Jeff Beck vs Jimmy Hendrix Comparison – What this brings me to

ME :

Hi Seth

Please listen to this carefully :

https://youtube.com/shorts/grVkuLU1vUk?si=G1bblbDayA1ffYAE

https://youtube.com/shorts/bC0PPFw3HP4?si=hxJ2v_8zXnQsW0Sa

When I hear this, I do recall what you said about him and I can't ignore my feelings.

If I didn't care about my friends, I would not say that, but you calling Jeff Beck gimmick was a disgraceful slander that puts you in a disgraceful position or it shows you were not listening or you were listening to through some FILTERS which is very common occurrence that certain people with exceptional sensitivity/ vulnerability are being affected more then others.

So please listen to the master and it may happen you reconsider and revise your judgment.

SETH :

I don’t believe you fully understand me. I didn’t say Jeff Beck is a gimmick. I said his playing sounds gimmicky to me and so I don’t find myself highly attracted to listening to him.

He’s lots of people’s favorite guitar player, some think he’s the greatest, and I can understand why. He’s highly creative and has his own original sound. So I agree that he’s a rare guitar player. So was Eddie Van Halen, for different reasons. Some think Eddie Van Halen was the most innovative and the greatest, but I’m not really interested in listening to his music. Music has many dimensions, and we may be drawn to different aspects of infinite texture.

The clip you shared showcased tasty and expressive playing. But it didn’t trigger me emotionally. Although I feel he made the best out of what for me was a dreadfully boring blues progression. It’s a good canvas for him to play over but the foundation bores me. I probably would have enjoyed hearing Hendrix play over it a lot more. His playing speaks to me more.

Different strokes for different folks. There’s no disgrace in having “poor taste”, since art is subjective. Maybe density though.

ME :

If we see that grace represents some universal qualities; grace defines taste.

Poor taste – poor grace or lack of it.

Nothing to brag about.

But this can be a result of programming / things we got used to. For many years Hendrix was allover the world and I didn’t know about Jeff Beck, but this didn’t stop me from enjoying how Jeff Beck caresses every note and builds up his ‘baroque’ musical palace. So I’m not surprised the listener can get lost in it forgetting where the entrance is, where the floor is and where is the roof of that structure. Yet I highly admire Jimmy’s magic of his “Little Wing” and his climactic and heroic “All Along the Watch Tower” which is one of the greatest work that happened in music ever. But somehow I enjoy both of them (Jeff and Jimmy) and they make my experience extremely rich and I am grateful for it.

BTW How did you get that this idea to call the sequence he plays 'a dreadfully boring blues progression'?

Just to decorate your sentence and make it more punchy, more believable? but it's not.

I think that sativa you grow is too strong.

Still I am very glad we are having this discussion because it identifies certain expressions defining our views.

I do not question your taste and if you just said ‘hey it's not in my taste’ it will be no more talking about it but on some level is good that you put your feelings specified and used expression ‘gimmicky’ and this was for me necessary to clarify.

In my view Jimmy Hendrix is very traditional in that sense as Vivaldi Bach Beethoven and Chopin although Jimmy's melodic line fluctuates and goes into all kind of sounds which are very unusual in comparison to the old Masters yet the musical line is made that way that each of those sounds is supporting the melody line.

Jeff Beck is doing something almost opposite diametrically to Jimmy Hendrix because Jeff Beck is building the composition of the sounds and each of them through its complex structure becomes like a song itself. The notes are turning into songs inside of that song he is playing.

I think that what I just mentioned gives you a feeling that he is doing a number of gimmicky tricks on you while he is just caressing each of the notes like an erotic act of intimacy and exhibitionism.

Someone may get uncomfortable.

Someone’s emotions may get captured in particular elements and can’t move on

to embrace the song.

Someone may get premature ejaculation / climax.

(If you are a girl you wouldn't complain, but you are definitely not a girl.)

I want you to try this: open these two links:

https://youtube.com/shorts/bC0PPFw3HP4?si=hxJ2v_8zXnQsW0Sa

Switch off the sound on that girl and watch her how she stopped the traffic

and when you watch how she walks listen to that song Jeff Beck is playing here:

https://youtube.com/shorts/grVkuLU1vUk?si=G1bblbDayA1ffYAE

You will get what I mean by 'caressing each of the notes like an erotic act of intimacy and exhibitionism'.

But when emotionally you cannot follow the song in one stroke, your emotions do not develop through the song, then there is no accumulation effect in your emotions.

You don’t get involved, rather detached.

This will cause that the composition as a whole emotional structure becomes unnoticed and irrelevant – it does not exist – it becomes a hole.

(This points also that these two words ‘whole’ & ‘hole’ are in some way associated like a plus (+) and a minus (-) like Sun and Moon.)

I am grateful that we are having this exchange and I am grateful to myself that I brought it up because it bothered me when you said ‘he is gimmicky’ I had to clarify that. I am glad that you answer me from your honest perception and so do I.

It gives us some identification within the thoughts and expressions...

And it’s wonderful that you brought Jimmy Hendricks as an example because this for me it’s just an opposite construct to what Jeff Beck created.

I recall situations when I was developing a composition and a certain musical element, a chord or rhythmic progression got my attention and I went into it like into a tunnel or new universe so I can say I abandoned the whole composition which I was intending from beginning and the composition became this what I was doing now – not what I was planning before.

Of course if I was with other players, then a certain commitment may bring me back to that preplanned design but when I’m by myself I mostly don't come back to that primary design if I am just happy with what I’m doing by exploring this new universe I just entered.

Instead of being involved in something I was thinking before, I’m enjoying what is now.

I am not looking for more enjoyment – in other words free in a moment vs imprisoned in some premeditated structure from the past.

This is what creative process can give me which is completely opposite to the strict existential conditions necessary to keep myself alive – like don’t consume, don’t eat, don’t drink, or listen to anything from the government outlets.

Thanks with all my heart for presenting your views

in such an honest way.

PS

Whatever you write look at it from a perspective : Where is a humor in it?

In Poland we call it : krotochwilność

If you don't find it, so don't send it, don't publish it.

Just forget it.