Steve Howe. Listen to The Yes Album. If you were to learn every song on it, as a guitarist, you would need a half dozen different instructors just to get you through all the styles. Even then, Clap alone would take most guitarists YEARS to master, if ever.

Its to hard to listen to yes and not worship the bassist. Howe is no doubt great, but god damn Squire rules.

With Yes, I always liked to listen focusing on any one member. I have to agree, especially on early Yes stuff, Mr. Squire ALWAYS played something that 99.99999% of bassists would never have thought of, and the tone and choice of notes coupled with his immaculate timing made any given Yes song 10X more explosive.

Fripp, Zappa, and Buckhead should be beating out Gilmour.

Why is that?

I like Pink Floyd but I feel that it's more for general atmosphere as whole than guitar work. Not that I dislike David Gilmour, his guitar work was good, mind you, just don't feel it particularly is the trait that made Pink Floyd a success, and I believe if you compare sheer importance of his guitar work to the music compared to the three mentioned, he's less notable.

Albeit, I guess, Zappa maybe not as much since he relied more on composition and could easily do without his rather overlooked sheer skill, and the same could probably be said about Fripp even if his guitar work is obviously a very essential element to King Crimson.

Essentially though, David Gilmour is very noteworthy, but I don't think particularly as a guitarist.

In that sense your definitely correct. For instance listening to a Buckethead album, you know who the prodigy is right away. In Gilmore's case I wouldn't let the fact that he had amazingly talented musicians around him take away from his playing. Or im not making any sense :(

Naw, I get what you're saying. Not to say that his playing should be overlooked, either. Just don't think, of the people on the list, he's as noteworthy as a guitarist, that's all.

Steve Wilson won my vote. He rarely uses too much technical skill in his lines, but that's not to say he doesn't have any. I feel like he's the reason Porcupine Tree has such a diverse style, just because a lot of the time his playing is all over the spectrum from the calm acoustic intro of Trains to the heavier sounds of Anesthetize.

I had also considered John Petrucci for the opposite reason, being that he was probably the most technical guitarist on the list. But the emotion Wilson brings to the table outweighs Petrucci's barrage of 32nd notes any day.

There's no option for Fripp AND Belew? I voted Belew anyway.

Are you sure Steve Wilson belongs there - he sounds pretty pedestrian to me.

oops I meant Fripp.....

are they people keeping on flaming me because of Steve Wilson? Cos this thread pops up in my subscribed threads list all the time

protip: read the replies.

Petrucci got my vote. Next would be Gilmour, but as has been mentioned, Pink Floyd's sound was collective not just the work of one man.

I voted for Friar Tuck.
You'll know who I mean if you know me at all.

Please see avatar for answer.

I was ready to vote Alex Lifeson, then I saw Buckethead on the list. Buckethead has the perfect blend of material, some that is purely guitar wankery, and other stuff that is so soulful that you can't help but be transfixed by what he is playing. Then he has those songs that mix the two perfectly, to create absolute masterpieces (Nottingham Lace is a great example of what I mean here)

^:love:

the reason it keeps coming up is because when someone votes on it even if they aren't any replies, it will be refreshed in your subscribed threads


I voted for Alex from Rush even though when I'm listening to Rush I'm paying more attention to the Bassist, Geddy Lee.

I keep thinking they were rude replies which the mods removed.

lol no.

My faves would be the Steve's (gave my vote to Hackett, for his innovation)

Steve Hackett
Steve Howe
Steve Rothery

(must be a Steve thing....)

Omar Rodriguez Lopez all the way, leaps and bounds in composition.

damn, I wish I would have known more McLaughlin when I voted, he's definitely a favorite.

he's more jazz than prog, though

i dunno if it was right to include him here

uriah heep is prog?

The early stuff with David Byron is, they played a brand of hard rock that used progressive elements.

Major Gilmour fanboy right here.

His stuff with Mahavishnu Orchestra was pretty proggy.

McLaughlin is much too low. Ill go with buckethead, McLaughlin, gilmour and Zappa. Is gilmour really prog? Floyds music is as a whole but his guitar playing is mostly blues based. If gilmour is prog then Hendrix certainly is

I have to agree with this. Gilmour isn't very proggy but it's easy to be mislead.

But since he's from Floyd, I guess he's considered a prog guitarist? I don't know. I'm not trying to hate on him, I'm a big fan. Also, if John McLaughlin is included then why not Santana? McLaughlin was more proggy but as already mentioned he was just as much a fusion guitarist, as was Santana. Santana was just bluesier.

Meh. I used that logic when I called Asia a prog band. Though I suppose it could possibly work here too. Floyd being a prog band doesn't necessarily mean the guitarist is proggy. I don't know. my knowledge in this isn't very wide. It's mostly assumption.

Ya I agree. I don't necessarily think just because he was in Floyd qualifies him as a prog guitarist.

I should like to vote for Mike Holmes

Looking at the poll, some very good picks up there, which makes it very difficult to choose. Gonna go with Steve Howe on this one followed by Steven Wilson.

Wow what a lot of names on this poll, one doesn't know where to start.

I had the same problem. I was going to choose Steven Wilson because of how underrated of a musician he is. Than I wanted to choose the guitarist of Marillion for the fact of how influential they are. It was a tough one.

I voted for Robert Fripp.

I'd probably vote Robert Fripp, it actually says I've already voted which must have been ages ago.......no idea who I voted for.

I don't listen to King Crimson enough to give a viable opinion on him, however he does play very well.