Awesome Guitar

We couldn’t pick just one song from musician Adam Barrett’s YouTube channel, so we’re recommending that you listen to all of them. The talented guitarist and vocalist will fill your ears with warm and soulful sounds through his acoustic covers of tunes by The Beach Boys, The Cure, The Smiths, The Jam, The Beatles, and more.

The main riff from Metallica’s Enter Sandman isn’t that hard to play on an electric guitar. But it’s much trickier to hold a pick and get the fret positions right while wearing rubber gloves. JMAPMUSIC wanted to see how many pairs of gloves he could wear before the song became unrecognizable.

Musician Jamie Dupuis turns in a smooth and enveloping cover version of the Pixies track Where Is My Mind, performed on his harp guitar, an instrument that combines an acoustic guitar with bass strings on its top neck. We also recommend checking out Jamie’s harp guitar cover of The Turtles’ Happy Together.

Guitars have been an important part of popular music for hundreds of years. Musician Mark Sagum looks back from 1960 to 2020 for a taste of some of the most recognizable guitar intros. If you want to get the emotions going, this is the way to kick off a tune.

Luca Stricagnoli performs an emotive cover of Simon and Garfunkel’s The Sound of Silence using a custom guitar add-on called a Reverse Slide Neck. The upgrade allows Luca to play an acoustic guitar and a slide guitar with a single instrument. His reverse slide cover of While My Guitar Gently Weeps is also amazing.

Musician Luca Stricagnoli wows us with another flawless acoustic guitar performance, this time taking on Michael Jackson’s 1987 hit Smooth Criminal. The only thing cooler than playing it on a a triple-necked guitar would be if Luca could moonwalk at the same time.

The talented guitar quartet 40 Fingers present a warm and enveloping acoustic arrangement of The Police classic Message in a Bottle. They performed the track on a beach for the best chance of finding someone’s S.O.S. message on the shore.

When he was 14, musician Mike Dawes heard Eddie Van Halen play guitar and says it rocked his world. Now, put on your headphones and let the sound envelop you as Mike pays tribute to Eddie’s namesake with an acoustic cover of the 1984 hit Jump. Perhaps Mike will inspire some young musicians with his impeccable playing too.

Pink Floyd’s Time is one of the all-time great concept rock tracks. Crank up the volume and let the musical waves wash over you as Kent Nishimura performs an awesome cover arrangement of the Dark Side of the Moon track on his acoustic guitar, using the guitar’s hollow body to create the clock ticking effect.

Brazilian musician Johnatha Bastos was born with partially-formed arms. But he doesn’t let that get in his way. As he proves in this awesome guitar cover of Sweet Child O’ Mine, talent and tenacity can help overcome any physical challenge. Oh, and he plays keyboards too.

Most rock and metal songs get their edge with the help of an electric guitar. But what would Nirvana, Metallica, and Slipknot sound like if they could only play with acoustic guitars? Musician Jared Dines is here to show us just that.

We never could play Guitar Hero on Hard or Expert levels. Engineer Nick O’Hara has no such problems, thanks to the robot he built. Jon Bot Jovi uses AI and computer vision tech to detect the notes and timing, then triggers solenoids to push the guitar’s fret buttons and strum bar to perform even the most challenging tracks.

Danish guitarist Soren Madsen turns in an exceptional performance of Ennio Morricone’s theme from The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. You can find tabs for the arrangement on Soren’s website, and be sure to check out more of his performance videos, including a great version of Metallica’s Nothing Else Matters.

We’re used to musician Luca Stricagnoli performing fingerstyle arrangements of popular music on guitar. This time, Luca turned his attention to a classical composition – Mozart’s Serenade in G from Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, and played it on a six-string banjo. We love how he used that little bow to make violin sounds.

Polyphia’s prog rock track 40oz has a has a downright insane lead guitar part. In this amazing cover version of the track, Cy Leo takes over lead duties on his harmonica, while Tsui Jack provides the beatbox rhythm, and Danny Yau sends his fingers flying on guitar. Combined, they sound like a human chiptune machine.

A guitar typically has six strings. Even if you break one, you still have five to make music with. A follower of guitarist Ichika Nito wanted to know if he could play a song with just a single string, so he obliged. Can you imagine what he could do with a two-string guitar?

Marcin Patrzalek is one of the most talented guitarists we’ve ever heard. Listen to his amazing fingerstyle arrangement of Led Zeppelin’s Kashmir performed in an unlikely place – inside a parking garage. Be sure to check out his YouTube and TikTok channels for more incredible music, like his cover of Still D.R.E.

Stop-motion animator Thomas J Yagodinski pays tribute to Eddie Van Halen in the best way he could – by making a Jawa perform part of the musician’s famed Eruption electric guitar solo. Encore! Utinni!

Musician Kent Nishimura turns in a beautifully nuanced and expressive performance of Tears for Fears’ 1985 classic Everybody Wants to Rule the World, played deftly on his acoustic guitar. His Careless Whisper and Rock with You covers are excellent too.

Musician Luca Stricagnoli takes on yet another genre and proves that it can sound great on an acoustic guitar. His fingerstyle cover version of The Bee Gees disco hit Stayin’ Alive will have you busting out your white polyester suits and busting out your best dance moves.

To celebrate the release of the towering new PlayStation 5, guitarist Davidlap attempted to replicate the startup sounds from each of Sony’s game consoles, dating back to 1994’s original PlayStation. We think he did a pretty good job, but David admits the PS2 sound was really hard to recreate.

Musician Ichika Nito loves to test out unusual guitar tunings. In this case, he came up with a set of notes that sound completely off-key when strummed, but he manages to still make sound good when playing. His EEEEEE and FFFFFF tunes are worth a listen too. (Thanks Craig!)

Despite their relatively short lifespan, Nirvana certainly left their mark on music forever. In this video from guitarist yourauntstripe, he reminds us just how many memorable guitar riffs the band produced. If you’re not banging your head or pogoing at some point during the clip, you’re doing something wrong.