Luca Stricagnoli

WHY THREE NECKS — AND MILLIONS OF YOUTUBE VIEWS — MIGHT JUST BE BETTER THAN ONE

- Puneet Singh

IN THE CROWDED field of internet guitar players, standing out has become increasingly difficult. But for 29-year-old Luca Stricagnoli, getting noticed has meant being true to himself.

The Italian-born acoustic fingerstyle virtuoso picked up the guitar at age 10 and studied classical until age 16, before putting it away entirely to focus on judo. When friends at the gym found out he used to play guitar, they introduced him to modern fingerstyle players on YouTube, with Andy McKee, an artist on CandyRat Records, forever shifting the paradigm.

“[Andy] was hitting the guitar, slapping it, doing tapping and weird things, and I was blown away,” Stricagnoli says. “I finally took a guitar in my hands and started into the field of fingerstyle.”