“The Air Guitar World Championships have been organized in Oulu, Finland annually since 1996. The once so absurd an idea has bloomed into an international media event that attracts a wide international league of contestants, audience and media representatives to Oulu, Finland. Here is a brief overview of the past championships, contests, the contestants and the special ones among them who are selected to spread the Air Guitar ideology. Dive deep into the breath-taking history of the Air Guitar World Championships, and select a year below.” - AirGuitarWorldChampsionship.com

I thought to myself this was a harebrained idea myself until I actually attended a contest in my hometown of Orlando, Florida. People went nuts over the idea, which baffled me, but as I kept watching I entertained the idea more and came to think it was hilariously genius. This is an entirely new form of expression with rules, schools of thought, theory, and major competitions.

This video is of defending world champion Ochi “Dainoji” Yosuke of Japan who in 2007 gave this immaculate performance of punk band Offspring’s “Keep em Separated.” I had to show you this for sheer amusement but I thought the guy did an outstanding job of emulating many guitarists I know. 

So enjoy this video and you can check out the new defending United States Champion.

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Every now and then we see a big breakthrough in the guitar community. Whether its an outstanding band like Rush, or the Beatles breaking through the scenes and creating a new style that last the ages or even something much more basic and simple such as a guitar tuner. Well that has recently happened with one of the worlds best guitar brands: Gibson.

The Gibson Robot Guitar is a sub-model of the famous Les Paul style guitar from Gibson Currently, there are 4 different models available: The Robot Les Paul Studio, and Robot SG, Robot Flying V, and Explorer as well as the first production limited edition model. 

This invention was developed by Chris Adams that actually uses an oboard computer to automatically tune your guitar all by intself. So now there is no need for a standard tuner as it tunes all 6 strings simultaneously without you having to lift a finger other than to switch the knob to the on position.

This development may run you anywhere from the price range of $1,000 - $3,000 depending on the model and can be used from seven different factory presets for tuning and six of which you can edit.

• Standard 
• DADGAD
• Open E
• Open G
• Dropped D
• Double Dropped D
• Eb
• So don’t take my word for it but rather see this innovative guitar in action:

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Andy started playing guiat at age 15 an quickly became a world renown guitarist to look out for. He has gone on to place second at the 2005 Canadian Guitar Festival’s Fingerstyle Guitar Championship and first place in the 2006 competition.

He is actually known to be compared to other harmonic fingerstyle guitarist such as early blogged about Andy McKee. This video which was added to YouTube just over a year ago has already gained the recognition from over 5 million visitors to the site.

Not only does this classical master guitar fingerpick a catchy riff but is also joined by a world renown fiddler known as Tommy Gauthier who plays bass guitar with on the song. Now you might be thinking well what’s the big deal? Well when you watch the video you’ll see that these two guys meticulously found a way to both play the guitar simultaneously as Antoine plays the melody and Tommy quickly joins in to add the bass line.

The song entitled Four Hands Guitar can be seen at the link below. Have a quick gander at this amazing sub-2 minute video and share it with your friends. Enjoy!

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Hey everyone, I hope all is well. I told you in my last blog post that my new guitar course for Ultimate Music Lessons is finished and about to launch so I wanted to give you a few more details about that. 

The launch date is set for Wednesday, October 22^th! 

I’m still working hard on the site and making sure everything is working perfectly before releasing the guitar lessons course. 

Also, I have decided to launch it at a really low price so that people can get their hands on it as soon as possible and start giving me some testimonials about how the course is helping their guitar playing. 

One thing that I was keeping a secret is that this course will revolve around learning how to play popular guitar songs!

I have a bunch of online video lessons that will help you learn some awesome songs while learning to play the guitar or improve your current guitar skills.  I have a great variety of songs that will work great for whatever skill level you are at and I am working on tons more! 

My goal is to teach a song a week.  So that’s over 50 songs a year!  See you guys soon…get your guitars ready!

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Who is this 29 year old Andy McKee? Recently a craze has broke out in the guitar world with an Internet sensation phenom from Topeka, Kansas that has inundated viewers all over the world on the site YouTube. The guitar style that Andy’s known for specifically: Drifting is its name. So what is drifting you might be asking yourself? 

Drifting can best be described as an American Fingerstyle that is a mixture of finger plucking, tapping, and striking the body or neck of the guitar to create a seemingly transcendental drum beat. 

Andy is simply what we call world-class and inspiring to anyone that’s even attempted to play guitar, or even someone who is a complete novice. To say the least, he is at a different echelon than most people even dream of. 

Currently signed to Candyrat Records, his YouTube and Myspace are currently achieving over 16 million views and quickly closing in on the 17 marker. He has been asked to be on WoodSongs, an old time radio station with 900,000 daily listeners and featured in 491 radio stations around the world as well as the late night talk show: Last Call with Carson Daly.

But don’t just take my word for it because he is something that you will have to see to understand. So check out one of his songs here from 2006 hit simply entitled Drifting:

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We all know this song if we’ve ever been to a wedding or seen a romantic comedy of some sorts. Its typical yet its timeless, and now more than ever its been amped up by a young 17 year old South Korean boy by the name of Jeong-Hyun Lim or more popularly known as “funtwo.” This song was first arranged by Taiwanese’s own Jerry Chang or JerryC for short but perfected by our own little guru from Korea.

His video is among the twenty most viewed videos ever and is the fifth most “favorited” video on YouTube’s entire history with over 50 million views and quickly climbing even higher. On the site the-top-tens.com, it is ranked 110th on the list of “All time Greatest Songs.”

Not only does he exude his shredding ability but he also incorporates a cacophany of harmonies as well as his ability to Guitar Tap like the professionals. And lets not forget the sweep picking techniques that he flawlessly incorporates. It is amazing to see this young man in action.

Without further ado here is one of the greatest video’s your eyes will set itself upon: 

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Welcome to my new blog!  I decided to start this in response to the numerous email requests I have recently received.  This seemed like a great way to keep in contact with everyone.  I love getting emails from people asking questions and looking for advice when learning to play guitar so I figured I would start this blog to help answer all these questions. 

Whether you are an electric guitar player, acoustic guitar player, both, or just a music lover I think you will get a lot out of my new blog series.  I plan on answering questions a couple times a week and posting new thoughts so if you have any questions feel free to email me!  I may not be able to answer all of them but I’ll do my best. 

Recently, the most common question I have been getting asked is, “When is the new Ultimate Music Lessons Guitar Course going to be finished and launched?”.  Well, I am happy to say that after almost 3 years of developing, tweaking, filming, writing, playing, and perfecting this course it is finished!  A lot of my students are as excited as I am to get their hands on this so hopefully you are one of them. 

 I am just putting the finishing touches on www.ultimatemusiclessons.com and it will be ready to rock!  I am really proud of this guitar course and think it’s going to help anyone and everyone either learn to play guitar or improve their guitar playing skills. 

 Back to work for now but be on the lookout because it is just a few days away!  

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