What Made Eddie Van Halen So Great?

Apart from his name – I mean could you have a greater name if you were going to be a rock guitarist?!! I’ve heard a lot of guitarists over the years dismiss Eddie Van Halen as “80’s” or simply no big deal or easy to emulate and so on – but I want to set the record straight here. Sure – 40+ years after the event we can all sit down and pick apart his playing and techniques and replicate pretty reasonably his sound and licks – no big deal. BUT… here’s is a difference. Eddie is an all round musical genius filled with melody and ideas and natural creativity all the neigh-sayers couldn’t hope to get anywhere near of their own accord.

Why Eddie stood out from the rest

This guy Eddie Van Halen would have been amazing on any instrument – his piano playing messing about seen on YouTube is testament to this as whilst it may be rudimentary compared to a concert pianist – just like his guitar playing it’s filled with quirks and colour – the essence of what really makes good music – not endless fast runs that bore the listener to death. And remember – there are only 24 hours in a day – no one can be great on every instrument or in any vocation.

Eddie knows this and that’s why like God laughs at our plans – Eddie laughs at his criticisers – he knows he is king of electric guitar weather he sounds ‘dated’ or not (there is nothing new under the sun so give anything a few years and it looks or sounds cool again). Give him 5 minutes and he’ll come up with something you never even dreamed of – THAT’S the genius of Eddie Van Halen that really can’t be touched. One of the reasons Eddie is so great is that he doesn’t care about mistakes – he doesn’t care if you flibs or flabs – he is willing to try anything and fail and improve – very much like the previous master Jimi Hendrix.

Magic in the timing – what isn’t played and even the mistakes!

We all know there is nothing interesting about perfection. In fact the opposite is true and the keys to exciting sounds is to enhance the mistakes – to capture the energy of jumping off the cliff on tape like the Beatles – always out of tune but always sounding like nothing or no-one else and full of vitality and excitement we are still playing the tracks 50 years after they were recorded. Eddie is the same.