Here’s another great video featuring Andy McKee, playing a very pleasant melody called “For My Father”.
There are several musical themes that keep recurring in the song, and it’s the type of melody that grows more beautiful after listening several times. In this song, Andy displays a colorful picking style, bubbling with subtle syncopation. He is apparently using an alternate tuning (ECDGAD perhaps?), with capo on 3rd.
Do you see happy memories of your father as you listen? The song evokes happy memories of time spent with my father, too.
Andy McKee demonstrates some great harmonics in a piece called Heather’s Song.
Andy is probably the most popular fingerstyle guitarist to emerge in recent years. There’s an interview of Andy on IntrumentalCase.com where he talks about his recent success:
“I had been teaching guitar for the last 10 years but recently stopped due to all of these gig opportunities. I was on the late night show Last Call with Carson Daly back in February. Someone there had seen the YouTube videos and emailed me… I performed in England, Germany, and Austria a couple months ago, and will be in Portugal in June, Canada this summer, Japan in September… I’m really living my dream, making a decent living playing music! It’s all I’ve wanted to do since the age of about 14.”
Here’s a piece is called “Guitar Drifting” - perhaps a reference to car drifting.
This great music video of the amazing guitar player Andy McKee has racked up an incredible 13,101,129 views on YouTube (as of 18-Apr-2008). Nonetheless, there are still a few billion people who have not yet seen or heard this incredibly gifted guitarist. And yes, you really should see him perform on video, or on tour, to get a deeper understanding and appreciation for his wonderful guitar hammering style.
Until recently, Andy was just a great guitarist (from Topeka, Kansas) that most people would never hear about. But now Andy is another great example of a talented, and persistent musician, who successfully used the power of the Internet to bring his music directly to the people. Quoting from Andy’s website:
Andy McKee is one of the world’s finest acoustic soloists. After receiving over 20 million views collectively for his Youtube videos which were posted by the independent record label “Candyrat”, Andy’s success is a testament to the changing nature of the music industry as well as people’s desire for something new and interesting to listen to. At one point, Andy held the #1, #2 and #3 positions for Top-Rated Videos of all time on the hugely popular website. His videos are still among the highest rated on Youtube. Consequently, Andy has performed to sold out shows all over the world.
Andy’s teenage influences from Dust In The Wind; attending a guitar clinic by acoustic master Preston Reed (when Andy was 16), and sudden rise from obscure guitar teacher to international guitar phenomena is chronicled in a November 2007 Lawrence.com article.