Apologies if there's another thread somewhere...
But I wanted to talk about John Petrucci, and where most people rank him all time and such...
I mean I expect most of us here rank him right near the top, but where would you put him among what are considered the classic greats. Certainly Dream Theater's discography stacks up against anyone's.
What got me thinking was the Thin Lizzy thread in GMD. Which always leads me to a Gary Moore binge. Now I've been a Dream Theater fan for a looooong time, and I have never heard JP cite Gary Moore as an influence. Yet he is the one guitarist that I constantly hear in JP's playing. I mean the chops and the speed, the emotion, and the technical ability. I consider Gary Moore the greatest guitarist I've ever heard, but frankly, I put John Petrucci right up there.
JP plays some Rush like passages for sure, but I'm not sure what other influences really come out in JP's playing. Does anyone have any thoughts on that? He cites Steve Morse as an influence, but personally, I don't know enough of Morse's work to hear it in JP. To the better educated, is Morse present in JP's playing?
If you had to describe JP's style to a friend, how would you do it?
Can anyone else vouch for the Gary Moore influence?
For myself, I rank JP in the top 10. I don't know if he could go top 5, but he'd be pretty close. I can hear subtle hints of what you are talking about in relation to Gary Moore Tim, and I don't actually know how much of a fan JP is of GM. JP gets criticised sometimes of being too technical and a bit mechanical and I can see that sometimes in his shred. The only thing about JP sometimes is that in his improv, some of his faster shred seems a little awkward and out of place, or a bit clunky.
That's only a minor gripe but when JP comes to mastering a solo, he's one of the best and can create some of the most emotionally intense and meaningful solos I've ever heard. This puts him in a category above most. I do hear a lot more Gilmour in his style than Moore honestly. Solos like TSCO, ACOS, GK, BAI is where it's at for JP. Those type of solos he easily one of the best, and he makes you cry with him with those solos. On the other hand, UAGM, Lie, BTV, Home etc. he can make a memorable creative, kick ass shred fest sound like everything is meant to be there. A lot of his solos are like mini songs within a song. They aren't just solos, they are pieces within pieces.
It's not only his solos but a lot of his melodies too, like Overture 1928 is one of my fav JP moments, due to the two really melodic guitar lead lines in there, they are perfect.
Thinking about Gary Moore though, I do hear that in some of his faster picking stuff. Like there's a tremelo picked section that's fast as hell that I'm thinking of in ITNOG that really actually reminds me of Moore's thing he does where he picks as fast as he can down a semitone interval apart working down a chromatic scale. I can see a link there actually. So I guess thinking about both, I can actually hear more influence in the faster playing over the emotional Loner, SGTB type songs.