Well us at Guitar Player Zen could describe this amazing young guitarist to you guys, but we decided to let Maneli describe Maneli for himself. Here is what he had to say:

I’ve been playing guitar for about 6 long years now. The reason I say long is because I play A LOT. I believe that the more hands on playing experience you have, the greater the comfort level will be for the individual with their instrument. I’ve only played for 6 years but I’ve been through a lot of musical routes.

The course that my life has taken me on has drastically changed my outlook on the instrument several times from changing a totally different right hand technique. I started out with Metal playing where most that counts is fast alternate picking techniques. After two years of focusing mainly on metal, I moved to Canada from Austin, Texas. I bought a acoustic because I was going for a more natural and organic sound that can be very well done through the acoustic. It was a steel string guitar I bought online for $75.00. I quickly dropped the electric guitar and began focusing on the acoustic and started listening to Paco de Lucia, John McLaughlin and Al DiMeola for the most part. This is where I brought what I had learned from my previous experiences to the acoustic. Long story short I then started to pick up the classical/flamenco guitar.

Now for anyone wanting to hit this instrument with an all flat picking background, its tough at first. I always challenged myself with the flamenco style because it uses such a pure right hand technique only using your fingers that are given to you naturally. I love that the most about the nylon guitar.

After a while I got really into the two hand tap technique after watching Justin King. This was in 2005 or so and I just wanted to learn as much as i could from watching other people play and pick up on it and combine everything I had learned into a mega technique. After this happened I played strictly without a pick and months later I heard a big guy play the acoustic like I have never heard before, not only melodically but technically stunning as well.

Don Ross has influenced so many fingerstyle guitarists its not even funny, and I was one of them last year. I had thought about using a thumbpick before but it felt really awkward. I thought about it for a sec and had remembered that all i had been doing in the past was push myself to learn as much as i can about the instrument. I then ultimately combined everything I had learned so far into one style. If you listen closely you’ll hear a little classical, flamenco, fingerstyle, metal, tapping and percussion in my work.

Visit his myspace site. Befriend him, and show him some love!
Myspace.com/Manelijamal

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