How Good Is This Guy? (Part 6)
My friend and I headed to RockInn in Ogikubo to buy the sheet music.
That same friend kept telling me it was impossible — that even if I bought it, it'd be too hard to play. He'd mentioned a few times that a friend of his knew an incredible guitarist who played songs by a band called Extreme, busking on the streets of Harajuku every weekend.
Looking back on it now, he seemed to really look up to that guitarist friend of his, and I think some part of him was quietly looking down on me too.
When I bought the sheet music, my first thought was: it's completely black with notes.
According to the material, the guitarist AKIRA TAKASAKI played with alternate picking, so I practiced faithfully in alternate picking too.
That friend also told me anything other than alternate picking was garbage — though I never really understood his reasoning...
Back then, that friend always said the best guitarists were either Paul Gilbert or AKIRA TAKASAKI.
Beyond that, I also loved heavier bands like METALLICA, which I was already listening to.
Back then, my only sources of information were Young Guitar magazine and BURRN! — that was basically it.
So when I bought an issue of Young Guitar with AKIRA TAKASAKI and Paul Gilbert on the cover, I devoured it.
Apparently Paul Gilbert loved AKIRA TAKASAKI. I'd never once seen this Japanese guitarist on TV, and I was desperately curious just how good he really was.
To be continued.