How Nine Famous Guitarists Deal with Broken Strings on Stage
Someone—better known as YouTube's Blend Guitar—has created a fun and fascinating video that captures a host of famous guitarists in the act of breaking a string. The best part of the clip, however—and perhaps the reason it was created—is that it shows how each guitarist reacts to and deals with this most unwanted problem.
When they break a B string during a solo, do they escape to the relative safety of the lower strings (and lower frets), or do they turn lemons into lemonade, tough it out and magically come up with a spur-of-the-moment masterpiece?
You'll just have to find out by watching the video.
We're happy to report that the clip contains only two famous broken-string moments that have been covered on GuitarWorld.com in the past—Stevie Ray Vaughan and B.B. King. The rest of the video is packed with new (to us) broken-string moments featuring James Hetfield, Tommy Emmanuel, Steve Vai, Slash, Mark Tremonti, John Frusciante and Eric Clapton. (Clapton's bassist, Nathan East, gets a kick out of Clapton's reaction).
Anyway, be sure to check it out below. For more videos by Blend Guitar, head here.
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Damian is Editor-in-Chief of Guitar World magazine. In past lives, he was GW’s managing editor and online managing editor. He's written liner notes for major-label releases, including Stevie Ray Vaughan's 'The Complete Epic Recordings Collection' (Sony Legacy) and has interviewed everyone from Yngwie Malmsteen to Kevin Bacon (with a few memorable Eric Clapton chats thrown into the mix). Damian, a former member of Brooklyn's The Gas House Gorillas, was the sole guitarist in Mister Neutron, a trio that toured the U.S. and released three albums. He now plays in two NYC-area bands.
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