"Well, one person's shred is another person's slow hand." -GEORGE LYNCH "How fast can you play?" "What guitar do you have?" "Who is better, Van Halen or Steve Vai?" For metal fans in the 80's these where common and important questions. Tune in to MTV, pick up a magazine, or walk into an instrument store, and more than often you'd be exposed to what is now known as shredding - the fast, virtuoso soloing popularized by musicians like Vai and Van Halen, Joe Satriani and Ynwie Malmsteen, Randy Rhoads and Dimebag Darrell. Drawing on more than seventy exclusive interviews with key shredders past and present, author and guitarist Greg Prato has assembled the definite guide to the fasted players of them all.