The forgotten guitarist Eddie Van Halen could never copy
Regularly seen as the master of the tapping technique, people frequently look to Eddie Van Halen as a true innovator in the guitar world.
Now, there are going to be many people who would disagree with the insinuation that he was a true original, given how other guitarists were experimenting with similar styles around the same time, with Genesis’ Steve Hackett also having been a trailblazer in this sense. Again, that’s not to mention that other guitarists of the highest calibre, such as Jimi Hendrix and Robert Fripp, had already shown why they were up there with the most formidable.
That being said, the existence of other guitarists, whether or not they were doing the same things as Van Halen, doesn’t negate the fact that he was still a maestro, and that his ability on his instrument was something to be in awe of, and that was carried through his entire career.
Having been born in the Netherlands and raised on ‘60s pop, it wasn’t really until he moved to the US as a teenager that he became obsessed with rock styles. As a consequence, his horizons were expanded during this period of his life, and he started to pay attention to a wider variety of players who he wanted to try and emulate the works of.
There would have been many different guitarists who influenced him during his adolescence and whose techniques he would have spent hours trying to practice copying, and while his earliest influences were the likes of Eric Clapton, there was one guitarist who he later discovered that blew him away to the point that he felt it would be impossible for him to ever replicate.
Best known for his work with Canterbury scene and progressive rock titans Soft Machine as well as being a phenomenal jazz guitarist in his own right, Allan Holdsworth is one of the most frequently overlooked masters of the instrument, but despite his relative obscurity when compared to the most commonly-discussed guitarists, Van Halen’s discovery of his work opened an entire world of fascination with his immaculate ability.
The heavy metal legend later proclaimed after Holdsworth’s passing that he was “the best, in my book”, and also argued that he was “so damned good that I can’t cop anything.” But what was it about his style that felt so inimitable to the point that someone of Van Halen’s capability was unable to come close to matching it?
Holdsworth certainly had much more of a flair for tricky improvisation than many other guitarists who simply parrot what others do, and was able to figure out complex parts that few others would even care to attempt. While his style was often smooth and flowing, there are moments where he toyed with dissonance in order to create unique sounds.
Van Halen was even more in awe of Holdsworth when the duo eventually had the opportunity to play together, and while Van Halen believed that his counterpart completely blew him out of the water, he still strived to reach a level where he was good enough to compete.
