What type are we talking about here? It'd be better to use Kanye's singing to make your point. His production abilities are more or less top-notch and he's never made any attempt to hide that.
I did not go to university to study guitar, so I'll be talking a lot about Rob. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: the way Rob controls his stick heights using his elbows and shoulders more than his wrists and fingers, he's going to end up with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome in about 10-12 years. I'm personally not super impressed with his playing, but that's why I play Tool, too. If you judge a fish over his ability to climb a tree, etc. Rob's playing is impressive in how well he controls his five stroke rolls, and the way he provides the groove without taking away from what Phoenix is doing or from what Mike and Joe are doing with the production (I'm not 100% sure how much of that is actually Rob's control, though.) I mean it: go ahead and check him out at the beginning of P5hng from Live In Texas. He nails those fives (RRLLR) rolls every time like he can do it in his sleep. That's pretty badass to be that consistent. And I'm not sure if anyone has thought about this before, but think of the way his drum parts have to 1, set the groove for the bassist, and 2. a lot of the time his mix has to compete for space with sampled drum loops (BID), sometimes they'll layer them after giving his drums and the sampled drums different syncopation to sit that groove right in the pocket. No, he's not Danny Carey, but I always end up coming back to Rob's stuff and noticing at how ... tasteful it is. Between juggling the bass groove and the sampled grooves, it's really no small feat to be able to almost instinctively play a groove that compliments both of the other rhythm guys and to still come up with creative drumbeats is one thing... its another thing etnirely to do that for five (and a half?) albums and not have a single groove that clashes with any of the other instruments or pulls you out of the experience of the song. I don't have any problems with Rob that my percussion director at college emphasized in all of our playing, behind any instrument. So it's really nit-picky kind of stuff. I will tell you who I think is the most proficient across the board is Mike Shinoda. Music needs more people like that--I try to model my workflow after what little of his I see... but he's also got stuff Tools of the Trade, he's playing a LOT of piano, now, (It's been a while since I saw Milton Keynes), and he's playing that sampled loop opening to The Little Things, while having an acoustic guitar just sitting in his lap so I'd bet Joe employs a loop pedal-type thing to keep that going and build the song up from there. That's just amazing. If he's not in the upper echelon of multi-instrumentalists, then he's being royally screwed, because he sure as hell deserves to be. I don't want to say he's 'at his best' yet, because you can tell that Mike Shinoda is very perceptive and he learns a lot, and comes back into the studio with that kind of stuff in mind. I'm truly jealous of Mike's skills...which is probably why my original stuff ends up sounding like Linkin Park even thought I never had any intention for it to do so. Oh, and uh... Also, ...Do you mean this? It's been a while since I played and I think I've Forgotten most of it. (This color stands for triplets, or in this case, half a sextuplet.) Four measure group of Forgotten's verses. Natural sticking is recommended--so keep your right hand on the hi-hats, left hand close to the snare for the ghost notes, and don't forget to open that diddle on the and of 2 to give it that triplet feel. So much fun to play, to be honest with you... Cc |1----------------|-----------------| Hh |--x---x--X-x-x-x-|X-x---X--X-x-X-o-| Sn |-g-gOg-gg-g-O-g-g|-g-gOg-gg-g-O-g-g| Bd |O--------O-----O-|--O---0--O-----O-| ---|1-+-2-+--3-+-4---|1-+-2-+--3-+-4---| ..........||||-------|------|||| Cc |2----------------|-----------------| Hh |X-x---x--X-x-X-x-|X-x---X--O-o---X-| Sn |-g-gOg-gg-g-O-g-g|-g-gOg-gg-g--OO--| Bd |O--------O-----O-|--O------O-O---O-| ---|1-+-2-+--3-+-4---|1-+-2-+--3-+-4---| ..........||||-------|------||||
Today's rock/alternative. It's not exactly the place to find musicians who have mastered their instrument. The point I was trying to make was to say there is a difference between skill of using instruments versus ability to make music, but still both these things still lead to being a "musician".
Well, it's a mixed bag. My dislike of Brad as a guitar player is no secret. He was never a great guitar player but at least the songs used to have catchy riffs, now they don't even have that. His attempts at soloing have been pretty bad, and his live improv bits (tapping in Given Up, Faint live ending) always make me cringe. Some of his chords sound off sometimes, probably because, like Astat said, he taught himself to play. Things like the main riff to Pretend To Be. I think Rob and Dave do a good job, but both of them are held back by the band. I'm a bass player myself, and I always say that it's a pity that the best bass lines on LP songs were made by Scott Koziol and Ian Hornbeck on HT, and when the band got Dave back he never did something like that again. He was great in The Snax, and it's a waste seeing him play mostly root notes 90% of the time. And Mike? again, like Astat said, he's kind of a jack-of-all-trades guy. He does a good job at everything without exceeding, but he always seems to do what's best for the song. Unlike Brad, I've never cringed at something Mike played. Can't speak for Joe.
This, and what I wrote about Rob and Phoenix and Joe's professional obligations to each other, but imaging them setting the groove as if it were something more along the lines of Tool. As soon as I heard the first rumors of ATS being a concept album, I just knew that it was going to sound closer to Tool, and you wouldn't have been able to convince me otherwise. I think they should give Rob a little more control over the groove arc in some of the songs, and then have electronic DJ elements tighten the groove. I mean, I've been pretty satisfied with Linkin Park so far, and I'm always eager to hear that next step in the evolution of their sound, and I wouldn't want them to be trying to sound like Tool or trying to be influenced by Tool... ATS really was the record I was hoping they'd make after Meteora came out. I do think that my body might be ready for something that sounds between Minutes to Midnight and A Thousand Suns... I loved the concept record idea, but I also like this whole 'going back to roots' thing by not doing as much digital stuff for their next album. If I had one wish, though, for Linkin Park--I'd really like some semblance of math rock, you know? Is that too much to ask, do you think?
The bass part in that intro is two notes. To be fair, 2 of the 3 songs Ian played bass on (APFMH/Forgotten) were originally written during Phoenix's first tenure in the band (Xero/very early Hybrid Theory period), and the basslines didn't really change much between the early versions of those songs and their album counterparts. Papercut (Ian's third song) is a pretty solid bass performance...One Step Closer is the only song Scott played on though, and that one is basically all root notes. Also, when I say Brad taught himself to play guitar, I should probably clarify that I mean he taught himself to play without actually researching the "proper" techniques for certain things. I'm not going to knock self-taught players considering that, save for 6 months of lessons while I was in college (and had already been playing for 5 and a half years), I'm completely self-taught too. I've learned a crapload of stuff from theory books, chord diagrams, instructional DVDs, etc. though. Brad doesn't strike me as the kind of player that does that.
Haha fair enough. Maybe I should say relatively. For one it's like the only time I have ever heard the bass in an LP song. Two, it's the first time the band has used bass as kind of a stand alone thing and not just foundation.
And, it's a bassline, if you want him to do sextuplet arpeggios the entire track you'll get vertigo before you can even remember what it's called and crash your car into a VAN DOWN BY THE RIVER.
Exactly. You do NOT fuck with motivational speaker Matt Foley. Also, holy shit. Was David Spade like, fifteen in those skits?
It's always been there (if you're talking about APFMH), but the mixing in that performance is bass heavy. Interestingly, Phoenix uses his fingers in the majority (all?) of APFMH. He also does that here and there in other certain songs i.e. verse of numb, crawling..
True. Although Dave modified Forgotten's bass line live, he doesn't play it the way it was recorded. And what I especially like about the bass in One Step Closer is the tone. It sounds really different than anything else in the album. EDIT: Apparently Dave used to play Forgotten just like in the album. Huh.
Can anyone link me to a video of Brad improvising on Given Up, I know he's done it a few times, and i think I have heard some tapped notes on the verses in some version (and with the expertise used, it could be anything from Brad playing to a kid on his first guitar)?
Yes. ^What I mean by that, I love their instrumentals. Not just actual instrumentals, but instrumental parts of songs with lyrics. That said, I don't think they're that amazing at playing their instruments.
They don't show off much when it comes to their instruments. But Rob proved he's a pretty good drummer with the Bleed It Out solo. Brad has done some cool stuff live like that extended Faint outro.
The Faint outro is actually something that I bet anyone taking guitar lessons for about a year could do (and that's a conservative estimate). As far as I know, he just tremolo picks (strums really fast) and plays...random notes. Usually in the same key.
I'd just like to throw this in, The Little Things Give You Away couldn't have happened without the drum pattern Rob plays throughout, it was the seed for the song. He also plays the piano and has occasionally comes up with melodies, also that drum machine solo in Blackout was mostly him.