Acoustic playing sometimes gets a bad rep from people who don't get it. They think it's boring. Folky. Old blokey. Those people clearly haven't been paying attention to the Martin No Limits Challenge.
Guitar Player's sister site Guitar World has been playing host to the Martin No Limits Challenge for the past four weeks.
It's an acoustic competition with a difference. It started with eight of the world's most exciting guitar players pitted against each other in genre-based heats. The players can choose their song – but it must be a song that wasn't originally played on an acoustic.
Cue acoustic shredding, frantic finger-picking and some of the most entertaining acoustic performances we've seen in years: AC/DC's Thunderstuck with a guest appearance from Yoda, Nili Brosh playing the guitar solo AND the keyboard solo of Van Halen's Jump? A truly astonishing version of Say My Name by Destiny's Child.
The quarterfinals have ended and the winners chosen by public vote – Gretchen Menn, Sophie Burrell, R.J. Ronquillo and Helen Ibe – will now advance to the semifinals.
The first semifinal lands on Monday, with Ronquillo and Ibe rearranging blues tunes. We can't wait. Until then, here are the winning performances so far.
The semi-finalists
“I said, ‘I don’t know how to tell you this, but that’s a note-for-note guitar solo from the Doors.'” Gene Simmons says Ace Frehley copied a Robby Krieger guitar solo for a classic Kiss song
"This exceptional new guitarist in John Mayall's band persuaded me to give up playing electric guitar." Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson says Eric Clapton convinced him he had no future as a guitarist
