What do you think of shred?

[IvanTih]

About shred. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shred_guitar
Do you like it or hate.
I like it,but I don't like guys like Michael Angelo Batio he plays without emotion(well mostly).
My favorite shredders are Marty Friedman(although he doesn't do shred these days),Jason Becker,Paul Gilbert,Yngwie Malmsteem and Steve Vai.

[Kenny_10_Bellys]

I'm no fan, to be honest. Yes, it's technically difficult and requires a lot of practice, but that doesn't make it interesting musically. Taking a single element of any musially form, driving it to the extreme and then making it the center of your music is not something I'd advocate. Extreme anything is usually no fun. Satriani is capable of it, but uses it sparingly so that it adds punch in his tunes. Vai kicks the arse out of it and makes you tired of it.

[IvanTih]

Yeah I forgot about Satch.
Some guys are 100% speed while we have guys like Jason Becker who balance between melody and speed.
I mean Jason has ALS and cant play,but listen to the Perpetual Burn and Perspective albums.

[The Vortex Empire]

I like shred guitar, but it's far better when mixed with more melodic parts. See pretty much any solo by Glenn Tipton from Judas Priest from 1982 on.

[Marcus Aurelius]

Modern shred guitar was pretty much invented by Al Di Meola, although naturally there were guys before him that could be considered proto-shred. Nothing ever comes from nothing in culture. As far as compositions go Di Meola is lightyears ahead most other shredders, but considering that he does fusion, jazz and latino/gypsy jazz that goes almost without saying Even back in the day in the 1970s, when he was only in his early twenties, he never shredded just for the kicks, but the guitar solos were a carefully considered part of the overall composition.

I still like Di Meola, but from the other shredders only Satriani has some good stuff. I also like Steve Morse, although he has never been a true shredder. He is fast enough, though

[Kenny_10_Bellys]

I think there are many, many guitarists out there who can 'shred' to one extent or the other (not me, unfortunately), but few people make it big purely on that. Most use it sparingly, like a spice in a good meal. I've seen videos of Yngwie J Malmsteen where he says "here's a little slow blues riff I like" and then launches into a 3000mph widdling fretwank. He doesn't see it now, he does it so much it's second nature. He cant play slow unless someone stands behind him with a 2 x 4 hitting him on the head.

[Rye]

I don't like it. I need riffs and rhythm prioritised over leads. Leads unto themselves are pretty wanky and lose "song momentum" pretty fast when I'm listening. I would rather listen to some dubstep or Godflesh-style repetitive, crushing riffs.

This isn't to say I don't like difficult to play sweepy goodness, I do, but it annoys me in a profound way if it's what everything else is based around.

[TithonusSyndrome]

It's completely irrelevant. In the 80's when people were reaching the limits of what was humanly possible to do on the guitar, this might've been worth exploring in some kind of detail, but today it's not. Listening to it now, all but the very best of the old shred guitarists sound more dated than the blues albums their teachers grew up playing from, and even then the very best barely merit mention. The problem is that, as Rye said, these songs are written around the guitarist, by the guitarist as a vehicle for his playing, rather than by a properly focused composer who has written a piece that happens to call for demanding, fast music. I may be biased, but I still think Steve Vai's best work was with Frank Zappa, who credited him on his albums as "stunt guitar". Vai isn't completely without a vision of his own, but it appears to be so choked in dated synthesizer sounds and meandering improvisations that it doesn't really compare to what Zappa made him a part of.

If you have a certain chord progression in mind and you are intent to write a melody for it that has minuscule note partitions, go for it. Music may or may not be reducible to math, but as a general rule more note partitions does mean more permutations of note sequences are available to write, which isn't always a bad option. But compare something like an Origin song such as "Staring From The Abyss" or for the sake of common knowledge, Rimsky-Korsakov's "Flight of the Bumblebee", against any random noodling and you ought to be able to see what I mean - one has structure, a certain chord sequence is being employed for emotional effect, whereas the shredders are just wailing off into whatever direction they happen to take note of off the top of their heads. So overall, I consider albums by "shred" guitarists to be a dead medium.