Live music and touring have been on lockdown and fans as well as artists are going through withdrawals. We wanted to come up with something fun to help bridge that distance between fans and artists right now. What we came up with is something called The Lockdown Lowdown and it’s a Q&A session with fun questions for artists to answer. They’re not your typical interview questions, so it gives you a peek inside of the artists themselves. We’re big music nerds here at I’m Music Magazine and we love learning things like this about the artists that we love. We’re pretty sure that you’ll get a kick out of these, so we hope you’ll take the time to read them. In this installment, we sat down for a fun Q&A session with Kyle Silva, guitarist for Blacklist 9.
5 artists that influenced me as a musician.
1. Dimebag Darrell: I’ve been asked before, what is the hardest part of trying to learn a Pantera song? It’s not Dimes riff or solo, those are easy to learn. What is difficult about Dime is…….his feel! It’s the way he bends a note, slides in to a note, his vibrato and so much more. There is a reason why he is still relevant to this day.
2. Francisco Tarrega: A classical/Spanish guitarist from the romantic period. He wrote amazing and beautiful pieces of music. His music is literally listening to art. I’ve learned a lot from his work on how to do key chains, capture the right feel of a song and learning a very difficult technique that he uses in his song, “Recuerdos De La Alhambra”. Song I recommend checking out are Recuerdos De La Alhambra, Capricho árabe, Tango Maria and Adelita.
3. Dave Matthews: oh man we’re back here again. What can I say, give the guy credit where it’s due. Dave does a lot of alternate picking, some real cool picking patterns and interesting chords (a lot of them Jazz chords). The songs that high light his playing (for me) would be Satellite, The Stone and Jimi Thing.
4. Andy McKee: I had a friend show me his song called “Drifting” and I was hooked on what I heard. It’s a awesome style because when you close your eyes to listen, it sounds like there are 3 guitar players playing at the same time. It requires a lot of skill and hand – eye coronation. I got really invested in this style and practice very frequently. It showed me different ways to play the guitar and offered something fresh and new.
5. Chet Atkins: Mr.Guitar!! I really dig this type of playing, especially since country and blue grass guitarist use the Atkins style. A very difficult style because you do a lot of playing two parts of a song. You’re playing the bass line and the medley at the same time. It requires alot to do with understanding down beat and up beat, you’re jumping back and forth in beats. It helps to get your fingers moving independently from each other and not staying stagnant.
How are you spending your time during the pandemic?
During this the pandemic, I’ve had a lot of time to really look into these player and see the beauty in there style. Seeing the difference and what makes them special. We are currently write new music and I’ve been taking little pieces of the artiest above, adapting and evolving my playing to get better everyday. I can’t wait to show you guys the music we are working on. I know some of these artiest are not “Heavy Metal” but the new martial is aggressive, powerful and groovy!
Thank you all for your time, take care of each other. Hopefully, we will see y’all soon. Kyle
Connect with Blacklist 9:
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