But there's so much evolution in electric(!) guitar playing over the past 90 years (basically the time that electric guitars have existed), that it seems completely biased to give the pioneers of 50-odd years ago a heroic status (Jimi Hendrix always topping every single 'best guitarists ever' poll for example). Like with any instrument that's 'new', it takes time for the people to learn how to play it. There would never have been a Hammerklavier Sonata, if the piano hadn't existed for hundred years before that. The first piano pieces ever written could never possibly as technical as that, simply because people didn't know (yet) how to play the instrument and the cumulative knowledge of players wasn't as widespread as it is today. Hammerklavier was a fucking beast back in the day, now piano students at conservatories are expected to learn that thing.
A similar thing happens with guitars. Remember 'Eruption' by Eddie van Halen? I don't, because I wasn't alive back then, but the point I want to make is that it must have been insane in the seventies, but now it's looked at as a relic in the past - an important milestone, surely, but compared to what some guitarists do now (on a technical level that is!) Eruption isn't nearly as daunting at all. The abundance of good to great guitarists is frankly quite ridiculous and there's maybe hundreds of Youtube guitarists that could play circles around Iommi (again, on a technical level that is!), but those guitarists will never, ever, influence music in a way Iommi has.
Then comes my question in return: what if Iommi had never picked up a guitar? Surely at some point people must have gotten the idea that you could downtune strings or add more distortion. Again, this is evolution. The piano didn't simply 'exist' at some point; humanity went through hundreds of different types of piano before we got an instrument that can have quiet and loud tones, sustained or unsustained and that's actually playable by 2 hands and portable enough to fit in people's homes.
We see it nowadays, with (again electric) guitars 'evolving' to have 7, 8, 9 strings, because why wouldn't we? From a technical standpoint, the cumulative knowledge of how to play an electric guitar is getting so widespread that people will only get better. When was the last time a guitar solo truly amazed you? It's as if we
expect our musicians to be able to do anything and everything, simply because we see it too often. You can't play 'Eruption' of guitar? Well, then you're not worth listening to, as there's thousands of people who will play that anyway.
Jeez, I do go on topic on this, didn't I? Thinking about what I read, it might actually deserve its own thread