Back in October, YouTuber Bernth Brodträger showed us what it sounds like when you pump liters of water into the soundhole of an acoustic guitar. Needless to say, the experiment made for some out-of-this-world sonic results.
And now, in an apparent longterm plan to batter his six-string collection with the four elements, the guitarist has outfitted another of his strummers with actual lit fireworks. Yes, really.
In his latest video, Brodträger, who currently boasts over 730K subscribers on the platform, plays a brooding original fingerstyle composition – fittingly titled Fireworks – while sparklers sear from the soundhole, headstock and lower bout of his Ibanez acoustic guitar.
For the track’s natural harmonic-laden intro and first verse, only the sparkler located inside the soundhole is set ablaze, but as it progresses, a disembodied hand appears to light the sparklers at the guitar's headstock.
“At their core, these sparklers burn at 1,800 degrees Celsius,” Brodträger explains. “Any wrong move could severely injure my hands, and the guitar could catch fire at any moment.”
During an instrumental section from the 1:06 mark – which finds Brodträger offering an expertly delicate acoustic solo by way of a series of rapid arpeggios and winding lead lines – the guitarist comments: “At this point, the guitar is already burning inside, but I take the risk and continue playing.”
“The heat coming out of the guitar is getting intense now, but there's one more surprise,” he adds, before two sparklers at the bottom of the guitar are set aflame, making for an utterly sizzling climax.
Check back in a couple of months and Brodträger will have probably filled an acoustic guitar with mud or played a composition in a wind tunnel. Your move, Bernth.
Bernth Brodträger is no stranger to dabbling with fire in his six-string endeavors. In a Guitar World interview earlier this year, the Austrian guitarist reflected on his choice to set 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.’”
