#492 – Rick Beato: Greatest Guitarists of All Time, History & Future of Music

Today’s conversation is with Rick Beato, a beloved music educator and multi‑instrumentalist whose channel made so many of us fall in love with great songs again. To kick off our music journey, what early guitar solo grabbed you so deeply it felt like magic?

Hey Joe was the first solo I learned; simple chords led me to discover the pentatonic shape by ear, and I got obsessed. My brother refused to play rhythm, so my mom did—twenty minutes straight—while I soloed, and only later did I appreciate how Hendrix’s rhythm language made those chords come alive.

You make passionate, opinionated lists, but you also use them to show people something new; how do you think about “greatest,” and who shaped Hendrix?

My lists change daily and always include a left‑field pick to widen ears; I avoid crowning a single “greatest.” Hendrix stood on giants like Charlie Christian, Django Reinhardt, and Segovia—Django’s two‑finger virtuosity and fully improvised gypsy jazz with Grappelli still stuns me.

Take us into bebop—what was the leap there, and why did it shape you?

Bebop, led by Charlie Parker, turned standards into high‑speed, chromatic improvisation over AABA forms; it’s its own language and one of the hardest to master. My dad spun Parker, Dizzy, Oscar Peterson, and Joe Pass at home, and that early exposure—like learning speech—trained my ear; research shows babies keep extra sound categories if immersed before nine months, which feeds my “perfect pitch is a language window” theory.

For listeners who remember your Dylan videos, what is perfect pitch—and how does it differ from what you teach?

Perfect pitch is naming notes without a reference, instantly and accurately; my course builds relative pitch instead, so you hear intervals against a known tonic, both melodically and harmonically. With daily practice, people improve fast, and when you tie intervals to chords and names, you’re learning ear training and theory together.

A lot of folks want to start guitar—what’s the first path that actually works?

Begin with open chords, simple strums, and—most importantly—hand position so you do not mute the wrong strings; clean notes and slow bends demand tiny physical adjustments and calluses. Learn songs first to stay motivated, keep the guitar out on a stand, practice a little every day, then explore riffs, fingerpicking, hybrid picking, and add theory once the spark is lit.

Tell the story behind Dylan’s viral ear‑training video and how you discovered his pitch ability.

I made that clip for a friend and it exploded—tens of millions of views; Dylan was eight. I realized he had absolute pitch when he sang Star Wars and Superman in the correct keys from memory, and in the video he named complex polychords in close voicings—musicians kept sharing it because he was dissecting stacked inversions like a seasoned theorist; before birth and through infancy, I’d filled his world with Bach, advanced jazz, and eye‑to‑eye listening, not note drills.

Your dad wasn’t a musician but loved serious jazz; did that shape you?

We’d sit silently through whole albums and flip the record—no commentary, just deep listening—which quietly trained my ear and taste.

People forget how well you play; share how Joe Pass pushed you.

My dad gave me Virtuoso and said, if I could play like that, I’d have achieved something; I learned it by ear, moving my fingers until the voicings matched, wearing out the needle. That grind taught me more than any shortcut could.

In jazz, so many roads lead to Miles Davis—why?

Miles kept reinventing—bebop, cool, modal, hard bop, and electric fusion—with legendary 50s and 60s quintets. Ron Carter told me they never rehearsed; Miles rolled tape, they did not listen back, and sometimes they did not even know a live set was recorded—pure feel over thought.

Flea’s intensity jumped off your interview; what did you see, and why does bass matter so much?

Flea grew up around jazz jam sessions, and when he grabs a bass, the room changes; the instrument’s note in the low end defines the chord’s identity. I started on cello, then classical bass, and I still think like a bassist even though I love guitar most.

On your rock solos list, you’ve put Comfortably Numb at the top; what makes David Gilmour special—and what did you learn in his studio?

His melodic flow and sense of space feel like speech; in his room I saw the exact vintage pedals and amps that made those tones, and he sometimes tracks alone with a 90s modeler and keeps the take because the feel is right.

How do you prepare for interviews with legends?

I do not script; I follow curiosity and bring a playlist to spark memory, and my recall of credits and parts helps guests open up; humor helps too—comment wars always summon the “Gilmore effect.”

Beyond Gilmore, you spotlight Larry Carlton, Randy Rhoads, and Mark Knopfler; what stands out—and could you really ID players by one note?

My lists are personal and sometimes punishing—try the Ice Cream Man intro if you dare; Knopfler’s touch is instantly recognizable across very different tones. I’m convinced you can peg some guitarists from a single vibrato, and I want to test that on video.

You also love process—a word on producers and studio craft we rarely hear about.

Producers like Rick Rubin or Daniel Lanois carry stories across genres, and the old apprenticeship of engineering is vanishing; Ken Scott told me he started at Abbey Road at sixteen and set mics for the Beatles—every masterpiece began as a blank reel.

Some moments feel unrepeatable—the guitar’s entrance in Bohemian Rhapsody, Phil Collins’ drum break; how do those happen?

Artists obsess over tiny flaws, but those lightning‑strike moments become hooks people wait for; you cannot force them—they usually happen by accident.

Sting told you the bridge is therapy; do you agree?

A bridge resets perspective; think of We Can Work It Out, where Paul’s optimism collides with John’s sharp reality—contrast deepens feeling.

How did the Beatles create so much greatness so young?

Crummy PA systems pushed them off the road and into the studio, where—with George Martin—they wrote, recorded, and sang daily; three landmark albums landed in a single year because they were constantly at work.

You’ve argued that novel pop ideas often come before thirty.

Fluid intelligence peaks early, which favors improvisation and fresh hooks; later, crystallized wisdom yields the grand forms—think late Beethoven.

The 27 Club looms over music history; where do you land on drugs and the culture?

I would not advocate it, but it’s undeniable that smoking and other drugs were woven into the era; many legends smoked heavily, and that rasp and weight colored their voices.

You once watched Elton John and Bernie Taupin work—how did they do it?

Bernie handed over lyrics, Elton sat at the piano, and within minutes there was a melody and a band take—writing to words first is rare and brutally hard, but he made it look easy.

Kirk Hammett talked downpicking and improvising within metal’s rigidity; what stuck with you?

That relentless downstroke right hand is punishing—I suspect our phone swiping does not help thumbs—and their songs begin as jams shaped into precision; I loved hearing details like Hendrix mixing string gauges to chase feel.

You often ask for a “perfect song”; today I’d pick Sultans of Swing.

Great choice—memorable melody, lyrics, multiple solos, and a sound that’s uniquely its own; it even celebrates music itself, and Knopfler’s tone palette changed dramatically across Dire Straits.

I’m drawn to singer‑songwriters like Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits—how did young writers capture such old souls?

The Beatles hardened their craft in Hamburg with marathon sets and real life; living gives songs their weight.

Billy Corgan joked it is all about sevenths and ninths, and I love melancholy—the ache feels like the twin of joy.

Notes outside the chord—the surprise tones—create tension that moves you, and I chase that; as Cobain once wrote, there’s a strange solace in sadness.

I love love songs that lean into yearning, and Pearl Jam’s Black still floors me, especially that image of someone shining in a different sky.

That line and Eddie’s delivery crush me every time.

Vedder belongs with the great frontmen, right alongside Mercury, Plant, and Hetfield, and nothing captures that better than Metallica’s Moscow show in 1991 where music and history collided.

They were peaking around the Black Album, and that set was thunder.

I chase rare live moments like that, though most days I’d rather be in an intimate room.

Same here; small clubs or the studio beat giant festivals for me now.

Beethoven’s Ninth premiering while he couldn’t hear it still feels miraculous, moving from turbulence to a call for brotherhood at a fragile point between wars.

His letter about the humiliation of losing hearing is heartbreaking, and imagining him composing vast orchestration in silence suggests perfect pitch and a will to feel sound through the body.

Out of torment he still chose joy, even after Napoleon shattered his hopes for the revolution; one day I’ll finally face the Moonlight Sonata’s last movement as my own dragon.

Bach is the fountainhead for songwriters; Mendelssohn’s revival helped the world see his contrapuntal genius, even as Bach endured enormous loss and still produced oceans of beauty.

Every teacher drilled Bach, and I still preach the glory of a perfect riff when it hits like Master of Puppets.

I test amps with heavy riffs, drop tunings, Metallica, Alice in Chains, even Tool, to see if the low end stays tight.

AI songs from tools like Suno are startlingly competent and unsettling; what’s your read after playing with them?

I built fake artists and fed Suno lyrics from Claude, and the truth is you get a handful of keepers out of a mountain of meh, which is why seasoned writers will benefit most because they can spot real sparks.

People can already hear the seams; those slick remixes sound impressive for a minute but lack soul, and fans still crave the real thing.

My kids pegged AI by the vocal ambience alone at first; training on low-quality files left artifacts, and better stems will close the gap, but we’ve all grown quick at sensing the uncanny.

Lyrics from models still miss the sharp edge we want, which raises the question of where the musician fits if the music bed is machine-made.

Use it as an idea sketch, then rewrite, re-sing, and re-produce like a pro; personally, leaning on AI bores me, so I dip in to test progress, not to create.

Audiences will prize the raw, while AI becomes a fine tool for cleanup and small fixes, like RX for noise or quick scene texture.

Exactly; separating voices from performance bleed has saved interviews for me.

About your video on Sabrina Carpenter’s Man Child, what did it reveal about how pop songs are actually made now?

Credits can balloon with ten names while interpolation and wholesale samples do the heavy lifting, and it’s wild to see such tracks vying for top awards.

That feels like business machinery picking winners, even though plenty of these artists are legit talents; Bruno Mars and Billie Eilish are proof you can write, play, and still crush the charts.

Billie and Finneas keep it lean in the room, and it shows.

You’ve been wrestling with YouTube’s copyright maze while clearly operating under fair use; how bad did it get?

Early on I got blocked constantly, then everything got demonetized, so I hired a lawyer who fought roughly four thousand claims and won them all; if you’re truly teaching or critiquing, contest the claims.

Think the system is improving?

It’s still a whack-a-mole of third-party bots hitting big channels, but creators shouldn’t roll over when they’re within fair use.

Streaming changed our habits; I ditched my lovingly hoarded MP3 stash for Spotify’s discovery and radio modes, even if it meant losing the ritual of front-to-back albums.

I like visible play counts and the reach, but payouts lag and algorithms box listeners in, while I stick to original WAVs because remasters can hype the top end.

Gear-wise, what do you use?

Pro Tools is home base, with Logic and Ableton on a Mac, and an old G3 and SM7 started me on editing and producing; any DAW works once you master it.

I use amp sims like Neural DSP on the road and keep about a hundred real amps because each nails a specific color, from a modded JCM 800 to a Mesa for tight metal to a Vox AC30 for chime.

I fell hard for an American Strat in a shop window, love at first sight.

I’m mostly a Gibson, Fender, and PRS guy, with a few choice acoustics, a Nashville-tuned six-string for texture, and a Gibson double-cut signature with P90s that plays like butter.

Neural’s new John Mayer suite nails his amp vibe, and John’s the real deal.

He’s one of the best living guitarists and a great hang.

I’ve known him since his early Atlanta days.

You launched your channel in your mid-fifties; what’s the takeaway for anyone starting late and trying to build something real?

My mindset was someone has to make it, so why not you, and it all began when Dylan’s ear-training clip went viral, which led me to teach what I loved and let the audience find me.

Fame is flimsy if you skip the apprenticeship; mastery transfers and compounds.

I studied classical bass and jazz guitar, taught college, signed a publishing deal, learned engineering, taught myself video and interviewing, make my own thumbnails, and cut straight to the point.

You say, never waste a friendship; what does that mean in practice?

I protect long relationships, call family often, and keep up with friends from every era.

What’s music’s job in a human life?

To open our eyes and score the chapters we live.

Songs can jolt me awake with grief, resolve, or pure adrenaline, and I’m grateful we built instruments that carry those feelings across generations; thank you for championing that spirit and for this conversation, and thanks for listening to this conversation with Rick Beato.