Eddie Van Halen

Edward Lodewijk " Eddie" Van Halen ( born January 26, 1955 in Nijmegen, the Netherlands) is the Dutch- American rock musician and one of the most stylish and influential guitarists of rock and related styles of music. His band bearing his last name: Van Halen.

Life

Edward Van Halen was born in 1955 in the Netherlands, the son of Jan and those coming from Indonesia Eugenia Van Halen and came through his father, a professional clarinetist and saxophone player, early in touch with music. When the family moved to the U.S. in 1962, he was already playing the piano and started to learn the drums. Inspired by Jimi Hendrix and his idol Eric Clapton Cream of the group he exchanged soon with his brother, later drummer Alex Van Halen, the instruments and learned to play guitar. Together they formed a band. When, later, in high school crystallized the later occupation, they were discovered by producer Ted Templeman. Their self-titled debut album caused a meteoric rise to the best paid live band and made Eddie Van Halen, overnight, one of the most important guitarists. After the split with singer David Lee Roth, the band evolved into a more song -oriented direction, although the guitar style of Van Halen always remained top notch. At this time the influential Guitar Player magazine had him already often voted the best guitarists in the world than any other.

He was married to the American actress Valerie Bertinelli and has made ​​this marriage a son, Wolfgang William Van Halen (born 16 March 1991). They were divorced in December 2007.

The long-term alcoholics and chain smokers Edward Van Halen has recovered in recent years from a tongue cancer disease and the implantation of an artificial hip. In spring 2007, Van Halen went to a alcohol rehab clinic, with the result that the Reunions tour could take place the following fall.

Style

Tapping

Ted Templeman laid in 1977 the music magazine Guitar Player before a demo of the band. The second title of the tape, the 1:42 minutes long instrumental eruption, introduced a new style of guitar playing one: with traditional means unplayable whammy bar effects, extreme modulation effects and a technique that impressed the editors.

The climax of the piece is the conclusion: a fast game, on the one hand did not sound like alternate picking and would not have been playable in this speed to another.

In their article, the editors speculate on keyboard tricks, faster tape played or mixed together via two guitars. The secret to his technique was reinforced by the fact that Van Halen turned away at live performances from the audience when he played his solos. Later, however, some guitarists like Randy Rhoads and Steve Vai came behind the secret of this new technology, and in 1982 declared Van Halen his play publicly in Guitar Player. The tapping has become a hallmark of his style, and has contributed significantly to the fact that he is now often described as the most influential guitarist since Jimi Hendrix.

The expansion of legato playing with the right hand, by not hit, but even hammering a collar and then rolls on the fretted note of the left hand goes in rock music originally on Steve Hackett back and was subsequently by many rock guitarists practiced, including Gary Moore, Brian May, Harvey Mandel, and Jimmy Webster. Eddie van Halen built this technique consistent in his style of play. The best known, the so-called Van Halen triplet has become, which can be heard at the end of the eruption:

The Tappingspiel of Eddie Van Halen has many facets and variants to offer, such as the inclusion of open strings or the tapped Harmonics that arise when one uses a sound and exactly one octave - ie twelve frets higher - on the fret hammers (cf.. Spanish Fly ).

Van Halen plays partially whole riffs with tapped harmonics by grabbing sounds with your left hand and produced by striking at the fret on the 4th, 5th, 7th, 9th or 12th fret on the tone harmonic overtones ( cf. Aftershock ). Also wide, tapped legato lines over several strings ( cf. Jump) part of his repertoire. Later, the technique was further extended by guitarists such as Steve Lynch and Jennifer Batten by they could not strike a finger, but all four fingers of the right hand for tapping used and thus more notes per string ( Two hand tapping ).

Inspired to this style, it was Jimmy Page, II the British rock group Led Zeppelin based his solo in the song Heartbreaker on the album Led Zeppelin on this technique.

Tremolo use

Eddie Van Halen was also innovative in the field of guitar technique. One of the main problems with the use of the tremolo - with the Jimi Hendrix also had to fight - was that the strings out of tune very quickly, because the mechanics gave way to the high load fluctuations caused by the slackening and tightening the strings. Consequently, no great vibrato actions could be accomplished - at least not when then should follow a regular game again. Eddie Van Halen built a blocker on his Fender Stratocaster - he played the end of the 1970s - and indeed directly on the saddle, between headstock and fingerboard, so that the voltage fluctuations did not reach the tuners. This technique is absolutely groundbreaking and is found as a basic concept in many locking tremolo systems from different manufacturers. This technical basis could integrate into his style Van Halen extreme forms of tremolo use. Later the Hanoverian company Rockinger delivered - about the American luthier Kramer - with the Tru Tune Tremolo first fine-tuning tremolo in the world including those belonging to Eddie Van Halen from. The knife-edge systems of Floyd Rose followed suit.

One example is his guitar work in the solo of the Michael Jackson song Beat it (the solo was not played at a time ) called: The boisterous rhythm, the surprising use of harmonics and abrupt, but still flowing use of the vibrato arm make Van Halen style so unpredictable. His repertoire in this technique is complex. At the beginning of this solo he mimics a opening door; also tune phrasing ( cf. Baluchitherium ), or the use of rhythm work ( cf. Is not talkin '' bout love ) are typical ways of playing of Eddie Van Halen.

Rhythm work

Because he - like Jimi Hendrix in his band experience - a long time was the only guitarist in the band ( between singer Sammy Hagar played a second guitar), also joined Van Halen rhythm playing with the solo guitar. He used all the techniques discussed above in the rhythm game, thus creating a smooth transition between its rhythmic Pentatonikriffs and the solo part, which fills most of short vocal pauses ( cf. Panama). Van Halen set the rhythm game thus a technically much more demanding level: he played the first two albums almost no overdubs.