This month we look at the classical based technique of fusion guitarist Matteo Mancuso, whose virtuosity on the electric guitar has taken the guitar world by storm.
This month we are exploring another new avenue for our classical column; this time in the form of a technical exposé of Sicilian fusion guitar prodigy Matteo Mancuso, a name that is relatively new not only to me but to the guitar world in general.
Mancuso is an extremely gifted musician with a vast musical vocabulary when it comes to melodic improvisation over a multitude of styles including jazz, rock, and blues. But this isn’t what has set him apart from his peers. Mancuso has blazed a trail throughout many global guitar communities with his unique approach to achieving breakneck virtuosity on the electric guitar. And what is this unique approach? Mancuso puts down the plectrum and instead adopts for a classical plucking technique. Matteo is by no means the first electric guitarist to do so Mark Knopfler’s famous solo on Sultans Of Swing showed what levels of expression can be achieved on electric guitar without a plectrum. And what about American blues guitarist Derek Trucks who combines a bottleneck-fingerstyle combo approach? And we haven’t even mentioned Jeff Beck!
Mancuso started out learning classical guitar in his youth before moving onto electric, but has continued drawing on his classical foundations ever since.
In that short time Matteo has clearly been both musically and technically inspired by his peers, but now takes a high-octane approach to his soloing. He incorporates ergonomics (the cornerstone of classical technique) within his fretting hand for nimbleness and ease of access to notes. But what really gives him access to this elevated speed is the way he incorporates Flamencostyle alternating finger patterns in his plucking hand. He regularly switches to a-m-i for groups of three notes while playing scale-based passages, then switches to a more upright free-stroke position using the full range afforded by p-i-m-a, to ascend and descend through arpeggios and broken chords. He cycles through these three main plucking methods, giving him an almost superhuman ability when it comes to speed. The suite of exercises this month draws on the main aspects of Mancuso’s technique as discussed above but first we will be using an excerpt from Mozarts Rondo Alla Turca as a study in which to apply these aspects to speedy playing. Good luck!
NEXT MONTH Declan plays his arrangement of Irish tune She Moved Through The Fair
