The lead guitarist is supposed to be the head of the band, the most important of the instruments. If you take the lead guitarist out the song shouldn't be able to stand on it's own. That's why it's called lead. Really, you shouldn't be able to take any instrument out and still have a stand on it's own song, but that, again, is not the point. Lead guitarists lead. They're the lead because they can play more than just rhythm guitar, they can solo.
I am saddened by the fall from soloing and I blame grunge rock. I understand how music got to grunge. The 80's was getting ridiculous. Solos went crazy long, were crazy hard, and became a time just to show off. A lot of the time solos weren't even in songs, they were a show case that lead into a song. I can understand how that can get old. If you don't understand the technicality of these solos they wouldn't be interesting. I just think grunge took it a little too far.
Rhythm guitar, to me, is something that happens during the verses and chorus. It purposely doesn't draw attention to itself. Good rhythm guitar compliments the melody, doesn't overpower the singer, and is just catchy enough to get the song stuck in your head. I don't like when it's the main thing in the bridge of a song. A bridge is supposed to be different. I don't like what bridges have become. It seems to me that bands today try to see how many layers of things that have been repeated through the whole song they can get at once. I don't find that interesting. I think it's boring and a short cut to making song writing easier. Now, bands that change things up in the bridge, make one or two instruments stand out, whether it's technically a solo or not, that is interesting.
Now I will explain why I feel this way. I consider myself to be a pretty good musician. I couldn't be a professional musician but that is simply because I'm not willing to put in the time to polish that much or to pick one instrument. My main two instruments are piano and percussion. For the sake of this blog post, I'm going to focus on my experiences with jazz band. My senior year of high school I finally discovered an instrument my high school jazz band uses in every song that I love playing. It was bari sax. I love that instrument but it took me a while to find it. Here's my story.
I started my middle school jazz band playing drum set. Besides the struggle of fighting the guys for any fun parts, I had a serious problem. The way I played drum set was technical. I had the technical skills to copy people and know what would sound good. The problem with that is I couldn't hear the music in my playing. I felt like I was just banging random drums, even when I was copying a drum solo from some well known band. It was boring, I didn't like it, so the next two years I played piano.
The problem for me with jazz piano is I can't solo. Give me the chords, I can comp. It's not that hard for me to see the chord and make an interesting rhythm with the chords. Rhythm guitar is the same thing. It's basically, make this chord progression unique and interesting. I honestly think anyone who knows chords and has a sense of rhythm can do this. Soloing is hard. When you solo you have to take into account the chord progression and the type of scale you're in and rhythm and different octaves. It's a lot. I can solo with one hand on the piano. Throw in the other hand and suddenly I'm overwhelmed. So I took two years off jazz band, gave up on learning the trumpet, and learned the saxophone.
I can improvise really well on one instrument. I don't know why, but I can solo on vibraphone with 4 mallets. This, really, is how I've formed my opinion of soloing. I think true soloists have a talent in them that reveals itself through their instrument. It's the same concept as painting. Anyone can learn to paint, anyone can learn to solo. Only those that really have a gift can continually progress. Those with that gift also tend to be faster learners. I don't have that gift. After high school, I decided to stick with what I'm comfortable with, classical music.
When I listen to music I want to be impressed by something. I don't listen to songs just because they're catchy. My favorite bands are my favorite because I am impressed by their song writing abilities, technical skills, ability to mesh sounds, etc. It's hard for me to hear talent in many bands today because of their reliance on rhythm guitar. I love listening to solos. I can hear the talent in solos. I love listening to solos particularly by classic metal guitarists. I sit there and I am in awe and the speed and exactness of it. I can hear the influences and the skill. I may not be able to hum it, but I rarely hum songs anyway so it takes nothing away from my music listening experience and actually increases the pleasure that listening to music brings me.
I agree with you. However, I think that grunge music did one thing: it helped changed up the way people do chord changes. I don't think that I particular like Nirvana's music but I like what followed and what was influenced by it. Nirvana came about because of pretentious and over-bearing guitar solos in the 80's. I found little exciting about 90's mainstream rock, but I think it produced some interesting results in the end. Come to think of it, I think I'm giving Nirvana too much credit. There was also a largely rhythm guitar band in the 80s that I didn't get into at the time, the Police, but I appreciate a lot more now. Another interesting rhythm guitarist from the 80s is John Mellancamp. What I am saying is that I really appreciate the spontaneity of guitar solos and other solos and prefer it over everything else, like you. But there can be some ingenuity in well thought-out chord changes with cleverly placed riffs.
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