Thunderstruck in Fingerstyle

Every guitarist in their life, beginner like God expert, made the experience of this following sentence “play Thunderstruck”. Of course there are some other super famous sentences for guitarists, like “Can you play Thunderstruck ?”, or the as well famous “play Thunderstruck please”.

This is a simple task, that will make people think you are a guitar hero. But at the same time, while you are progressing and learning way harder stuff that these people will find mediocre or bad, you start to feel something sad in the realization of the request.

From then, there are 2 options to face these obligatory moments :

1. Let the sadness overcome yourself and start a drama that will leave the witness confused.

2. Act like an absolute giga Chad and go learn fingerstyle to impress them while being proud of yourself.

Today, we will talk about the people who chose to behave like emperors and committed themselves to the second option. In other words, we will elaborate a history of worthy fingerstyle covers, as well of some other notable acoustic covers of the song that are adding value material which could be used by fingerstyle guitarists in the future.

As we want to focus on pertinent covers that are adding value to a fingerstyle perspective, we will jump already to 2010, that is the first worthy attempt to my knowledge.

It is not surprising to see Igor on any list considering how much he did for the fingerstyle community. He is developing a way of playing to the excellence while making it seem effortless. The way he manages to add complexity while staying clean has been a great source of inspiration.

This cover is not properly fingerstyle, but it leads to an area of virtuosity.

Ok, let’s say that this is the beginning of madness. It was really popular at the release back then. 2 mad lads playing  Thunderstruck on the cello as if their lives are depending on it. The amount of energy they released for this is insane. Despite being played with cellos, this is played from a very, very, very aggressive point of view. It makes a nice show to observe.

Remember this name, he is the reason why the article is not that long.

Luca dropped a bomb in the game this year. He managed to set up a bar so high, I m not aware of anyone who succeeded to surpass it on acoustic guitar since this dropped. And this is crazy considering that the fingerstyle is a genre that evolves extremely fast, especially on a song of such popularity. He just took everything that was done before and did it better. He is using a spider capo (that allows to only block desired strings). Will we see a more evolved technically Thunderstruck play on acoustic, or did he broke the game ? For now, the vast majority of acoustic great guitarists are just trying to copy Luca’s arrangement instead of trying to make something more of it, which is understandable as it’s already a great achievement to copy that…

While not being technically the same beasts, they tried to find a slightly different angle.

A classical guitar and a violoncello, that both turn electric after being lit by fire. Only the beginning contains fingerstyle. However, the acoustic creativity, and the precision of the violoncello can be a source of inspiration.

The switch between classical play and Thunderstruck was made before, by 2Cellos, let’s say that this version is much calmer here.

The first person to manage to propose something at a beast player level, and very different from Luca.

I wonder if someone ever requested her to play Thunderstruck on her Guzheng… Moyun is an insane fingerstyle artist. She masters her instrument with such ease. Even this is a traditional instrument, she offers a complete fingerstyle display on it : percussions, melodies, singing part, … This is a masterpiece cover. Her percussive play is mind-blowing, I feel like I am watching a Chinese woman version of Mike Dawes.

A bunch of accoustic mad scientists.

This is not fingerstyle. However, the acoustic spirit that comes from it is not that far from the genre. Maybe some people of culture will remember the version did by Steve’N’Seagulls, with their “a bit home-made instruments”. Here, the French band pushes the boundaries of instrumental creativity by playing a full set of totally improvised instruments, that are to say, regular kitchen tools. The live takes place in front of a castle and looks like a buffet before they play…with the buffet. I hope that giving some visibility to this band / covers will give ideas to fingerstyle players who would want to try getting outside of the large box set up by the insane players on this list.

If you can’t beat one at accoustic guitar, try with a classical guitar.

The full song on classical guitar and more. This is pushing the fingerstyle and the creativity to new boundaries. The pairing of the walking bass with the melodies just blew my mind. And in the process Thomas didn’t forget to be entertaining and displayed fun in his work. That’s coming from the pinnacle of classical guitar.

You can explore the history of Take Five in fingerstyle here !