Guitar Hero

Edward Van Halen

Edward Lodewijk "Eddie" Van Halen (born January 26, 1955), is a Dutch-American rock guitarist, keyboardist, songwriter and producer, most famous as the lead guitarist and co-founder of the hard rock band Van Halen. Van Halen is widely known for his shredding and rapid guitar play and high frequency feedback. Van Halen's approach to the guitar involves several distinctive components including the innovative use of two-handed tapping, natural and artificial harmonics, vibrato, and tremolo picking, combined with a melodic approach which is often neo-classical in nature. Although he didn't invent the technique of tapping, Van Halen is widely considered one of the guitarists who popularised it in rock music of the 1980s, a technique he initially attempted to conceal by turning his back to the audience during Van Halen concerts.

Edward Lodewijk Van Halen is a son of saxophonist/clarinetist father Jan Van Halen and mother Eugenia. Eugenia Van Halen was originally from Java, Indonesia. Edward's middle name was named after composer Ludwig van Beethoven. (Lodewijk is the Dutch version of Ludwig.) Edward continued this naming tradition by naming his son Wolfgang Van Halen after composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Shortly after Edward was born in Amsterdam, the family moved to the city of Nijmegen. In 1962, at the age of seven, Edward emigrated with his family to the United States and shortly after the family moved to Pasadena, California.

Eddie learned to play the piano as a child, and has won many different talent shows. His older brother Alex also played the piano. However, playing the piano did not prove sufficiently engaging — he once said in an interview, "Who wants to sit in front of the piano? That's boring." Consequently, while Alex began playing the guitar, Eddie bought a drum kit and began practicing drumming. After Eddie heard Alex's performance of the The Surfaris' drum solo in the song "Wipe Out", he grew annoyed that his brother had overtaken his ability and decided to switch and begin learning how to play the electric guitar.

He has stated that he would often walk around at home with his guitar strapped on and unplugged, practicing. It's said that he would sit in his room for hours with the door locked, as a teen practicing the guitar. He once claimed that he had learned almost all of Eric Clapton's solos in the band Cream "note for note" by age 14; in later interviews he stated he could never play the solos precisely, instead he would modify them slightly to suit his style.

In April 1996, in an interview with Guitar World, when asked about how he went from playing his first open A chord to playing "Eruption", Eddie replied:

“ Practice. I used to sit on the edge of my bed with a six-pack of Schlitz Malt talls. My brother would go out at 7pm to party and get laid, and when he'd come back at 3am, I would still be sitting in the same place, playing guitar. I did that for years — I still do that. ”

Eddie has many influences, most notably Eric Clapton. He has also acknowledged the influence of Queen guitarist Brian May, Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page, and fusion guitarist Allan Holdsworth, as well as the likes of Montrose guitarist Ronnie Montrose

Joe Satriani

In 1988, Satriani was recruited by the Rolling Stones' Mick Jagger as lead guitarist for Jagger's second solo tour. Later, in 1994, Satriani was also the lead guitarist for Deep Purple. Satriani has also worked with a wide range of guitarists from many styles, including Steve Vai, John Petrucci, Eric Johnson, Larry LaLonde, Yngwie Malmsteen, Brian May, Patrick Rondat, Andy Timmons, Paul Gilbert and Robert Fripp through the annual G3 Jam Concerts.

Satriani is widely recognized as a technically advanced rock guitarist, and has been described as a virtuoso. He has mastered many performance techniques on the instrument, including Legato, two-handed tapping and arpeggio tapping, volume swells, harmonics, and extreme whammy bar effects. One of his trademark compositional traits is the use of Pitch Axis Theory, which he applies with a variety of modes. During fast passages, Joe favors a technique known as legato (achieved primarily through hammer-ons and pull-offs) which yields smooth and flowing runs. He is also adept at other speed-related techniques such as speed picking (a rapid form of alternate picking) and sweep picking, but does not often use them.

Satriani has received 14 Grammy nominations and has sold more than 10 million albums worldwide. Many of his fans and friends call him "Satch," short for "Satriani". Other guitarists sometimes refer to him as "Saint Joe"; there are numerous t-shirts to this effect.

An influential guitarist himself, Satriani has many influences, including jazz guitarists Django Reinhardt, Wes Montgomery, and Charlie Christian, and rock guitarists Jimi Hendrix and Ritchie Blackmore.

Steve Vai

Vai is widely recognized as a technically highly advanced rock guitarist and has been described as a virtuoso in the world of guitar music. He has mastered many performance techniques on the instrument including legato, pinch harmonics and volume swells, and is noted for his whammy bar effects and sporadic outbursts on the instrument often contrasting sweep-picking or finger tapping with slower sections to his compositions. His 1990 album Passion and Warfare and the ballad For the Love of God in particular received a significant amount of press and are often cited by critics and fans alike as amongst his best work to date.

Vai's playing style has been characterized as quirky and angular, owing to his technical facility with the instrument and deep knowledge of music theory. He often uses exotic guitars; he plays both double and triple neck guitars, and is regarded as the first to use the 7-string guitar in a rock context.[citation needed] Along with Ibanez, he designed a signature 7-string guitar, the Ibanez Universe.

Yngwie Malmsteen

Malmsteen was born in Stockholm, Sweden, as the first child of a musically talented family. At age seven, he saw a television news report on the death of Jimi Hendrix. To quote his official website, "The day Jimi Hendrix died, the guitar-playing Malmsteen was born". At the age of 10 he took his mother's maiden name Malmsten as his surname, slightly changed it to Malmsteen, and Anglicised his given name Yngve to "Yngwie". Yngwie also created his first band "Track On Earth" at the age of 10, consisting of himself and a friend from school on drums. Malmsteen was a teenager when he first encountered the music of the 19th century violin virtuoso Niccolò Paganini, whom he cites as his biggest classical music influence.

Through his emulation of Paganini concerto pieces on guitar, Malmsteen developed a prodigious technical fluency. Malmsteen's guitar style includes a wide, violin-like vibrato inspired by classical violinists, and use of such minor scales as the Harmonic minor, and minor modes such as Phrygian, and Aeolian. Malmsteen also cites Brian May of Queen, Steve Hackett of Genesis, Uli Jon Roth, Alex Lifeson of Rush, and Ritchie Blackmore of Deep Purple as influences.