Top 10 Classical Inspired Guitarists
These guitarists were inspired by classical music and combined various genres with classical music. Not necessarily they have to be neoclassical metal guitarists. They were just inspired by classical music but combined it with many genres.
Richard Hugh "Ritchie" Blackmore is an English guitarist and songwriter, best known for his work in the hard rock/metal bands Deep Purple and Rainbow. He was ranked number 16 on Guitar World's "100 Greatest Metal Guitarists of All Time" in 2004, and number 50 in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" in 2011. In 2016 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as one of original members of Deep Purple. The most famous guitarist who combined classical music with blues, hard rock, psych rock, prog rock etc various genres and played different metal genres. He was inspired by Jon Lord to combine it.
Without a doubt, he deserves the #1 spot - for combining heavy music with classical, now known as heavy metal.
Randall William "Randy" Rhoads was an American heavy metal guitarist who played with Ozzy Osbourne and Quiet Riot. He was killed in a plane crash. He was a classical trained guitarist. He is very trained guitarist. He combined classical music with metal.
Glenn Raymond Tipton is an English Grammy Award-winning guitar player and songwriter. He is most commonly known as the lead guitarist for English heavy metal band Judas Priest. He played various solos combining classical music.
Stephen Richard Hackett is an English musician, songwriter, singer and producer who gained prominence as the guitarist of the English progressive rock band Genesis from 1971 to 1977. A progressive rock guitarist. He was inspired by Johann Sebastian Bach. He did many complex techniques such as tapping and sweep picking (even before Eddie Van Halen or Frank Gambale).
Stephen James "Steve" Howe is an English musician and songwriter. He is best known as the guitarist in the progressive rock group Yes.
Uli Jon Roth is a German guitarist, who became famous as the Scorpions lead guitarist, and is one of the earliest contributors to the neoclassical metal genre. The second neoclassical metal guitarist. Comes after Blackmore. He combined European classical music with rock music.
Yngwie Johan Malmsteen is a Swedish guitarist, songwriter and bandleader who was born on June 30th, 1963, in Stockholm, Sweden. He was known for his neoclassical metal playing style back in the 1980s. The most popular metal guitarist for metal & classical fusion.
John McLaughlin, also known as Mahavishnu John McLaughlin, is an English guitarist, bandleader and composer. He was inspired by various classical music genres such as Indian, Western Classical music and combined it with Jazz.
Coroner - Nosferatu, Arc-Lite
Robert Fripp (born 16 May 1946) is an English guitarist, composer and record producer. As a guitarist for the progressive rock band King Crimson, Fripp has been the only member to have played in all of King Crimson's line-ups from their inception in the late 1960s to the present. He has also worked extensively as a studio musician, notably with singer David Bowie on the albums "Heroes" and Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps), Brian Eno, David Sylvian and contributed sounds to the Windows Vista operating system. His complete discography lists more than seven hundred releases over four decades. ...read more. Combined jazz and classical music to play progressive rock.
Gregory Stuart Lake was an English bassist, guitarist, singer, songwriter, and producer who gained prominence as a founding member of the progressive rock bands King Crimson and Emerson, Lake & Palmer.
At Vance - Beethoven 5th Symphony, Vivaldi / Summer, Flight of the Bumblebee, Vivaldi / Spring, Chopin Etude No.4, Bach Invention No.13
Brian Harold May is an English musician, singer, songwriter and astrophysicist, best known as the lead guitarist of the rock band Queen.