This morning I found myself visiting again the page of Sungha Jung, because I just felt the need of listening him again…

The truth is that I was charmed by how he plays the guitar. It is the admiration of somebody knowing that what he sees is out of his reach, and so it is. He plays at 11 better than me, I am not embarrassed to say this in any way. I don’t play fingerstyle guitar and for me what he does there is so fresh that I just can’t stop watching over and over again.

The fact that he is very young and playing with such dexterity makes people consider him a guitar wonder. And if I think about it, why not? I think that Sungha Jung may be considered this way cause I don’t know any other kid of his age to play the way he does fingerstyle guitar.

Keep in mind that he developed this dexterity in only 2 years of playing the guitar!! This is amazing, I don’t want to remember where I was after 2 years playing the guitar cause I wasn’t too far from the starting point…

I was going to embed here a video of Sungha Jung playing More than words of Extreme, first because I love that song and second because Sungha plays it lovely. However, after listening him covering Rylynn of Andy McKee, I had no other choice but to put this one here.

I promise myself to watch this kid in a a few years when probably he will join Andy McKee on stage playing at the same level. Sungha Jung, the professional fingerstyle guitar player, his dream…

Bookmark It

I stumbled upon this kid a few minutes ago! Man, is this guy great or what?!!??! What are they feeding these kids?! He owned me for good!

“Hi, I’m Sungha Jung from South Korea. My dream is to become a professional acoustic fingerstyle guitarist.

I had been watching my dad play the guitar for awhile before I finally jumped on it myself two years ago. I just turned eleven in September, 2007.

Currently, I am taking weekly classical guitar lessons and teaching myself fingerstyle guitar.

I used to not have tabs for the music that I played in my videos. I just listen and pick them up directly from the sound source in videos available on the internet. However, recently, I have started playing with original tabs whenever they are available to me by courtesy of the authors.”

(Taken from his MySpace page)

Well?!!

Bookmark It

If you are like me, and I guess you are since you read these lines, you often felt like playing the guitar in the middle of the night. I know it used to happen to me quite often. And also, you probably know that it is not a good idea, unless you live by yourself. If you don’t, well…then you know what I mean.

But how about playing a guitar that is…silent. I know it sounds somehow like playing the air guitar, but it is not about the air guitar (that one still makes noise when turning up the volume on your CD player, you know!!) but about Yamaha Silent Guitar! Yep! You probably know it, I know about it for some time now (was released somewhere in 2002, I think), but I haven’t had the opportunity to test it personally yet. However, I know I would like to own one for those sleepless nights when I feel like playing.

The interesting thing is that, at least in the video below, it sounds quite interesting (OK, through a sound processor). Also, Yamaha SLG 100N model comes with nylon strings and the fact that you can plug in a CD player makes it great for rehearsing since you can play over your own previously recorded material.

Bookmark It

This will be a short one. I remember when I started to get interested in guitars that something started to burn me inside, I just needed to learn to play! I had a high school class mate that used to bring the guitar to school back then and each time I used to see him playing, I felt such a strong urge to learn it myself.

He usually brought the acoustic guitar, a big one with a full and warm sound. Once he brought a Fender like electric guitar that it looked sooo  damn good! Red, if I well remember…

So I wonder: what actually makes us want so much to play the guitar? Why do YOU started to play the guitar?

Bookmark It

Dr. J brought to my attention this guy, Michael Kelsey, that of course, I didn’t know about! I found him to be a great acoustic guitar player, as his website (michaelkelsey.com) says:

MICHAEL KELSEY cannot be limited to a simple description. When you listen to his music and see him perform live you’re witnessing more than a just another singer-songwriter. You’re watching a rhythmic, inspired guitarist and performance artist who brews soul, funk and even a little bit of the blues into a guitar festival of organic sound. Multi-instrumentalist Kelsey has been known to blend many musical genres with fervor and grace. When he hits the stage to perform, he plays every inch of his guitar and makes it sing, soar, pop and ping–by strumming it, pounding it and pulling every part of it or anything else an arm’s length or foot kick away. He has created a style that he described best as “progressive-aggressive acoustic guitar,” and he has only begun to make a first impression.

He sings, plays the rhythm, solo, bass guitar and drums at the same time on the same acoustic guitar. But beyond words, there is music so I suggest you the same video Dr. J suggested to me, Slow movin’ train.

Enjoy!

Bookmark It

Well, this post is about Chris Broderick of Nevermore. There is a rumor on the internet that he is going to join Megadeth, Glen Drover wishing to leave the band due to family reasons. At least this is what some say…

However, this is not the reason of this post. The reason is an other one. After reading this news and watching a short movie with Chris Broderick playing five-octave arpeggios, I wanted to watch more and I did on YouTube. Of course, he can play electric guitars like hell, this it is what he does. He is a rock guitar player, he knows to shred and play both hands arpeggios, right?

OK, fine!!But now comes the thing that made me write this post! Man, this guy really knows how to play the guitar, beyond rock boundaries! He plays classical guitar and I am not speaking about dark arpeggios or futuristic sounds like Satriani does on his acoustic guitar, no! I am speaking pure classical guitar! Bach!



What do you know?Also see some jazz slap but I can not tell if he is good or not since I am not into jazz, but if you are, let us know what you think!

Bookmark It

I don’t know what it’s happening to me but this post is again about Paul Gilbert! And I didn’t even intend to write again about him, I was actually looking for some materials of Ritchie Kotzen and I stumbled upon this video on YouTube where Gilbert plays a 3 string acoustic guitar, all 3 strings being tuned to E… (by the way, skip the 5 seconds electric guitar shredding in order to get to the interesting acoustic part)

Don’t ask me what he wanted to do with it, he says it works well for arpeggios due to open strings. Anyway, here’s the video.

Bookmark It

For the past month I have been using light D’Addario strings on my acoustic guitar. I have always been using medium strings but now I have tried some light strings (0.8 I think but I would not bet my life on it) just for getting the feeling. What I could say about it is that for soloing it feels great, I could bend the G string very easy, the same as with my electric guitar. Everything works way easier on these light strings than on my medium ones. However, when strumming, I feel frustrated, I can never get that full sound of tensioned strings, feeling that I get with medium to heavy strings. I guess folk guitar players play at least medium strings since otherwise they won’t ever get that sound for their acoustic guitars. Somebody even asked me why my guitar had no “power” in it. Well, it took me some time to explain him the reason…the strings are not very tensioned,they are light and easy on my fingers.
I have a friend which is one of the best electric guitar players in Romania at this time, (we used to play in the same band for 1 year) using electric guitar strings shifted one string up. Meaning that he used E for upper E string, an other E for B string, B string for a G and so on. What I could say is that the taping went great, bending strings was great, but there was something missing in heavy chords, those power chords that electric guitar players love…

Now, If I think about, I guess Stevie Ray Vaughan had a point when using only heavy guitar strings, only heavy guitar strings could give him that spanky sound that we all know. However, those strings were not good for his fingers,not to my knowledge or experience…

So, what kind of guitar strings do you like for your acoustic or electric guitars?

Bookmark It

A few days ago I was thinking about how Eric Clapton’s music evolved over time. I don’t say “evolved” as in “it was bad-now it is good”, far from me such an idea, just that Clapton’s music changed over time as the music business itself. I am not a big fan of Clapton,not in the way I could say about other artists or bands. I can not say that I know all his songs and everything he does or did, but Eric Clapton always had and always will have a special place in my heart.

My first contact with Eric Clapton’s music was when I bought 2 tapes, one with Metallica and one with Eric Clapton (as you may see, my taste in music was not quite oriented at that time as Clapton and Metallica had nothing to do one with the other). The tape was kind of a best of, at that time, so it offered me kind of Clapton’s best works. From that tape I remember Layla, the electric version, and Bell bottom blues. I kept this second song till now in my memories, without listening it again for a long time since I have lost that tape and I can say that it left a strong mark on my musical path.

Bookmark It

Judging by my personal experience, I think that there is no guitar player in this world who never dreamed of being rich and famous. I think we all dreamed and wanted it with all our heart. I know I did! From high school to the end of the university years I have dreamed about this. I was ready to make sacrifices for this, to go anywhere for this and do (almost) everything.

I remember that at one point there was this show on TV, organized by a national television channel, where bands all over the country came and play on a professional stage on the beach, being broadcasted all over the country. Of course every band in this country wanted to get there and play. So we wanted too!

We went there, we tried on the first day but there were too many bands and we came in late, so we didn’t succeed. Because it was already too late (in the night) when we realized we will not make it for that evening, we couldn’t go anywhere to rent a room for the night(private rooms at the local people, cheaper than at the hotels). Of course, we were young and with no money so we didn’t afford a hotel so…we slept outside, on the beach.

Bookmark It