Marty Friedman: “Anyone can play; there’s millions of great players. What separates someone from others is the feeling the audience gets when they listen”
Marty Friedman has opened up about his evolution as a guitar player and why aiming to impress listeners with technical skill alone is “low-hanging fruit” for him.
Speaking to Guitar World about his new album Drama, the virtuoso admits that he, too, fell into the trap of using fancy licks and solos as a means to show off his skills early in his career: “I’m as guilty as anyone else; there was a lot of showboating on some of my earlier records that a lot of people know me from,” he says.
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“I had a lot of that to say, and I really believed in that at the time. But looking back on that, it’s kind of funny, and despite that, I think there are some moments on those early records where I hit a couple of good emotional points.”
“But as you grow as a player, musician and artist, you try to appeal to a more honourable part of the listener’s personality,” says Friedman, who’s all about the “feeling” and vibe of his music these days.
“Trying to appeal to someone’s impression of you as a technically gifted player, that’s kind of low-hanging fruit. It really is. Because all you really need to do is practise, and you’re going to impress a lot of people with your playing.”
Wonderful as that may be, says Friedman, you eventually reach a point where you have nothing left to prove.
“When you make it to your 17th record, you realise that people knew that you could play a long time ago. And anyone can play; there’s millions of fantastic, great players. So, what separates me, or any other person, from the others is the artistic world that they create and the feelings that the listener gets when they listen to it.”
Elsewhere in the chat, Friedman says he’s “seeing the light” on why people love vintage gear so much after experimenting with some old treasures on his latest record.
“I’ve always been a ‘new gear’ type of guy. I’ve never understood vintage gear; I’ve never had the capacity of knowledge for it, the patience for it or the love of it, for that matter. But on this album, I’m seeing the light a little bit,” he says.
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Source: www.guitar-bass.net
