In this conversation Mateus and Rick discuss being an Instagram guitarist, early influences, studying at Musician’s Institute, learning songs and the importance of stage presence when performing.
Summary Notes
Early Days (4:30)
Moved to LA in 2013 to study music at Musicians Institute.
The guitar instrumental video “Canon Rock” (originally posted to YouTube in 2005) was a big inspiration in getting Mateus to start posting videos online.
“Since I decided to be a musician I gotta have a signature sound, it’s so hard to get, where is the Mateus flavor of it…”
Guitar influences (14:30)
Early influence was the band Oficina G3 and their guitarist Juninho Afram. He became a mentor to Mateus. Started playing by learning their tunes.
Then inspiration came from guitarists like Steve Vai and Joe Satriani.
Satriani was the first American guitarist he discovered. He learned “Always with You, Always with Me”.
“I was very melodic maybe because I grew up in Church. Melody is a must…”
Learning songs (17:00)
In his early days didn’t have access to a lot of transcriptions, so would need to learn songs by ear.
Mateus felt he didn’t have a strong ear, so his approach to learning songs would be to pull out various points from a solo and add his own embellishments to fill in the other parts.
Musician’s Institute Jimi Hendrix-style Rhythm Guitar course by Dale Turner (18:00)
A very important class that helped shape his playing with the incorporation of double-stops.
Lessons included taking chord progressions and incorporating various fills, double-stops between the chords.
First start by just playing the chords to the metronome. And then little-by-little add in various fills between the chords.
Keyboard inspiration (21:00)
A major influence was keyboardist Leonard Ray Jarman. Hearing him play a keyboard solo with a harmonizer was a source of inspiration – Matheus wanted to emulate that sound on the guitar using double-stops.
“For me it’s all about giving a different flavor, what else can we explore on the guitar, especially after seeing Guthrie Govan changing the whole thing…”
What I practice (28:55)
Have to consistently practice double-stops otherwise it will get messy.
Will practice various pentatonic runs to find the right notes and maintain right-hand technique.
Will practice bending techniques.
Considers his left-hand to be much stronger (technique-wise) compared to his right-hand. Double-stop playing is mostly left-hand technique.
“Actually I need to establish more exercises. I just grab the guitar and whatever I feel like doing, I just go…”
Performing as a lead guitar player (32:50)
Remember why the audience goes to a show, to be entertained, to feel the interaction with the band.
You want to have a stage presence, wear your guitar a bit lower, interact with the band, the audience.