What makes a great guitarist? I've herd people swear by 'Wngwie Malmsteen', one of the fastest metal guitarists in the known universe, but then others favour slow Eric 'Slow hand' Clapton, a man who's very name would be a bad thing in Yngwies circles. I personally think the jazz guitarists are the best, but when I was younger I swore Angus Young, a one key, one scale rock god, was all knowing.
- Tone
I can't tell you how many times I've herd a genuinely great guitarist, but his amplifier sounds like a jar of angry bees. I always found that less is more, many guitarist will opt for throwing on loads of effects, flooding their sound with reverb and delay, I advise starting out with a nice clean sound, and working from there, subtly. Check out this article on how to get a great tone. Click here.
- Be tasteful
No one wants to hear a 10 minute fully overdriven solo. Unless you've got serious talent and a big enough fan base to do that, Eddie Van Halen can get away with it, not many people can. No one likes a show off, if you can shred all day and night that's great, just give the rest of the band a chance.
- Confidence
Not to be confused with arrogance. It's a fine line I guess. Some of the 'best' guitarists I've seen are the ones that are at the back of the stage, with their head down. I've always said that I'd prefer to see a band who are really energetic, put on a hell of a show but hit some bum notes, rather than 4 robots playing a CD quality set.
- Tuning
The classic 'shit band', are the ones where their instruments weren't even in tune, you can get tuning pedals so you don't have to disconnect any cables. I recommend the 'Korg Pitch Black', they're much cheaper than most, especially, the Boss TU-3, which seems to be the standard. They both do the same job but the Korg looks nicer and is cheaper! Also if you have any times to check your tunings in between songs, or even during a song if you can hear it's a little out, then take it!
- Actual skill
This is rather obvious but I thought it should be covered, depending on what style you play, you're mostly going to have to know at least some theory and have some knowledge of playing. Grade books are a great way to go if you want to get seriously good. I recommend 'RGT'. But apart from that, practise a lot, learn other songs from similar genres to get the feel of them.
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