Guitar YouTuber extraordinaire Bernth Brodträger appears to be on an acoustic guitar killing spree as of late, after first filling up an acoustic guitar with water back in October, and more recently, inserting actual fireworks into an Ibanez strummer.
And now, hellbent on continuing the six-string massacre, the Austrian guitarist has drilled dozens of holes into the body of another unfortunate guitar in his collection in his relentless pursuit of sonic exploration.
Yes, in his latest video, Brodträger – who now boasts over 770K subscribers on the platform – shares his new composition, the appropriately titled Airflow, armed with the butchered – or modified – six-string, and boy, does it sound spectacular.
The track sees Brodträger offer a soothing blend of fingerstyle playing, two-handed tapping, crystalline natural harmonic lines and faster alternate picking sections.
“In general, soundholes allow strings to vibrate more freely,” he explains. “I thought I might lose some sustain, but it sounded great. The mellow sound actually suits this tricky piece nicely.”
Brodträger does, however, offer a word of warning: “Don’t try this at home – you might destroy your guitar.” He adds, “As crazy as it looks, it worked great for the song!”
Upon the release of Bernth's Fireworks video, we wagered he was working his way through the four elements, flavoring guitar compositions with actual water, fire, earth and air.
With Airflow, that's the third ticked off, and now we're eagerly waiting to see if he'll fill another acoustic guitar with mud, or undertake a similar project based on the earth element. Come on Bernth, complete our bingo card.
Brodträger is no stranger to sacrificing his guitars in pursuit of his endeavors. In a Guitar World interview last year, the Austrian guitarist recalled setting one of his prized Ibanez electric guitars ablaze to promote his first instrumental solo album, Elevation.
“Maybe it was a bit dramatic,” he said, “but it was a statement about all these articles that were going around, every single one of them saying ‘guitar music is dead! Nobody cares about guitar, especially shred guitar.’”
