shredding

a style of guitar playing characterized by extremely fast flurries of notes and extremely distorted tones. rusty cooley's style epitomizes shred playing. some other famous shredders are steve vai, joe satriani, and yngwie malmsteen. most shredders use ibanez or jackson guitars becasue of their thin flat necks, tremelo systems, very high output pickups and agressive looks among other factors. though loved by some, shredding is often attacked for being "unmusical" or just for show. some techniques commonly employed by shredders are tremelo picking, sweep picking, pinch harmonics, extremely wide vibrato, tapping, two handed tapping, and a myriad of whammy bar tricks.