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Visual Stimulation
My endeavors to become an ambidextrous guitarist have led us into a new article yet again. I’ve been skulking around YouTube lately to see what other ambidextrous guitarists are doing (an idea that curiously didn’t come to mind until after I’d started entertaining this practice more seriously). Listening to music is great, but there’s a visually stimulating aspect to it just as well and often times if you want to know how to do something a big help can come from watching others perform.
Enter the blessed powers of the 21st century. Thanks to high speed internet and camera phones everyone has YouTube as an immediate outlet for his or her own styles or perspectives. This makes finding and learning from people who are doing what we want to do all the more accessible.
Michael Angelo Batio
Perhaps the most famous ambidextrous guitarist (or at least most famous for the showmanship of ambidexterity) is Michael Angelo Batio.
Michael Angelo Batio has built a career on his showmanship and showing just what can be accomplished with the guitar. The guitar seen in the video is a newer model of a concept invented by Batio embodied in a guitar designed by him. The original double guitars he used to play were actually two separate guitars set up so he could access them with both hands.
It wasn’t long after that, during his tenure with Nitro, that the world witnessed The Quad. Batio’s four neck monster that hung from a strap tethered around his neck. I can only imagine how his neck and back feel after playing a show while supporting something like that, but that’s a whole different discussion. And who doesn’t love a guy that keeps his hair up with current fashion trends?
Oscar Michael
While I was lurking about I’d found some other guitarists that could pull off some cool tricks with both hands. This guy Oscar Michael, for example. While I’d taken the scenic route to convert one of my right handed guitars into a lefty this guy just flips his over in the middle of a song and plows away without missing a beat.
It’s things like this that keep me infatuated with the human race. These guys are just a couple of the many that truly push what it is to be a human and how far we can push ourselves and ultimately set the bar for future generations.
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