Favorite Musicians and Bands at Recently Composed Music. Part 1

By Mike Liebner

Editor: Steve Vai and Joe Satriani rule my iTunes. Sorry - but every once in a while I need to let you know what I THINK!!!

I've always had eclectic tastes. Not in the strange sense like following Hawaii folk tunes or tragedy opera from Tunisia, but rather music that is more progressive in nature and not always in the top 40.

What exactly do I mean by "progressive music"??? Well, back in the day we used to call it PROGRESSIVE ROCK. More recently it has become "Prog Rock".

Back a few years what it meant to me was rock with more jazz fusion qualities. More than simply a few bar chords and power chords. Progressive music had more style and virtuosity to it.

So, who are my favorite musicians??? These days I don't spend as much time creating fantasy band lineups or making lists of my favorite guitar players, bass players or drummers etc.

We'll call this part 1 as I will just drop a few of my favorites on you and speak a little about them.

Joe Satriani - the guy is one of those geniuses that really deserves more attention. Sure he has a loyal following of dudes into the guitar god thang, but his music is so much more than simply great guitar chops. Yes, Joe Satriani has chops! But he is also a great musician in many respects. He is a brilliant composer with so many songs in my iTunes library that are rated 5 stars. In fact - that should be the new standard in rating bands and musicians - how many songs do they have that are 4 stars or higher! I just checked and there are 89 songs rated 4 or higher in my Joe Satriani folder! Yipes! he is definitely one of the top musicians in my book.

Steve Vai - up there with Joe Satriani, Steve Vai is one of the most brilliant musicians out there. Steve Vai too is an axe slinging god! He plays mean guitar and in fact was a student of Joe Stariani's. They o have similar styles. Steve Vai cam to my attention back when he was playing in Frank Zappa's band. His stuff with Frank is great too but his "solo" albums and those with some other bands are up there at the top of the stack! A quick look in my Steve Vai folder in iTunes revealed he has 25 songs that are 4 or higher. Not bad considering many of the cd's I have from other artists barely get a few 4 or 5's (some don't get any)

Note: My rating scale is as follows> Since I migrated to iTunes from Sonic Foundry Siren (sad to see you go!) I have had to adapt my rating style to fit the parameters. Siren allowed between 1 and 5 with 1/2 star increments. That was much better than iTunes restrictive rating of 1 to 5 with no in betweens.

That makes it harder to rate songs in my opinion. Because there used to be a big diffrence in my mind between a 5 and a 4.5.

A 5 was the ultimate - - 4.5 stars was close but not the ultimate like a 5.

Nowadays I have no choice than to rate songs as either 4 or 5 - and that is tough! You don't want every song to be a 4 or 5 - so that means my scale is as follows

1 star - absolute crap! These songs will get deleted from iTunes!

2 stars - crappy at first impression - I'll usually give them 1 more listen before dleting them. If I can stomach the song I'll bump it up to a 3 which is a keeper

3 stars - avarage and ok but not incredible. 3 is my minimum for keeper songs.

4 stars - very good - one of the best in my library of tunes.

5 stars - My all time favorite songs. The best of the best.

If I have a playlist with only songs that are rated 5's it will be one hell of a playlist. If I include 4's and 5's it will be pretty good.

If I include 3's the playlist will be weak and uneven because a lot of songs I have reated 3 is kind of like a mercy rating. I gave them 3 out of respect, not necessarily out of love for the song.

Well... that's all for part 1... part 2 of favaorite musicins and bands will come soon!

Here is what some people have to say about Ibanez guitars (source Harmony Central):

I have been playing for about 3 years now and this is my consideration of my first real guitar. I have always played Ibanez, I just like the look, feel and sound of them. If this were stolen I would definitely get another one of these and I plan to replace my GRX170 with another one, yes I want another one call me crazy but I wanna have another guitar with a normal string arrangement on it. I love everything about this guitar, the look, the feel, the sound, it definitely has a character of its own. (Harmony Central User concerning the RG32Q0S)

Online Guitar Lessons

Beginner Guitar Lessons Resources:

Steve Vai Guitar Styles and Techniques - the greatest guitar hero of all is Steve Vai and you can learn his styles and techniques with the help of his book!

Joe Satriani Guitar Gear - I bought my Ibanez because Joe Satriani sounded like a monster and he was playing it. See what gear Joe uses to get his massive big rock sound.

Beginner Guitar Lessons with Joe Satriani - learn the Major Tapping Lick and more!