I also love Blackmore's Night. Richie has always been one of my favorite guitar players.
Joe Satriani, not so much.

 

Blackmore is a spontaneous player and light years behind Morse and Satch technically, I prefer Ritchie.. I like players who step out of what they're well rehearsed at. John Mclaughlin was a great mixture of amazing technical ability and straight up going for it. He's more interesting to me than almost anybody. That said, great musical composition in soloing can be quite exciting too, R Rhoades/M Schenker etc.... Perfect melodic composition is great too. Reality is, few players ever truly improvise.

 

He used mostly drum computers on the first three records.

 

Really? I don't remember Blackmore being criticized for being too perfect. To me, the problem with old-school Blackmore is that sometimes he spent too much time fooling around - just running his hands up and down the fretboard and playing with the whammy bar and etc. Making noise. He did a lot of pure showboating stuff back in the day.