Talk Back Your Letters...

Just wanted to say thanks for (kind of) changing my life.

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GT CHANGED MY LIFE (SORT OF) 

Back in ’95 I was heavily into SRV but stuck in the Minor Pentatonic. However I found a new magazine in the small Swedish town I was living at that time. In it was an article about Steve Vai’s style by Dave Kilminster. It floored me. I had never heard about the Lydian scale and it was a real eye-opener. I studied every article in that issue and started to practise several hours a day. I soon attended a one-year guitar course in Sweden and started to get a little more knowledge. After that I moved to London and enrolled at Musicians Institute in Wapping. What a great year. Wonderful tutors, great musicians from all over the world and a chance to play styles that were new to me. The great Eric Roche was a tutor and I studied the same year as Jacob Quistgaard (he was a monster player and still is). After that I moved back to Sweden and went to a guitar school in Stockholm. When my studies were finished I played guitar for a living for 12 years, recorded several albums, did sessions and even managed to get a Guitarist Of The Year award, which was handed over by Kee Marcello. When I was done with touring I landed a teaching gig and have been a full-time guitar teacher since 2012. So once again thank you. I couldn’t have done it without GT.

Magnus Åkerlund

PS: Writing a column for GT is still on my bucket list!