Holdsworth was the master. Shreds of moods. The notes flowed so easily out of his guitar like a waterfall. Pure emotion, along with stunning technique. He wanted to play sax originally. He incorporated the sound into his guitar technique in such a beautiful way as we know.
I know that he put so much effort into something that he didn’t really like, to the point of becoming the monster musician he was, ti think about that is mind boggling!
@@ChromaticHarp I chalk that sentiment of his up to his cultural and intellectual perspective. being that he was so virtuosic in all aspects of music, he would have some contempt directed towards the limitations of his instrument based on that.
I'm convinced that Allan never thought of himself as anything other than a beer drinker, as opposed to being one of the most original musicians of the entire 20th century.
His mind was just on a different level than any other guitarist. I've studied them all from Django to Joe Pass to Howard Roberts for over 60 years. No one else thinks this way.
I was lucky enough to meet and have a quiet word with Allan before a music store clinic he was giving back in 1985 at Manhattan Beach Music in LA. A truly wonderful guy and one of the most humble musicians I've ever met.
I had the opportunity to meet and talk with Alan after a gig in Las Vegas, and he was the nicest sweetheart of man, so humble and warm, with that British humor thing. He shared his beer method with me which consisted of Nevada Ale Torpedo, poured into a glass, cover with foil, leave it out overnight at room temperature, drink it the next day! And what a one of a kind genius. No one even comes close.
@@Aerlioz i don’t know what the benefit is, to me it was warm, kind of flat beer. Alan was known as a beer guy, he brewed his own beer and his home recording studio was called ‘the Brewery’ ….one if his books had a chapter on beer…so I wasn’t surprised he talked to me about beer! Try the Torpedo thing I wrote about, you may like it! Keep playing your Guitar and never stop! Dave Hart
Holdsworth is one of those rare, gifted musicians that have a completely unique style and approach to playing. He is self taught and understood and learned scales his own way.
It's sad that I'm 15 and he's already dead :( I would've loved to know him My guitar teacher told me that they met on a concert and he was a very kind and bright person
Allan didn't even start playing until he was 17. You are light-years ahead of most. PRACTICE! I was doing at 17 what I am doing (practice wise) at 32. You're at a prime age to make incredible progress.
I love Allan’s music a lot, but I’ve always suspected that, given the complexity of it, he was a pretentious academic type. Boy was I wrong! This guy strikes me as totally down to earth and practical. The story he gave behind the song “The Things You See” was hilarious! What a treat.
He couldn't even read/write staff notation with much speed or facility, he just played structures he liked the sound of and then came up with his own systems to build and categorise them. It's outstanding, and academia is only beginning to catch up - there are a small handful of masters dissertations and one PhD on his music so far.
People asked him theory questions at clinics before and he's just like "I don't know, I just try to noodle around and make melody with the thing." I mean, he understood "theory," but he just didn't care to think about it once he learned it. He was all intuition and deep emotion. I always cringe when people with no ears say he just plays "random notes" or without emotion. Allan was deeper than the ocean, as far as emotion goes.
@@lex.cordis gahhhh!! I hate that too. Like these tasteless fanatics who think that anything other than recycled Eric Clapton licks is “soulless.” I mean I love the blues too but there’s other avenues to explore ya know.
This man and his playing style (and technical ability) will only ever exist once. There is nothing that even closely resembles it. Which is mental when u consider jazz is littered with cliches and predictable samey sounding stuff. He is a god and truly one of a kind.
I went to college and studied in classical guitar. Im a decent player. I have zero, and i mean ZERO clue about what this man was ever doing in guitar. He was a freak, a complete anomaly, a out liar, much like Shawn Lane, and im totally fine with that. Ill NEVER touch their accomplishments if i live to be 300 healthy years old. These men were absolute virtuosos. Ill happily play my tunes while these guys melt the faces off generations of players. I can still happily be inspired while knowing im just a passerby
I had the pleasure of meeting him at a small venue (bar) in Boston in 1984 during a sound check we didn't know it was taking place when we got to the bar (around 4 pm). We met him and got free VIP tickets for the concert that night. Really a nice guy, very receptive and humble. Not to say one of the best guitar players ever existed in planet earth. RIP Allan.
I love the simplicity and sophistication of the wisdom in this. His mindset about the goal being to understand for yourself, and to emphasize that music is the language, the goal, not naming things and talking about them.
I don't think I've ever seen such an astonishing musician be such a warm, down to earth and humorous character. Wish he were still here, though he is, in a different realm.
i’ve been a huge fan since he first appeared around 1975 or so (i was 15). back then, absolutely nobody sounded like him, he seemed to have solved a problem no other guitarist had. but what is rarely said about him is the huge amount of pain his playing embodies. it’s the sound of someone trying to escape a world that he doesn’t understand and doesn’t understand him. yet he hated all the fan boys who loved him because he didn’t like the way he played. he’s the goat, but it was a very hard life for for Allan
@@clarkbowler157 yes, one time at The Avalon in Chi around 1978. I started to gush like Chris Farley, total fanboy, specifically i told him how much i loved his work on Gong’s album Expresso (also called Gazeuse). I quickly realized he hated talking about himself, he seemed very uncomfortable. So i switched to talking about beer and he loosened up 😊 A perfect example of the pain in his playing is his solo on “16 Men Of Tain.” For me, i think it’s the greatest guitar solo I’ve ever heard, but there is so much anguish in it it’s devastating to hear. I’m probably playing amateur psychiatrist here, but it sure sounds like somebody who is hurting. God bless Allan and all he gave us, even if he himself couldn’t enjoy who he was (which was a genius)
There have been many acts that imitate Holdsworth, but none seem to have Allan's ability to create a sense of melody through chordal movement. Rather his chord structures take you on an emotional journey that is undeniably thematic and almost narrative-like. His ability to imply melody through voicings reminds me of a modern Bach.
Yes! Maybe what’s most incredible to me is how he improvises over those chords. He weaves in and out of them in a way I’ve never heard another guitarist do. And the way he would substitute chords live sometimes to slightly alter the feel of a certain section of a song. And his sense of rhythm/pocket is unreal. The more I listened to his music, the more I realized just how incredible he was at modulating the rhythm during solo lines while still creating melodic leads and resolving them exactly where it they work best. Allan never played on top of the music he wrote, he played inside of it. He understood it in a way that nobody else does. Unlike many “technical” guitarists, Allan’s technique never compromised the music itself, it was always tasteful and always soulful. The Bach comparisons you made is completely accurate. Allan is one of the greatest musicians of all time 😁
First heard him in 1967 and became an avid fan over the years. He is a high level guitarist s guitarist and decades from now musos will still be trying to work him out.
As a guitarist I can tell you this guy was phenomenal. However, the reality is that other guitarists who just copied licks from old Blues Masters were/are far more successful than Alan. It is tragic that he died broke and his family had to raise funds for his funeral. We should be thankful that geniuses like Alan did not ‘sell out’ and in doing so left a legacy of what is possible on an instrument.
I love this player!!! Underrated not a strong enough word...... What U hear him play is 2 most ppl chaos, but it's the most beautiful chaos in the world!!!! I owned 1 of the Ibanez sig models frm the early 80s... Wish I had the green 💚 1!!!!
Many years later still trying to get my head around some of the tempest stuff he was doing.can only come up with one word spacial, along with the form of the music there is some kind of music going on when nothing is played does that make any sense or have i totally lost it
Yeah thanks Allan, I can play like you now. Yeah, 2 or 3 octaves to complete the scale? Uh huh. Mmm..Wish I'd paid attention when I was younger. Wish he were still around not getting any older.
Seems like a Steinberger model M, from the 80's, when it was still owned by Ned Steinberger himself. It is only a shadow of its former self now since Gibson bought it.
Actually🤓 the guitar he has in this video is complete custom made Bill Delap guitar for himself. An amazing musical machine. He was only seen playing the L series steinberger which today, costs an unbelievable price pre-“music yo”
@@kaioocarvalho Alex Machacek who is also an inovator in the world guitar enthusiast in the world of jazz was deeply inspired by Allan and also had one those guitars. Check him out!
He shows lydian dim Aka lydian b3 or Melodic minor #4 I like to think of it as Dorian #4 natural 7 It's the 4th mode of harmonic major 12345b67 Mode 2 Dorian b5 Mode 3 phrygian b4 Mode 4 lydian b3 Mode 5 mixolydian b2 Mode 6 aeolian b1 (lydian Aug #9) Mode 7 locrian bb7
Si Allan hubiese sido invitado a un G3, y hubiera aceptado, Allan es presentado y el público hubiera armado un buen quilombo para que no se retirara del escenario. Jajajaj
looks like Skuli is playing an old Tobias here. on an active bass, favor the bridge pickup - maybe not all the way but 75% or so - cut your highs, crank the lows and mids. pluck near the bridge
this is a horrible performance from allan and his band, and i'm a fan. he's admitted to being nervous, and hence overplays when filmed. his best work is as a guest since most of his songs are barely songs and more tone poems, but yeah, he does lots of chromatic noodling nonsense in this video, chad is often awesome but he's poinding the shit out of the drums in the most unmusical way. steve's lead tones are really boring . skuli is the best part of the video, worth a minute of time, but the music is so chaotic. @@Stumpchunkman226
His technique is awesome. But musically? I'm done after 2 minutes. I can see why he doesn't like guitar very much. He's technically good, but in actuality? He's not very good. Sorry, my opinion. He is very boring
"People used to say I was trying to copy Allan Holdsworth, but I had no idea what he was doing!" --Edward Van Halen
What a quote, David. 😅
He didn't sound anything like him
@@faustinogiancola9814it’s kind of like with Clapton. Ed sounded nothing like Slow Hand but was so inspired by him. Same thing with Holdsworth.
@@faustinogiancola9814he had some similar mannerisms though. The starting lick of the Ice Cream Man solo is very Holdsworth-esque
"Used to say"? I still say that.
I remember getting invited to Allan's house one time. We'd all been down for a pint, lovely man.
Allan. Somewhere between the violin and saxophone came this angelic voice that lived among us for only a little while. ❤
Holdsworth was the master. Shreds of moods. The notes flowed so easily out of his guitar like a waterfall. Pure emotion, along with stunning technique. He wanted to play sax originally. He incorporated the sound into his guitar technique in such a beautiful way as we know.
crazy to hear one of the best guitarists to ever live saying that he doesn't really like the guitar
I know that he put so much effort into something that he didn’t really like, to the point of becoming the monster musician he was, ti think about that is mind boggling!
@@ChromaticHarp I chalk that sentiment of his up to his cultural and intellectual perspective. being that he was so virtuosic in all aspects of music, he would have some contempt directed towards the limitations of his instrument based on that.
its more how he felt before headless guitars.. he just doesnt want to discourage young players who couldnt get one
I completely get it. Guitar sucks. But it’s great too.
He was from Bradford in West Yorkshire so he had the accent.
I'm convinced that Allan never thought of himself as anything other than a beer drinker, as opposed to being one of the most original musicians of the entire 20th century.
I'm pretty sure you're underselling his intelligence with such a comment.
His mind was just on a different level than any other guitarist. I've studied them all from Django to Joe Pass to Howard Roberts for over 60 years. No one else thinks this way.
This guy was way ahead of other human beings. This man was a genius, and his DNA certainly came from another galaxy.
Other worldly, as many have described him!
What is also impressive is the guys around him able to play with him. the drummer is a killer.
I think that’s Chad Wackerman
@@leeroyjenkees4795It certainly is! Also a graduate of the Frank Zappa school of music. 😂
Lesson 1:
22:57 most useful scales
Lesson 2:
1:01:25 chord scales
„Allan Holdsworth was by far my biggest inspiration“
- Leo da Vinci
I was lucky enough to meet and have a quiet word with Allan before a music store clinic he was giving back in 1985 at Manhattan Beach Music in LA. A truly wonderful guy and one of the most humble musicians I've ever met.
I remember the store, I used to go there in the 90’s
I had the opportunity to meet and talk with Alan after a gig in Las Vegas, and he was the nicest sweetheart of man, so humble and warm, with that British humor thing. He shared his beer method with me which consisted of Nevada Ale Torpedo, poured into a glass, cover with foil, leave it out overnight at room temperature, drink it the next day! And what a one of a kind genius. No one even comes close.
Wait what? No way. Whats the benefit of doing that to the beer? Im genuinely interested as, i am a beer drinking guitarist lol
@@Aerlioz i don’t know what the benefit is, to me it was warm, kind of flat beer. Alan was known as a beer guy, he brewed his own beer and his home recording studio was called ‘the Brewery’ ….one if his books had a chapter on beer…so I wasn’t surprised he talked to me about beer! Try the Torpedo thing I wrote about, you may like it! Keep playing your Guitar and never stop! Dave Hart
Holdsworth is one of those rare, gifted musicians that have a completely unique style and approach to playing. He is self taught and understood and learned scales his own way.
It's sad that I'm 15 and he's already dead :(
I would've loved to know him
My guitar teacher told me that they met on a concert and he was a very kind and bright person
HEY you're young. Looking at Allan. Very lucky. Get on with it. Good luck. Don't worry.
Allan didn't even start playing until he was 17. You are light-years ahead of most. PRACTICE! I was doing at 17 what I am doing (practice wise) at 32. You're at a prime age to make incredible progress.
I love Allan’s music a lot, but I’ve always suspected that, given the complexity of it, he was a pretentious academic type. Boy was I wrong! This guy strikes me as totally down to earth and practical. The story he gave behind the song “The Things You See” was hilarious! What a treat.
He couldn't even read/write staff notation with much speed or facility, he just played structures he liked the sound of and then came up with his own systems to build and categorise them. It's outstanding, and academia is only beginning to catch up - there are a small handful of masters dissertations and one PhD on his music so far.
@@reubennb2859 i suspect the no one will ever fully grasp what he was doing. He was from another galaxy.
People asked him theory questions at clinics before and he's just like "I don't know, I just try to noodle around and make melody with the thing." I mean, he understood "theory," but he just didn't care to think about it once he learned it. He was all intuition and deep emotion. I always cringe when people with no ears say he just plays "random notes" or without emotion. Allan was deeper than the ocean, as far as emotion goes.
@@lex.cordis gahhhh!! I hate that too. Like these tasteless fanatics who think that anything other than recycled Eric Clapton licks is “soulless.” I mean I love the blues too but there’s other avenues to explore ya know.
@@reubennb2859Do you have any information of the Phd candidate's studies?
I met Allan at the bar in the afternoon after sound check. We had a beer. That’s as good as it gets.
This man and his playing style (and technical ability) will only ever exist once. There is nothing that even closely resembles it. Which is mental when u consider jazz is littered with cliches and predictable samey sounding stuff. He is a god and truly one of a kind.
So true! He was absolutely in his own space, brilliant!
Thank God his dad didn’t buy him a saxophone…
he was a genius. he was the one.
Robert glasper
My god... What did I just watch... Masterful...
The guy is the fucking Mozart of guitar and Jazz.
I went to college and studied in classical guitar. Im a decent player. I have zero, and i mean ZERO clue about what this man was ever doing in guitar. He was a freak, a complete anomaly, a out liar, much like Shawn Lane, and im totally fine with that. Ill NEVER touch their accomplishments if i live to be 300 healthy years old. These men were absolute virtuosos. Ill happily play my tunes while these guys melt the faces off generations of players. I can still happily be inspired while knowing im just a passerby
I had the pleasure of meeting him at a small venue (bar) in Boston in 1984 during a sound check we didn't know it was taking place when we got to the bar (around 4 pm). We met him and got free VIP tickets for the concert that night. Really a nice guy, very receptive and humble. Not to say one of the best guitar players ever existed in planet earth. RIP Allan.
I love the simplicity and sophistication of the wisdom in this. His mindset about the goal being to understand for yourself, and to emphasize that music is the language, the goal, not naming things and talking about them.
I don't think I've ever seen such an astonishing musician be such a warm, down to earth and humorous character. Wish he were still here, though he is, in a different realm.
However technical, he always kept the swing. Absolutely critical point - he never sacrificed feel or meter.
Greatest guitarist ever, and somehow so humble
i’ve been a huge fan since he first appeared around 1975 or so (i was 15). back then, absolutely nobody sounded like him, he seemed to have solved a problem no other guitarist had. but what is rarely said about him is the huge amount of pain his playing embodies. it’s the sound of someone trying to escape a world that he doesn’t understand and doesn’t understand him. yet he hated all the fan boys who loved him because he didn’t like the way he played. he’s the goat, but it was a very hard life for for Allan
Very insightful. Did you ever meet?
@@clarkbowler157 yes, one time at The Avalon in Chi around 1978. I started to gush like Chris Farley, total fanboy, specifically i told him how much i loved his work on Gong’s album Expresso (also called Gazeuse). I quickly realized he hated talking about himself, he seemed very uncomfortable. So i switched to talking about beer and he loosened up 😊 A perfect example of the pain in his playing is his solo on “16 Men Of Tain.” For me, i think it’s the greatest guitar solo I’ve ever heard, but there is so much anguish in it it’s devastating to hear. I’m probably playing amateur psychiatrist here, but it sure sounds like somebody who is hurting. God bless Allan and all he gave us, even if he himself couldn’t enjoy who he was (which was a genius)
Allan’s music IS ferocious! Chad on the kit is amazing too
You are missed Maestro!
Best guitarist of all time in my opinion.
There have been many acts that imitate Holdsworth, but none seem to have Allan's ability to create a sense of melody through chordal movement. Rather his chord structures take you on an emotional journey that is undeniably thematic and almost narrative-like. His ability to imply melody through voicings reminds me of a modern Bach.
Yes! Maybe what’s most incredible to me is how he improvises over those chords. He weaves in and out of them in a way I’ve never heard another guitarist do. And the way he would substitute chords live sometimes to slightly alter the feel of a certain section of a song.
And his sense of rhythm/pocket is unreal. The more I listened to his music, the more I realized just how incredible he was at modulating the rhythm during solo lines while still creating melodic leads and resolving them exactly where it they work best. Allan never played on top of the music he wrote, he played inside of it. He understood it in a way that nobody else does. Unlike many “technical” guitarists, Allan’s technique never compromised the music itself, it was always tasteful and always soulful.
The Bach comparisons you made is completely accurate. Allan is one of the greatest musicians of all time 😁
First heard him in 1967 and became an avid fan over the years. He is a high level guitarist s guitarist and decades from now musos will still be trying to work him out.
Holdsworth's talent is other worldly! You know he must have been something special when Frank Zappa felt that way about him.
I met this guy a few times back in Hollywood... Great guy... Great guitar player 🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶
When jazz meets rock music and is played by the absolute best guitarist on earth you get Holdsworth ❤
As a guitarist I can tell you this guy was phenomenal. However, the reality is that other guitarists who just copied licks from old Blues Masters were/are far more successful than Alan. It is tragic that he died broke and his family had to raise funds for his funeral. We should be thankful that geniuses like Alan did not ‘sell out’ and in doing so left a legacy of what is possible on an instrument.
Not only did he die broke but his hometown Bradford doesn't even know who he is.
It wasn’t really that unusual. Committed artists never make money while they’re alive.
@rushshukla4636 You think the average Bradfordian has the mental capacity to comprehend music such as Allan's?
The way he rotates his middle finger at 47:07!
And nothing else...
i finally understand and i am happy to watch instead of mortified.. to follow all of this coherently is worth the try
I love this player!!! Underrated not a strong enough word...... What U hear him play is 2 most ppl chaos, but it's the most beautiful chaos in the world!!!! I owned 1 of the Ibanez sig models frm the early 80s... Wish I had the green 💚 1!!!!
The gorgeous Percy Jones on bass. He played bass for Brand X and was a true inspiration to my musical journey. Oh, and Allan plays quite well too!
Another guitarist that really impressed me was Phil Keaggy. In particular, his Beyond Nature album.
he must be jamming with Coltrane up there 😀
Genius.
So great.
Many years later still trying to get my head around some of the tempest stuff he was doing.can only come up with one word spacial, along with the form of the music there is some kind of music going on when nothing is played does that make any sense or have i totally lost it
Great DISCOVERY.
He derived the scales? Legend.
Holdsworth. A quintessential example of Dunning Kruger
How so?
what is the synth sound being used behind the guitar sound on the house of mirrors example
Its so sad no advice from Allan is gonna make you play like him
Miles ahead.❤
lightyears ahead. but great quote nonetheless 😊
@@NeilRaoufIf he’s back on his home planet, I hope to be abducted one day, so he can finally explain all of this madness.❤
What year was this?
38:00 i laughed so hard :)
Would love to see him in a bluegrass jam
me too!
Could kick myself for giving up my Lab Series L5... Great chip amp.
my head exploded after 15 minutes
Maestro
7:18 HELLO!!
Obviously it’s Chad Wackerman on drums. Does anyone know who the other two guys in his band were?
Wack Chaderman and Bundt Loopglass
LOL @Stumpchunkman226 ... On bass is Skuli Sverrisson, and Steve Hunt is the keyboardist. :)
Where am I?
53:27 ain't that the truth especially when you're from a different galaxy 🤯
Allan h r.i.p😢❤
The only scale I know of says I’m slightly overweight.
Yeah thanks Allan, I can play like you now. Yeah, 2 or 3 octaves to complete the scale? Uh huh. Mmm..Wish I'd paid attention when I was younger. Wish he were still around not getting any older.
I have searched and searched for what he was talking about there.
The only thing I could come up with was:
Messiaen's modes of limited transposition
His guitar that he has when he speaks and tell stories and then demos is so cool. Anyone know what it is?
It's a Steinberg i believe
Seems like a Steinberger model M, from the 80's, when it was still owned by Ned Steinberger himself. It is only a shadow of its former self now since Gibson bought it.
Actually🤓 the guitar he has in this video is complete custom made Bill Delap guitar for himself. An amazing musical machine. He was only seen playing the L series steinberger which today, costs an unbelievable price pre-“music yo”
@@Aerlioz Thaks for the correction. I'll look up this guitar.
@@kaioocarvalho Alex Machacek who is also an inovator in the world guitar enthusiast in the world of jazz was deeply inspired by Allan and also had one those guitars. Check him out!
How is that a harmonic major? In what key?
He shows lydian dim
Aka lydian b3 or Melodic minor #4
I like to think of it as Dorian #4 natural 7
It's the 4th mode of harmonic major
12345b67
Mode 2 Dorian b5
Mode 3 phrygian b4
Mode 4 lydian b3
Mode 5 mixolydian b2
Mode 6 aeolian b1 (lydian Aug #9)
Mode 7 locrian bb7
That solo in Looking Glass........
❤
Greg Wuliger ?
anyone has the booklet?
@@ChromaticHarp learn my dick first bitch
Scales can be confusing. Very technical.
Great player, he just made up his own nomenclature for existing scale groups tho..
Si Allan hubiese sido invitado a un G3, y hubiera aceptado, Allan es presentado y el público hubiera armado un buen quilombo para que no se retirara del escenario. Jajajaj
Hubiera sido encima de lo demás!
Thank you
THANK YOU!
I would call what he plays during the intro titles "bloody racket"
Thanks
Can you show us some more advanced stuff allan .
what is advance for you buddy?
Im just joking daniel.
@@purpleskunk6327 I know youre jokin..anyways😜
😂
I didn't want to make a video...(later) I don't like the guitar....
Hahahaha! This guy....
Thankyou holdsworth dad for not getting him saxophone.
Gracias
de nada senior
That bass tone....... anyone have any tips lol
get yourself a ken smith and be sculi sverrison lol
looks like Skuli is playing an old Tobias here. on an active bass, favor the bridge pickup - maybe not all the way but 75% or so - cut your highs, crank the lows and mids. pluck near the bridge
ok so now I'm gonna show you a few....🤯
"Guitar Lesson 01" -- LOLOL
But I don’t want guitar lessons
I'M LOST
I’ll help you - it’s trash. Welcome!
this is a horrible performance from allan and his band, and i'm a fan. he's admitted to being nervous, and hence overplays when filmed. his best work is as a guest since most of his songs are barely songs and more tone poems, but yeah, he does lots of chromatic noodling nonsense in this video, chad is often awesome but he's poinding the shit out of the drums in the most unmusical way. steve's lead tones are really boring . skuli is the best part of the video, worth a minute of time, but the music is so chaotic. @@Stumpchunkman226
Yeah, cool - when does the music start?
Single most useless instructional vid ever made
His technique is awesome. But musically? I'm done after 2 minutes. I can see why he doesn't like guitar very much. He's technically good, but in actuality? He's not very good. Sorry, my opinion. He is very boring