Australian maestro Brett Garsed pays tribute to the talent of the sadly departed Allan Holdsworth, with a video masterclass guided by Milton Mermikides.
ON VIDEO
ABILITY RATING
Advanced ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪
Key Various Tempo Various
Will improve your…
✓ Fretting-hand legato
✓ Fretboard knowledge
✓ Chord voicings
Six years on from his untimely death we thought it would be appropriate to revisit this superb apreciation of Allan Holdsworth from Australian rock and fusion maestro, Brett Garsed.
One of the nice guys of the guitar world, Brett is a deeply talented and dedicated player who has crafted an extraordinarily individualistic and recognisably fluid and melodic style. His amazing hybrid picking and legato technique combined with a great musical sensibility, has produced some awe-inspiring rock and fusion guitar recordings, such as his work with Aussie legend John Farnham, US rock band Nelson, and his highly regarded collaboration with the similarly awesome TJ Helmerich.
Despite his virtuosity and high acclaim from guitar aficionados, Brett has remained remarkably diffident, supportive to the community and deferential to his influences, which include artists as diverse as David Gilmour, Eddie Van Halen, Jeff Beck, Jimi Hendrix and Jimmy Page. But it is his encounter with the music of Allan Holdsworth (through Holdsworth’s solo on In The Dead Of The Night) that ignited his exploration of sounds and possibilities beyond the rock idiom and into the wider fusion realm, and the techniques he uses.
Garsed heard in Holdsworth’s style a fluidity towards which he had already been unwittingly gravitating in his own guitar explorations, and which both inspired new ideas and brought much needed confidence to his individualistic legato approach.
Brett has consistently praised Holdsworth, calling him “one of the greatest musicians who ever lived” and “a genius”. Inspired by his lifelong admiration and emotional connection to Holdsworth’s music, Brett recorded an informative tribute video to Allan especially for Guitar Techniques. We also asked if he would record some examples deconstructing key elements of his music, showing also how he adopted and adapted these features.
Brett was happy to oblige and so, over the following pages we have some detailed examples of Allan’s approach from a player who understands his work a whole lot better than most. Sure, it’s high-end stuff and will tax even the most able players, but persevere and there’s something here that every guitarist can take away and learn from.
Our sincere thanks to Brett for allowing us to reprint this fabulous
