I've been trying to work on this aspect of my nature, if for no other reason than to not appear rude or removed from whatever social situation I find myself in. But there are a few artists whose music, to me, can never be relegated to the background and one of them is Allan Holdsworth. In fact, as I am typing this blog post I'm listening to his "IOU" album on Spotify and I have to pause after typing every other word. His music is so complex, interesting, outside, and so unique that it demands my full attention (okay, I've paused it now so that I can get through this blog post).
I first got turned on to Holdsworth through Guitar Player magazine. Back in the mid-80's each issue of Guitar Player would include a plastic insert that you could remove and play on a turntable. This is where I first heard "Devil Take the Hindmost" from Holdsworth's "Metal Fatigue" album (or at least the first few minutes of it - those plastic inserts didn't have enough room to store an entire track). I couldn't believe that what I was hearing was coming from a guitar player. The melody of the tune was made from chords that I had never heard before, strung together in a way that made his playing sound as unlike a guitar as one could get. I distinctly remember listening to it for the first time, waiting for the guitar player to start playing...only to realize that it's been playing all along!
Holdsworth has a style completely all his own. Nobody else plays like him, and he doesn't sound like anyone else. You can't say that about too many guitar players; anyone can pick up a guitar, run it through some distortion pedals and come out sounding like a lot of other guitar players. But I have yet to hear anyone even come close to duplicating what Holdsworth does with a guitar. I would go so far to say he's reinvented the instrument - and not many guitarists have done that (we're getting into Les Paul/Jimi Hendrix/John McLaughlin territory here).
The most distinctive aspect of his playing style is his "legato" technique when he solos. Unlike so many other guitarists who play through a distorted signal, you hardly ever hear Holdsworth strike the notes with a pick; in fact, he doesn't pick a lot of his notes but he lets his left (fretted) hand simulate the striking of most of the notes he plays. The result is an almost violin effect; a truly legato sound that to me always reminds me of a waterfall - with notes just falling all over the place without any of the percussive sound that a pick normally makes on a distorted guitar. This is completely unique to Holdsworth. I've heard other players approximate a legato effect (most notably the late, great, Shawn Lane) but nobody comes close to sounding as clean as Holdsworth in this area.
When he's not soloing, he's equally as amazing to watch/hear the chords he plays. I've never once seen him play any "standard" chords that I and most other guitar players use. He comes up with the most incredible inversions and voicings that I've ever heard. Sometimes they sound so outside that I feel like I missed a whole bunch of music theory lessons because I don't understand how he can get THAT chord to sound so good against THIS bass note. When you watch him play, his fingers have an incredible reach, so he has a natural advantage that he can physically play chords that most other guitarists couldn't even dream of playing.
His arrangements are equally as complex. You won't hear any standard II-V-I changes in his music (or if you do, they are so inverted as to make it sound completely alien anyway). In my experience, you either "get" his music or you don't. His stuff is not for everyone. To be honest, some of his stuff is so outside that even a fan like me can get a little bogged down by the complexity. I tend to be an active listener when it comes to jazz music - I like to figure out the time signatures, analyze the chord changes, pay attention to the solos played over those changes, etc. I've basically given up trying to do any of this when it comes to Holdsworth's stuff. I just listen closely and let the sounds wash over me like that waterfall I mentioned earlier.
If you've never heard any of his stuff, here are a couple of clips from YouTube. This first one is from his "Live at Yoshi's" DVD from a few years ago (I was fortunate enough to be at this show). Good example of his legato soloing technique:
And here's an older video where he displays some of his unique chord voicings:
