The Astonishing Techniques That Made Eddie Van Halen A Guitar God

Eddie Van Halen spent a lifetime chasing the sounds that he heard in his head. The encomiums that have proliferated since Van Halen's death on October 6 have made comparisons with Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page and others who comprise the pantheon of rock's fabled "guitar heroes." A more revealing comparison is with Les Paul, a pre-rock guitar virtuoso who set the template for much of what followed. Like Paul, Van Halen was what I would call a "tinkering virtuoso." That is, he dedicated much of his craft and creativity not only to refining his prodigious guitar technique, but also to tweaking and adjusting the basic tools of his trade. Dissatisfied with the specifications of the two most widely used electric guitars of his day – the Fender Stratocaster and the Gibson Les Paul – Van Halen built his own guitar some time in 1976-77 from borrowed parts, creating a hybrid instrument that looked like it barely hung together but had a sound and feel that created a whole new class of guitars, the "superstrats" that became a new industry standard. Similarly, his celebrated "brown sound" – the highly saturated overdriven timbre that enveloped his playing – came from his experiments with amp modification and the array of effects pedals that working rock guitarists of the 1970s had at their disposal.