My guess is that if you are a musician and especially if you are a guitarist, you might well have found the video clip above entertaining and maybe even down right hilarious. However, non-musicians might look at the video and wonder — what was all that about!?!
In fact, these clips have been the big viral hit amongst most musicians I know, lighting up email discussions and music forums. By substituting an audio track of vastly sub-par playing over video of big name guitarists in concert (especially Shredders), they parody the artifice of many stage antics and the plain silliness of some styles of guitar. The subtle craft of the videos is that the bad playing sound plausible against what the guitarist is doing. A great deal of the playing sounds exactly like the pointless semi-musicial noodling you can hear at most guitar stores on a Saturday morning…
WIRED magazine has a nice behind the scenes piece on Santeri Ojala, who is the genius at work in these videos (thanks to Damian for the link). If, like me, you’ve been captivated by the clips the WIRED piece is worth checking out.
Technorati Tags: Santeri Ojala, Shred
Fernando Gros is a guitarist, composer, photographer and writer based in Hong Kong. Born in Santiago de Chile, Fernando grew up in Sydney and has also lived in London and Delhi.
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that is so brilliant. its the clash between the self love these guys have for themselves versus the woeful playing that makes it look so funny.
this just popped up on boing boing too — a real life shred train wreck — http://warmowski.wordpress.com/2007/10/05/jump-in-pitch/
Yes Kris — exactly. The’re something wonderfully Dada-esque about these parodies that reveals the absurdity of the theatrics.
Oh and that Jump clip is priceless. Loads of interweb debate about what *exactly* went wrong — but that doesn’t matter in the end. Makes me feel a lot better about some past trainwrecks I’ve participated in!!!
i just love how eddie steps up for the solo — its unbelievable.