Volk guitarists of youtube, an anthology

one day I will be this guy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkgAsTaCL1A

there's a guy who's uploaded a lot of guitarists he's recorded in botswana, lots of awesome stuff, this guy being the big hit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tx4cRw6TIIg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tXErZ8JuXA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMVYlE3_XJ0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgpbVU2Ty8Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeiC2soVsU8

love the scalloped fretboards you get in vietnam. also v into the amped&reverbed street guitarists -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmuVSCfM2oI

two thumbs up

good thread
i saw the second from top (botswana woman) one before, great stuff

it's a guy called ronnie but yes it's ultra classic

old woman light bulb video is a genuinely awesome discovery & every bit as good as its title was promising, ty ogmor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HM48A9trAtU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBiWRF2i8zo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzH5wARnfrk

holy shit @ duncan hall

i always felt like playing northumbrian pipe music on guitar cld be my secret special move, but yeah, a quick youtube search reveals i've been beaten to it. pleased it sounds as good as i thought it wld tho.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0-OsVXq2mg

this guy has transcended youtube & is on itunes/cdbaby/spotify too

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FCwZL1nUW8

white plastic garden chair & glass of wine qualifies

not true to the thread but related - there's also been a whole series of early african guitar videos uploaded which have some amazing footage & playing & occasionally v irritating editing. this one of mwenda jean bosco has a really nice version of masanga i haven't heard before starting at 2:34

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5Ag7hsinx8

Good thread. Fuck me, how did you find this stuff?

Hanoi street singer - makes me realise how piss-poorly acquainted with street life across the world I am

I am banking on other ppl also enjoying falling into a youtube guitar wormhole so that they can share their goodies but if that doesn't work out I'm happy to just post to myself. I have waded through a fair amount of crap but the recommended videos get pretty useful after a while.

hey it's ragtime ralph

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fclQmN7VOVQ

great stuff. i love the north korean restaurant girl and the russian rock star with the plastic bag.

google told me the title of the russian vid roughly translates as "santa is cool"

i don't have anything to add here but i want to say thread is incredible

Aww man great thread. I have to get through a bunch of it but look forward to doing so. I am not sure that this fits completely, but a friend of mine's dad told me to check this guy out, and he is obviously a pro but also from a different universe. Both jaw-dropping at times and pretty comical at the same time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=S33tWZqXhnk

Huh, not sure why that didn't embed. Uggh. It is Tommy Emmanuel ripping through "Classical Gas". SERIOUS guitar-faces being made.

tommy emmanuel! a favourite w/ guitar magazine reading sixth formers ime. somehow the affable, v australian way he pulls off all his pyrotechnics makes his weird idiomless mishmash work as a big performance at least, whereas his hero chet atkins is somehow too smart a player to make weird pastiches or yakety axe or w/e sound convincing, but his buttoned-up country is v classic.

someone interesting i've discovered through youtube is iwan tanzil, a dutch-chinese indonesian classical guitarist who has done some really lush arrangements of traditional indonesian tunes which i've found ppl playing on youtube. in the spirit of the thread i will post one of these amateurs rather than the big man himself:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMb7CGJq_0Q

there are other arrangements of this but his is so gorgeous, it's been in my head a lot

fkn https

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMb7CGJq_0Q

i should go play on the street
being a street performer seems like the only actually kinda dignified and cool way of being a performer anymore

Yeah, Tommy Emmanuel definitely seems like guitar magazine fodder. My friend's dad is way into technique/professionalism, so that makes sense. I get a kick out of watching shredders of any stripe, but not much real joy out of listening to them. Still cool to see folks rip though.

Really though Ogmor, thanks a bunch for the Iwan Tanzil recommendation, that sounds amazing and right up my alley. Guitar arrangements of Indonesian music sounds essentially like the exact thing I want to hear right now, so I am going to explore more. Very cool recommendation!

xp the thought of properly performing is still kind of hideous to me, but playing outside & becoming part of the ambience is a noble tradition: pandit pran nath; that mysterious guy w.c. handy met playing slide guitar at the train station in 1903; kaoru abe; even the guys playing for tourists in seville or w/e seem to be having a great time

grandavis let me know how it goes w/ tanzil. youtube doesn't have much and all the recordings i've seen are straight western stuff, but it seems like his arrangements are quite popular

Yeah, I have thought of playing on the street lately a bunch, and picking up an acoustic guitar more than I have in a long time, just because it does seem a little more dignified than still plying my weird electric stuff, but I am lucky that my town has a lingering (though small) audience that comes out for the kind of stuff I want to see and play. I wonder when that well will rund dry, but hopefully it won't. I mean, it helps that I basically only play when asked (I don't chase gigs) and that I get to open for people who make me feel like there is a context for what I am doing.

Also, the street performers in my town are almost universally awful and hokey and I would maybe be more embarrassed to be lumped into that kinda thing than becoming the old guy playing weird electric guitar in real venues. In these times Glenn Jones/Tom Carter/Loren Connors are hugely comforting musicians in that they are all still playing cool shit and are very much older than I am.

Sure will Ogmor, may not get to it today but it seems like it is definitely worth exploring fully. Just sounds like I need to hear more of it. Like that clip you posted for sure.

I wonder if just searching for "Indonesian guitar music/arrangements" would work. Will give it a try.

there's a very inviting indonesian guitar youtube hole out there if you fancy falling down it

sahilin is on the excellent smithsonian indonesian guitars comp, here he is playing guitar accompaniment to a conversation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MALF8O1qVY

there's a lot of this (sumatran?) playing w/ these anguished (?) 10 minute songs, videos have a v distinct style

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6bu75y6nrY

completely different, back to the classical guitar arrangements

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8JT7MhVhLs

this guy is great, a NY pastor, he's got a fun version of freight train as well

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKiLzKEGb_0

Uh-oh, the listening pile just got a lot longer. Thanks!

oddly while working through this thread i too had the urge to try to find indonesian guitar stuff, by looking up track titles from various compilations to see if there are other versions. i didn't have a huge amount of luck, but down the rabbit hole i did find this guy who perhaps could be doing with a better sound environment but i enjoyed it anyway

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIXTKja4uew

nice! what comps were you looking at besides the smithsonian? there must be some sublime frequencies stuff...

my first urge was to try to find guitar renditions of the stuff from the original folkways music of indonesia album, especially 'sorban palid' as that is the best music ever but tragically truncated. i found a couple of versions of that piece, neither were especially striking, but i may just continue down that path and see where it takes me anyway.

There are lots of great videos under the label "early african guitar" -- a label I don't really understand but whatever

yeah i think the early african guitar videos are from footage taken by austrian gerhard kubik - http://www.afropop.org/wp/8638/africa-and-the-blues-an-interview-with-gerhard-kubik/"> http://www.afropop.org/wp/8638/africa-and-the-blues-an-interview-with-gerhard-kubik/ i posted the mwenda jean bosco one upthread, they're all worth a watch tho

merdeyeux please post yr finds!

i will once i get out of this really quite different rabbit hole of indonesian karaoke videos...

just some bros hanging out in their undies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlcDKKluth8

(not much going on guitar-wise but i'm into the sape, which i hadn't heard of before)

can i post non-guitar street performer tuff to this thread

yeah the sape is apparently from kalimantan/borneo, ppl playing sape stuff on guitar doesn't really work imo but the sape sounds great

i don't think i need to play thread police. there is enough similar non-guitar stuff to fill another thread but anything at all related i'd definitely stick here

there's plenty of oromo stuff on youtube w/ lively comment sections

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGcmB_1mI-4

koo nimo jamming w/ friends

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9m5W9ep_xZU

never heard anything like that big palm-wine guitar trio

i didn't find a single decent craviola player on youtube so here's the real deal instead

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Or5JAwYUEYY

i've never heard of a craviola before. that's gnarly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XML3FpJ_B0

seems to be a lot of percussive buskers in australia, this guy is the best i've seen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXItFXTTf7I&index=38

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzHXtKMMEsI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWJAtX-qhZk

this is my new fave ilm thread

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WW-KR3yRNjU

superb, C18th pieces played on a cittern in an edinburgh study is, as far as i'm concerned, exquisite. those pieces are great, last one especially. cittern's seem a bit undignified to play tho.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBH4Di5miKw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpcsuEUnfV8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIZ4zGbD7w0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1z9HycjXZUE

this is wonderful

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUyYqyGqvPk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INyiT92z4pA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q03JgNBuXsg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSxoRAmOnEQ

too much content

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=680703702011305&fref=nf

awesome

she has wacky right hand technique but is making it work. not sure what to make of poss look for parental approval. I don't think I will turn any kids into virtuosos

my first-born will be fingerpicking before she can talk, succeed where daddy failed honey he needs this

as long as you post the results here im in favour. afaict the key thing w/ parenting is to upload as much stuff as possible

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IklyG1y9JQ

I posted another vid from these puerto ricans upthread but I love them so here's more

love this thread and corresponding spotify playlist, ogmor...

wondering if you know of more guitar pieces in just intonation... i really love lou harrisons nek chand stuff

what is just intonation? i've heard that mentioned once or twice

hard to explain b/c there's a decent amount of theory i don't quite grasp but basically in just intonation the notes on the scale are each separated via the same interval- whereas in western tonality there are differing amounts of intervals between notes in any given key. sort of tied to modal theory, like instead of paying attention to key you're paying more attention to the intervals you're playing.

i hope that made sense, it kind of didn't. anyway, this video might convey the idea a bit better (and it's awesome)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nw58XT7sPc4

yeah nvm i have no idea what i'm talking about. hopefully someone can come in who actually knows what the fuck is up

glad yr enjoying it! I love how microtones are a part of guitar esp slide playing. Harry Partch made some 'adapted guitars' and john schneider is playing a ten string one here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vI0nGL8Bkbk

get a load of that fretboard. he's also got a guitar with separate, movable frets for each string to play in whatever tuning you want

friend just pointed me in the direction of this dude -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ne-1HmUnjxU
i think he fits in with this thread?

also let me join the chorus saying this thread is wild

I updated the spotify playlist global mentioned upthread btw if anyone's interested. it's an imo quite compelling mixture of andean mountain men, 18th century germans, slack key guitar, muscovite gypsy tunes, zimbabwean ragtime, single-string stomps, brazilian hillbillies etc. that has some affinity with the spirit of this thread in terms of joining the dots of guitar music world-wide.

volk guitar - http://open.spotify.com/user/ogmor/playlist/6YJVAWIuy5Xk2wBtbI4zj3

spotify inevitably has less of the coarse appeal of amateurs/bedroom recordings/street performers etc. and I've been listening to a lot of virtuosic guitarists lately anyway, but the playlist is a mb better way of trying to give a sense of the guitar as an instrument/sound-world/constantly-evolving set of idioms & styles.

also, really like this guy's playing, he has a few videos up but this is gorgeous -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLeqnEDF7jU&src_vid=K5IyfLHFIdU

i could derail this thread with dozens of slack key videos but i'll just post one at random

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WD1y679R4c

dude on the right is a living legend and a solid bro

all slack key is v pertinent to this thread post away!

the cicadas in the background here are sublime

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stCKoUrbb00

Ooh nice!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OecIBzDU-pM

fairly sick

in tears

never change, australia

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pW9jRrPTrpQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y67dkDTLTr0

Guzal Muminova shows off of dutar techniques, riffs through Uzbek trad, wears a leopard print blouse, keeps toddler at bay, and is all around kvlt:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jgJKDtdTEA&list=PLiiyeesJx-n1xvn42EIDw5jvjS0giHcoD&t=0s&index=8

that's not playing for me but if it's this it's A+

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jgJKDtdTEA

that's amazing
totally showing it to my students!!

Thanks for fixing!

As I work my way through the Caspian region, Azeri mugham is postrock, Iranian tradtional is kosmische and the Uzbeks are metal.

Iranian traditional is kosmische

iiiiinteresting -- example?

this would be the most krautish example

https://open.spotify.com/album/1wVWcht0OT9w3ViWjRlW5W?si=-FSNgSWQRN6O5eRxrjQIFw

this is one of the only videos i ever put on youtube, met this guy at an open mic night, really cool, kirar music

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRv590rF6yw

that's rad, the only krar player I've heard before is kassa tessema, who I really like, but this guy's strumming style is really different and I think mb the instrument itself looks smaller

yeah you can't see it very well, it looked maybe home made? the body looked like the same material as a solid body electric guitar, and he had a humbucker in it

i ended up doing a show w/him (and global i think?) anyway haven't seen him since but yeah his whole set was great, really hypnotic