Gaining a bonafide legend as a music coach was a game changer for Rebecca Mardal, a Swedish guitarist and composer whose delicate and nuanced playing has built an army of fans online.
As one of three guitarists chosen for a mentorship by Johnny Marr – who helped write the script for jangly 90s alt-rock in the Smiths – Mardal didn’t waste time picking his brain.
“I heard him say in some interview that if you only play electric guitar, you're half a guitar player,” says the instrumentalist. Until then she’d only played electric, so she asked him about it. “He said, ‘When you play acoustic guitar, not only do your muscles have to be more involved, but it's a whole different approach.’ I sort of took that to heart.”
She grabbed a 70s-era Sigma acoustic and began to reinterpret her tune I Think I Was Meant to Be Alone per Marr’s suggestion: “He said to spend 30 minutes every day on acoustic guitar.”
When she sent him the results, he wholeheartedly approved. She recently released the song on digital platforms alongside Lossbyn, which Marr declared “an amazing piece of music.”
She’s since upgraded her arsenal with a 2003 American-made Fender Stratocaster, retrofitted with a Giffin-made neck that Marr gifted to her, as her main guitar.
Mardal may not be a household name yet, but millions have already heard her music through her compositions for the music library Epidemic Sound. While her atmospheric tracks are centered around guitar playing, she also dabbles with soul and lofi hip-hop, inspired by YouTubers like Miles Jasnowski.
The songs tracked in her modest home studio have garnered placements on TV shows like Survivor and in TikTok shorts via brand videos from Vans, ESPN, and McDonald’s. Guitarists may be more keyed into her own clips on social media, where she’s accumulated more than 25 million streams and an audience exceeding 70,000 followers.
She built that fanbase by posting videos of herself playing glossy, reverb-laden licks and walking be-bop jazz lines on her Strat and PRS axes, alongside clips of her takes on older songs such as Can’t Take My Eyes Off You, popularized by Frankie Valli and later given a hip-hop makeover by Lauryn Hill.
While covers are a great way to reel people in, Mardal sees them less as straight tributes and more as her own versions of the songs. “The percussive and rhythmic side of my playing has really taken off on social media, as a result of the covers,” she says.
“It developed further after I started playing the slimmer neck that Johnny gave me. It’s now a big part of what I’m exploring on my upcoming album, through reworked songs.”
As she explores new ways of creating unique soundscapes, Mardal isn’t concerned with rushing matters, in the studio or on the fretboard.
“I’m interested in keeping things almost ridiculously harmonically simple for my original songs, so that the focus naturally shifts toward feel, phrasing, and dynamics.”
“It’s not about playing fast. It’s not even about technique. It’s about making people feel something.”
Choosing feel over the itch to shred comes naturally to her, and the continued pursuit of elegant passages has endeared her to fans who find peace in her playing.
“I got a message this morning from someone who was like, ‘I have cancer and I have a hard time sleeping, but your music helps me relax,’” she says.
“I think that if I want a niche on social media, it’s gonna have to be that – I don’t really want to be part of that short-attention-span, fucking stressful scene, with all the vicious comments. I want to be a safe place.”
