The summary of the month of february in fingerstyle, a month rich of surprises

Enjoy !

OK folks, let’s start the month with a good old Take Five. It’s always a nice piece to play on guitar, but ofc, the huge jazz expertise level of Lucas makes it all the more interesting.

Who are Tripliciti ?

They are nothing more than 3 world top-class fingerstyle guitarists collaborating to release an album, which will be out on the 4^th of April. Composed of Andy McKee, Calum Graham, and Trevor Gordon Hall ; it is the union of their powers for our ears. This track contains some electric guitar parts.

The band also created a website : https://tripliciti.com/.

Moyun is an incredible fingerstyle player. She uses the Guzheng, a traditional Chinese instrument. This gives her the ability to engage songs from an interesting angle, adding a great value to the music. That’s beautiful.

The band also created a website : https://tripliciti.com/.

Ewan is a little gem ; and his creativity is highly enjoyable. A lot is going on in fantasy themes. His playing is quite distinctive and original.

Ewan’s personal website here : https://www.ewandobson.com/

The French title of the new album of Jacques, a qualitative work from a top-class guitarist. The full album is available on Spotify, but some of the titles are possible to be heard on his YouTube channel, including ‘Don’t Miss the Train’, ‘Dialogue’, and ‘Histoires sans Mots’ which is the head title of the album.

Eddie is a good guitarist, but the play will probably talks more to the people who are fan of this anime movie.

The instrumental can be evocative at a dragon at some points indeed, this is well done. I was into it. That’s clean, square. While not being at the same skill level, I can see some influences of Calum Graham.

I didn’t knew the original song before hearing this fingerstyle version, but the original melody is really relaxing, and Mj Casiano transcribed it quite well in his play. The acute notes sound good with his setup and way of playing. The percussive here is quite minimalistic but enough. He holds the notes with precision and emotion, making it a clear play.

Mj Casino’s personal website : https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mjcasiano.

Thist is for the classical enjoyers out there. The song is adapting smoothly on nylon strings. The arrangement is kept relatively simple, with most arpeggios being quite accessible, not going too far from the open tune and staying quite high on the fretboard (so on low notes), and it’s good like that. David knows how to put emotion and nail the timings, making it a pleasant and relaxing play.

David Van Ooijen’s personal website : https://meesterdavidgitaar.wordpress.com/.

Aram is a talented bass player. If you have never heard of him, you should check The Dark Light. He is a good melodies creator.

For the video games enjoyers, here is a nice play that is working quite well (generally Zelda’s music are good and make nice adaptations too). Nothing much to say, calm flamenco style, the main theme comes back a lot but with different variations each time.

Lucas’ website : https://lucasgitanofamily.com/.

Just really calm, classical guitar style. Beautiful guitar shape. The sound is round, warm, and the melody is bringing more melancholy than the original (maybe a bit too much, the original melody has a lot more happiness in it). But all in all it is really nice to hear, and the feet intervention caught me offguard.

This cover is made in a calm and chill way. There is a little amount only of percusives hits. The play is kept rather simple. It displays some interesting chords, coupled with a simpled walking bass, but efficient for a chill purpose, and to balance the acute sounds of the light E string. We can note some interesting silences choices in the play. Kelly did more impressive stuff, but even this light hearted cover from him is good because even light hearted he stays a beast.

Kelly Valleau’s personnal website here : https://www.kellyvalleau.com/.

How can Mike Dawes always hit right ?

With his electro accoustic guitar, gaining sound effects from his pedal board, playing with a loop and in fingerstyle over it ; Mike is giving us another top class fingerstyle cover. The techniques are insane and yet, you can feel that the main goal is not to be technical but to be pleasant to hear. There are some absolutely mindblowing percusives in here, dosed with the perfect intensity. It really is a fine piece of art.

Mike Dawes’s personal website : https://www.mikedawes.com/.

Well, here we go again, Thunderstruck played on guitar (or any instrument)… It is difficult to surprise with a play of this song today, and yet…Thomas managed it.

First of all, the choice of a Nylon guitar for this purpose is not an easy choice. It’s quite difficult to make the low notes resonate adequately in terms of volume. Nonetheless Thomas offers us a strong and consistent bassline. The different parts of the song are really well managed and it’s a pleasure to hear it again and again. The chords are really nailed, the finger picking is on absolute top point. You will not find much percussives however, but it doesn’t matter. And I can’t finish the resume without talking about how much of a banger the surprise around 1.55. Hats off for the play !

Played on an acoustic guitar, capo on third case, fingers but mediator on thumb to emphasize the low notes and giving interesting power on the riffs parts. Casper offers a very clear sound on this version, which is very chill, and pleasant to hear with a quite dreamy feeling. There is not much to say but to sit back and enjoy this moment of relaxation.

Casper Esmann’s personnal website : https://www.esmannmusic.com/.

The 2 talented musicians Nicholas Yee on the Cello and David Jay on the guitar offer us a performance of this piece inside a nice church décor. The 2 instruments in an appropriate harmony, are working especially well in the cover of this suite. They managed to take on this beautiful piece and give it the gravity it originally contains, with a calm permitted by the mastering of their acoustic instruments. You are in for a 20 minutes trip for a very clean acoustic piece cover. Despite being in itself super well done, this is also a big bonus for the fans of Attack on Titans (or shall I say for the purists: « 進撃の巨人 »)

Simon and Garfunkel are a sure refuge for relaxation purposes. This cover is for people who like the mix of harp and guitar.

Jamie’s personal website : https://www.jamiedupuismusic.com/.

The trio (Andy McKee, Calum Graham, and Trevor Gordon Hall) is playing an old song from Andy McKee. The combination of their talents enables them to play the song in a super delicate and gentle way. This is a pleasure.

Tripliciti’s website : https://tripliciti.com/.

That is a well executed cover of the Interstellar’s main theme. Not an easy one to interpret, the music of Hans Zimmer is really deep and full of emotions, yet succeeded. I am pretty sure it will please the fans of Interstellar, as well as the fans of Mister Zimmer.

Anton’s personal website : https://antontikhonov.com/.

Let’s go back almost 10 years earlier folks. Yes, 10 years…Where this song was just played in every possible place. There is probably no need to introduce the virtuosity of Charles’s play. It’s always a good time to hear his cover videos. The cover will delight the enjoyers of bass. The light bass is glowing beautifully in the dark.

I am not counting the number of hours I spent listening to Martin in my life. Well, Martin play is still so good, truly one of the most refined fingerstyle artist. For those who are not familiar with Martin, this is not much about technicity here, this is just that he hits the right places.

This song is a banger of the video games universe, for those who explored the lands of Skyrim will not forget it. While Remi doesn’t seem to have inherited the powers of the DragonBorn, to play standing like this in the Canadian snow, we can at least say that he definitely didn’t took an arrow in the knee. Fus Ro Dahhhhhhh !

Remi’s website : https://www.remicotemusic.com/.

It seems like Thomas continues to revisit classics of RockNRoll on his classical guitar. And we are not complaining about it. This times he decided to take on Still Loving You while sailing.

If you’re new to fingerstyle, it’s probably not the name you expect to see when you’re scrolling through a fingerstyle magazine. And yet the playstyle of Mark is finger oriented. Needless to mention that the tone of his songs are fitting well an acoustic and fingerstyle magazine. There is something more about Mark though. I think he’s a very important figure of the fingerstyle movement, giving a Rock approach of it. He might even be overall the most known fingertsyle artist in the world.

I found back this old video of Mark giving a lesson of finger picking for those who wants to see how he is proceeding with rhythms :

Now let’s get back to the song. It’s the second song of his incoming album ‘One Deep River’, that will release on April 14th. The song is qualitative work, it’s as pleasant as his past albums works. The artistic choices are similar to theses, so the song is kind flowing on an old rock wave, with riffs that are always hitting right (nothing fancy, but nothing half done either). The voice of Mark is aging like a fine wine. I would not say that it is at the point of Leonard Cohen, but I do find a lot of pleasure hearing him hitting some low notes, especially when placed in good rhymes. I really wait for the full album.

Because the fans of Zeldas need a lot of covers. Here you will even can play your video games favorite songs with the tabs, enjoy Zelda fans.

If you want to hear the top selected songs of this month, you can go there.

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