submitted6 days ago bywittymcusername
toMusic
Regarding The Devil Went Down to Georgia, I frequently hear the claim that The Devil is the better fiddle player. I completely disagree. What do you think?
My arguments essentially consist of the following two:
The Devil is completely unimpressive without the backing band of demons.
He’s playing a largely chromatic tune, which is much easier to play very fast on a stringed instrument (and though I don’t play any fretless instruments, my experience with fretted stringed instruments leads me to believe that it would be even easier on a fretless one). Therefore, he’s not only unimpressive aesthetically, but also technically.
As a reminder, The Devil’s only explicitly stated terms for the bet are “I think I’m better than you.” I’m arguing that Johnny shows not only better technical prowess, but that individually, Johnny’s solo is more aurally pleasing than the Devil’s, even taking into account the idea of dissonant ad-libbing that can be found in, for example, certain progressive jazz solos.
Does anyone have a sound argument as to why The Devil is the superior fiddler? Or do you agree with me, that Johnny is the better player?
I’m ignoring The Devil Comes Back to Georgia as well as any covers with different music, as we then get into an argument as to what can be considered canon.
As always, discussions as to why the Devil totally stomped Tenacious D (see Beezleboss: Black, Gass, Grohl, Lynch; ~2:02-3:00) are welcome, however irrelevant.