If you’re a music lover, one of the most exciting things in the world is to discover a new voice or a new talent.
For the most part, most of us see and hear musicians as a result of the radio and whatever hit singles are currently in rotation. As a result of that, we tend to think of successful artists as having sprung up spontaneously into existence, without thinking about the journey it takes for them to get there. For many artists, the road to success starts by doing interpretations of other people’s work as we find our own voice.
At least, that seems to be the case with the artist we’re discussing today.
Although guitarist Mike Dawes may not be a household name, he’s certainly well-known in the music world.
Dawes has posted his music on YouTube, where it has been viewed more than 80 million times. Beyond that, he also released a solo album in 2013, toured all around the world and was recognized as the best acoustic guitarist in the world by Total Guitar Magazine in 2017 and 2018. Needless to say, Dawes is a successful mission whose stature is only growing as he releases more and more videos.
But one of his videos in particular has caught the eye of the internet.
The clip was posted by the Wells Cathedral School of Music channel and shows Dawes tuning up at Cedars Hall.
He’s getting ready to perform and is tuning up his guitar, but as he does so, he talks to the crowd a bit. “The style of music I play is a little bit unusual,” Dawes says. “But it’s actually very, very simple through it may seem rather complex. It’s all about building lots and lots of very simple layers.” With his guitar in tune, he starts to explain how the layers will build into the performance that night.
It all begins with a simple bass line of just a couple notes in rhythm.
After that, he adds in the “guitar” portion of the song by adding in some hammer-ons to add more notes.
At this point, the music is becoming somewhat more recognizable. After that, he adds in the drums by tapping his fingers and palms against the wood of the guitar—and the whole time, he talks to the audience, taking them through what he’s doing step by step. Finally, he says that the song is missing one layer: the melody.
Once he adds it in, it’s clear what song he’s been playing—it’s the smash hit “Somebody That I Used to Know” by Gotye!
The original song came out in 2011 and now has some 1.2 billion hits on YouTube—but Dawes’ version of it is a complete reinvention.
While the original was a mostly electronic song with heartfelt singing over it, Dawes’ version captures all the different “layers” of the song on just one instrument! Although the song moves at a moderate pace, Dawes never stops performing all the parts simultaneously and by himself. Perhaps most incredible of all is just how easy he makes it look, despite how complicated some of the movements are.
Needless to say, the music students who were in the crowd that day got an incredible demonstration of technique!
Even if you’ve never heard of him before, Dawes’ incredible acoustic playing definitely deserves to be seen and heard.
Aside from this breakout performance, Dawes also has his own YouTube channel where he showcases his music. The top few songs on his channel are creative acoustic covers of other rock songs as well. One of the more impressive (though they’re all worth checking out) is the video of him performing the song “Scarlet” by the metal band Periphery. Even if you’re unfamiliar, his version of it is incredible!
Needless to say, it’s always a thrill to discover a new artistic talent.
As Dawes shows, finding your own unique style and voice is a huge part of what launches you into greater success. If you have time to spare, we’d encourage you to look through all of his videos to see his incredible acoustic finger-picking skills for yourself. Trust us, you won’t regret it.
Congratulations to Mike Dawes on all his success so far! Check out the video below:
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