[Van Halen Man]

Is there anyone else out there who loves Van Halen? I am only 15 and I love them. I dont understand why people my age all like todays music and not Van Halen. Todays music is pathetic. Especially rap, it shouldnt even be considered to be music. It is just a weird guy talking fast to an annoying tune and a dumb beat. Pls post your opinions.

[bigtomrodney]

Haha. Yeah I like Van Halen. I prefer Led Zeppelin and Rory Gallagher though. But yeah, guitar based music! If you don't like hip hop maybe try some old school stuff, anything main stream is not worth a damn

I would recommend Public Enemy "Apocalypse 91" and The Beastie Boys "Ill Communication"

You might prefer the Beasties because there's as much guitar as turntable. All this coming from a blues man..

[Cabhan]

I don't know too much Van Halen, but I like what I know. I also agree about rap and today's music: it's all so bad. I'm a huge fan of 70s-80s metal (Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, Queensrÿche, etc.), but even modern metal is just horrid.

[onlinebacon]

Heh, I am also 15, and I like a lot of death metal, jimi hendrix, van halen, led zep, hard rock, grindcore, and more :P

[fingal]

I like Van Halen. For me personally, the guitar is the basis of all the music I enjoy. I'm learning to play an electric guitar at the moment, and just to confuse things ... I'm listening to rap at the moment: it's not my main thing though.

Van Halen - afaik - invented string tapping on the guitar. That's when you use both hands to play notes that you otherwise wouldn't be able to reach. Respect!

Originally Posted by onlinebacon

Heh, I am also 15, and I like a lot of death metal, jimi hendrix, van halen, led zep, hard rock, grindcore, and more :P

Fantastic! Keep on rocking!!

[bigtomrodney]

Ah tapping is more about speed (you can always reach the notes ). Van Halen is the only person that can do it without making me feel sick, it was really overdone after he pioneered it. If I may be so bold as to make a suggestion for your travels fingal - stop what you are doing and focus on the bass when listening to songs for an hour or so. Students I have taught, and myself when I was learning, often find difficulty trying to match or pick out elements of songs. The bass can often just sound like part of the guitar segments or combine to form new chords.

This has frustrated many when trying to match the sound of a song! It's almost as hard as picking out individual guitar parts when there are multiple tracks. The worst thing about learning guitar is discovering how many of your heros can't repeat your favourite songs without a recording studio to hand, or a few session guitarists on stage with them

Man. I'm a bitter old guitarist. I used to hate guys like me

[fingal]

Originally Posted by bigtomrodney

If I may be so bold as to make a suggestion for your travels fingal - stop what you are doing and focus on the bass when listening to songs for an hour or so. Students I have taught, and myself when I was learning, often find difficulty trying to match or pick out elements of songs. The bass can often just sound like part of the guitar segments or combine to form new chords.

Many thanks! Yes, I'll bear it in mind. At the moment I'm just working with scales: pentatonic minor ones, so still finding my way around. I can play some basic blues riffs and after that I revert back to folky finger picking. I'm looking for a teacher.

Didn't know you played the guitar. Well well. I know what you mean about songs not sounding the same twice. A favourite Hendrix track is 'Hear my train a-coming'; having heard one version of it I was in love. He sings this bit at the end, 'Gonna to be a magic boy (x2). Gonna leave this town' (rpt. several times + beautiful riff). I never could find that version again though. He did it differently each time.

[daacosta]

I like Van Halen a lot... But then again: I am 36 so you can guess what I have on my hard drive: 80s and more 80s and more 80s...

Speaking of which, I am sick and tired of people of my generation bashing the 80s. It was, in my opinion, the best decade musically speaking. One can only listen to Eruption by Van Halen and listen what was Heavy Metal about... Don't like Metal? Plenty of punk was played then... Don't like punk? Try some soul and even disco! Country was even cool those days!

And the hair styles those days! Man! * Let me check mom's albums and see if I can burn some of my pictures ugh! *

[bidi]

Van Halen, with David Lee Roth, is one of the best bands ever... Van Halen with Sammy is about like every other turd that was dropped in the 80s. I'm not saying 80s songs suck, actually I like quite a few bands like Scorpions and a few others, but I also hate with everything I've got Poison, and the others let's-do-whatever-one-else-is-doing bands.

[a12ctic]

van halen, zeplin, iron maiden, black sabath, all good stuff, theyre the artists that carved a place for the music i listen to today (metal mostly). although their not my favorites, i still enjoy listening to them. In my opnion, the music today (metal, not like nu-metal, stuff like napalm death, suffocation, nile, etc) is better though, much higher instramentalship and better production.