Shredding or songwritting?

My ego thinks I will be covered with the best spotlights while I play E Harmonic Minor sweep arpeggios until every woman at the show is naked....

But my reality is, I play as a sideman, so it's all about being musical and about the songs / main talent. I still love it!!

What rock guitar player doesn't dream about shredding and achieving near god like status during a show? :)

I get really moved by great songs even simple songs and also I get jazzed by great solos and bad ass riffs too... its all good.
 
Songwriting. I've heard a few song attempts from shredders without songwriting talent. That was just sad.
 
There are plenty of guys who make the two go hand in hand to brilliant effect.

The difference is, with talent being equal for the sake of comparison, getting lost in shredding results in dull mindlessness, while getting lost in songwriting generally results in something less painful.

But like I said...the guys who marry the two well are the gods we all worship here for good reason.
 
Shredding or songwriting? It depends...which one(s) are you wired for?

They're different things. Songwriting is a complete form of musical expression by itself. Shredding is just one part of a complete form of musical expression called "guitar playing." And not the most important part, either.
 
There's room for both, but the song should always come first - unless you're doing it purely for self-gratification, in which case, widdle away until you're spent...

Imagine Jacko's 'Beat It' without the EVH part - yeah, it would be the same piece of classic pop writing without question, but whilst a million other solos would have done, there's not much else you'd ever want it replaced with
 
It's sad when people only focus on the mechanics of technique and lose sight of what music actually is. Most of the best and most influential guitarists have not been shredders. The most memorable tunes are not shreddy and most often consist of a handful of chords really. Shredding can be fun but is is only the icing on the cake and not the cake.
 
I'll take good songwriting over fret-board masturbation everyday of the week. A case in point, a few months ago I bought a couple new CD's, one was The Aristocrats featuring the insane guitar skills of Guthrie Govan and the other was the album Croz by veteran songwriting master David Crosby. Up until today I've listened to the Aristocrats CD maybe three times all the way through. While Govans guitar genius really shines the songwriting is so weak it's just not what I would call a good listenable CD. Croz on the other hand is filled with song after song of well written music and lyrics that make the far more sparse guitar work on this CD a lot more fun to listen to then the other CD. So I'll say it again, I'll take good songwriting over fret-board masturbation everyday of the week.
 
The difference between songwriting and shredding is: the first is in the eye of the beholder, the latter is pretty much defined by a strict ruleset.

So while I'm actually pretty comfortable with my songwriting, some shredding skills would really be appreciated, just to have a "measurable" skill. but my fingers just refuse to do it.
 
Zwiebelchen said:
The difference between songwriting and shredding is: the first is in the eye of the beholder, the latter is pretty much defined by a strict ruleset.
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I couldn't disagree more. Since when has shredding been "defined by a strict ruleset"? There's no such animal. What may be shredding to you may be little more than repetitious noise to me, or as I prefer to call it fretboard masturbation. Speeding through scales has nothing to do with strict rulesets and seldom has ANY-thing to do with music. More often than not IMO it's about trying to impress with speed/agility rather than true musicality. As you can see both are in the eye of the beholder.
 
t0aj15 said:
I couldn't disagree more. Since when has shredding been "defined by a strict ruleset"? There's no such animal. What may be shredding to you may be little more than repetitious noise to me, or as I prefer to call it fretboard masturbation. Speeding through scales has nothing to do with strict rulesets and seldom has ANY-thing to do with music. More often than not IMO it's about trying to impress with speed/agility rather than true musicality. As you can see both are in the eye of the beholder.
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Shredding is still shredding, no matter if you like it or not. It's just a technical term for "playing very fast". What is good or bad songwriting is debatable. What is shredding and what is not, isn't.
 
Zwiebelchen said:
Shredding is still shredding, no matter if you like it or not. It's just a technical term for "playing very fast". What is good or bad songwriting is debatable. What is shredding and what is not, isn't.
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Seems to me that shredding is one of THE most UN-technical terms in all of music. Besides good song writing or bad is just as subjective as good shred or bad, I'm not getting your point.
 
t0aj15 said:
Seems to me that shredding is one of THE most UN-technical terms in all of music. Besides good song writing or bad is just as subjective as good shred or bad, I'm not getting your point.
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Ehh... maybe. I'm just saying that this field is much more narrow in terms of definition and personal taste than songwriting.
 
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