Eddie Van Halen: Master of Guitar Technique, Hard Rock Innovator (Part 2)

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Eddie Van Halen's guitar playing technique has been influential to many guitarists after him, and his ability to create a specific tone is the result of a variety of factors. His distinctive sound, called "brown sound" was created by Van Halen with a 100-watt Marshall amplifier, using the amp's distortion and gain and a "Frankenstrat" guitar built by Van Halen from a Gibson humbucker pickup that had been rewound. He also used two-handed tapping, combined with speedy runs that were rooted heavily in the melodic. Van Halen also has a patent for a device that helps the guitarist play his instrument like a piano by pointing the face of the guitar upwards.

Van Halen's performing style also contributed to his reputation as a guitarist. He is known for playing his most complicated solos with his back to the audience, reportedly to prevent other guitarists from stealing any components of his technique, a strategy that was also used by blues guitarist Robert Johnson.

More than any other factor, Eddie Van Halen's tuning contributed most to his interesting sounds and colors. Before he hit the scene, most metal-oriented music avoided the use of the major third interval in chords, instead going with simplified power chords. Most did this to prevent the distortion and dissonance of the rapid beating of the overtones that resulted from most major third intervals played on electric guitar. Van Halen tuned his B string slightly flat in order to create a "beatless" third between the open G and B strings, an idea that was not ever carried out in distorted, hard rock music. The use of this flatted note created a way that brought elements of upbeat pop music to a heavier rock style, and can be heard most notably in the hits "Runnin' With the Devil" and "Unchained."

Van Halen also has often used the fulcrum vibrato for electric guitars to give his music an extra special flair. This device, developed in the mid 20th Century and later perfected by Floyd Rose, lets an electric guitarist put a vibrato on a chord or a single string with just a movement of the bar with the pick-hand. Pressure on the bar, which is attached to the guitar's bridge lowers the strings' pitch briefly. Using this device brought an aspect of yet another genre, 1950's surf music, to Van Halen's style, and blended it in unique ways with the pop and hard rock aspects of his music. It allowed him to create a wider and more marked tremelo without playing out of tune, and create sounds that sounded screaming, growly and chirpy and became highly imitated elements of 1980's glam rock, heavy metal and other hard rock genres that followed. Van Halen worked with Rose himself to perfect the device and helped give it much greater technical accuracy than it previously had been able to achieve. Van Halen's fluency on the guitar and his ability to work easily with vibrato is one of his biggest legacies left for the instrument.

DISCOGRAPHY

Van Halen, 1978
Van Halen II, 1979
Women and Children First, 1980
Fair Warning, 1981
Diver Down, 1982
1984, 1984
For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge, 1991
5150, 1986
OU812, 1988
For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge, 1991
Balance, 1995
Van Halen III, 1998