† Matt Rach: The Rising Young French Guitarist †

Matthew Rachmajda, also known as Matt Rach, born February 15, 1991, is a young French guitarist, who has become well-known in the internet especially in YouTube with videos of him performing his own composed music.

MattRach has been playing the guitar since he was eight years old and has been in a band since 2003. He is so talented that he can play at many music instruments and that makes himself the bassist, guitarist, drummer, keyboardist and accoustic guitarist of his self-composed music. Below are my most favourited videos of Matt Rach performing his music.

Title: Exotic Rain

A great music with fantastic bass arrangement plus a hang drum playing along in the intro.

Title: Run Or Die

A cute and cheerful arrangement where Matt plays his banjo with his full-of-expression face.

Matt is truly a gifted and talented guy in which he possessed the ability to play, to compose and to express himself through music. It won't take long for him to reach international level and perhaps in a few years time you might see him appears in television as well as magazines.

† Joyful Selection: Cheap Guitar + Cheap Hard Cover †

What a joy! I've managed to buy this guitar plus a cover combo at the price of RM350 only: semi-acoustic guitar RM190, hard case cover RM160 and it comes to a total of RM350.

Nicely crafted design and colour. Although its not an expensive Ibanez or Fender guitar, I still love it very much.

The good thing about it is that, its my favourite turtle back design. I've been wanting to own such guitar since my childhood and finally I've got one!

Simplicity makes perfection. There's no hankey bankey designs or graphite on the cover and this is what makes it looks original.

† Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence: What A Cocktail †

Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (戦場のメリークリスマス in Japanese) is a classic movie produced in 1983, directed by Nagisa Oshima.


The synopsis: In 1941, Jack Celliers, a British soldier comes to a Japanese prison camp. The camp is operated by Yonoi, who has a firm belief in discipline, honour and glory. In his point of view, the allied prisoners are cowards if they chose to surrender instead of committing suicide via seppuku. One of the prisoners, John Lawrence the interpreter, tries to explain the Japanese way of thinking, but is considered a traitor etc...

I'm not so interested with the storyline but the theme song of the movie with the title 'Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence' caught my attention. Here's the trailer and do pay attention to the background music that sound so traditionally Japanese. Also click here to listen to the original version.


The theme song becomes popular again after almost two decades when it is sang in Utada Hikaru's version. Thanks to the fusion style of traditional and hip-hop, Utada Hikaru's Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence really make a big hit in many countries. Click here to listen Utada Hikaru's version.


Ryuichi Sakamota's piano version is a master piece that one must not miss. The song hits its peak when the strings flow in along with his harmonious piano melody.


If you're a guitarist, you must also pay extra attention to Oshio Kotaro's amazing guitar play on this song. I've never seen someone play like his way other than Erik Mongrain that I mentioned in my previous blogpost.

Seriously, what a cocktail for this song.

† Depapepe The Acoustic Guitar Duo †

If you're a guitar lover, I'm sure you gonna love this Japanese acoustic guitar musical duo of Takuya Miura and Yoshinari Takuoka. The name of the band is 'Depapepe' (デパペペ) and the duo was formed in year 2002. They became popular starting the year 2004 when their talents were noticed by the fan via a few albums they've performed.

Most of their songs are really good and expressive especially in a few singles that they've performed. One of the best songs that I love very much is Summer Parade. The song Summer Parade (watch the video here) is filled with the mood of vacation and summer. Takuya and Yoshinari really did a great job in playing this song with their combination of guitar strumming and plucking.

The MP3 version of this song has been uploaded by me here at Aimini. Enjoy!

More music posts in Music Heaven

† Chameleon Guitar: Acoustic & Electrical Fusion †

An electric guitar is often a preference for the youngsters and of course I understand how excited it'd be to own your personal electric guitar. However it sucks when you realize that electrical guitar is useless without an amp. Its specifically non-applicable for camp fires or beach camping.


The concept of 'all-in-one' guitar has become an aim for many guitar-producing company. Semi-acoustic is one of the inventions. So is it possible to have such 'all-in-one' electric guitar as well?


I believe the Chameleon Guitar, developed at the MIT Media Lab, can provide us the answer. Chameleon Guitar embodies a unique combination of traditional acoustic and modern electrical design. If I were to summarize the whole thing, I would say it looks like an electric guitar, but acts like both electric and acoustic guitar.


According to the official website, the reason behind such design is that the sound generated by the instrument and the physical soundboard plug-in is installed with a digital effects processor inside the guitar body, producing an original sound amplified by digital devices.


In other words, even without an amp, it still can produce a very clear and loud voice, just like an acoustic guitar. The good thing about this guitar is that, there are a variety of sound boards available, making customization possible. On top of that, each different quality or design of the wooden piece can result in different sound effects that many guitar players may feel excited about it.


Further information can be obtained in the video posted here. Source: LabCast

† Music Of The Ocean †

I always think that the three great elemental sounds in nature are the sound of rain, the sound of wind in a tropical forest, and ultimately, the sound of outer ocean on a beach. If you ever have the chance to sit by the seaside, alone, listening to the sound of the ocean, it makes you feel holistic and completed.


Here's two pieces of instrumental music that I've loved for quite some time and both of them contains the so-called 'ocean-kind-of-smell'. Simply listening to them make me always think "don't worry, everything is gonna be fine." Just click on the 'PLAY' icon below to listen to both songs.

Ocean Dream

The first song I have here is called 'Ocean Dream'. This song is really neat and breezing. The major leading instrument in the music is guitar along with some other sound effects, making the whole music sounds like you're on a relaxing island vacation.

Sunny Side

The second song with the title 'Sunny Side', is my all time favourite and each time I listen to this song, I just can't resist and I'll play it at least twice. This song has a great guitar strumming intro along with percussion. The most attractive part of this song I tell you is gotta be the part when the piano comes into the music and it makes the whole music sounds gorgeous.

† Stay By Estrella †

I bet many readers do not know the existence of the band known as Estrella. Estrella is a Malaysian band formed in the year 2006 with the initial members Liyana as the guitarist/singer and Yob the lead guitarist. In year 2008, their music became popular especially my favorite song of theirs, 'STAY'.


The lead singer Liyana has a sweet voice that makes the song 'Stay' so soothing upon listening. The song started off with a nice guitar strumming before Liyana comes in with her singing. Personally I think this song is really attractive because of its jazzie guitar chords.


Meanwhile about the music video, it does looks a lil bit low budgeted but the video's flaw has been covered up by the good song. So I think this is a good start for Estrella.

† Speechless By Steven Curtis Chapman †

Steven Curtis Chapman rulez! His songs are truly atypical or I would rather say differ from any other music I've listened to.


One of the very first songs of Steven Curtis Chapman I've listened to was Speechless. This song started-off humbly with a great guitar strumming and then followed by well-synchronized strings playing at the background before the drums and electric guitar banged in majestically.


There are a lot of guitar strums involved in Steven's song and personally I think his song can be a good practice foundation for many guitarists who wants to practice their strumming.

Related post:
Hillsong United

† Erik Mongrain: Lap Tapping Technique †

I'm not sure how many people have heard of Erik Mongrain . He is a Canadian composer and guitarist, best known for his unique acoustic style, and his use of a two-handed lap tapping technique on the acoustic guitar.


Biography: I've read a lot from a few musical forums that mentioned Erik Mongrain started his guitar at the age of 14 and he learned his guitar via ear hearing. He was previously an electric guitarist but he found himself more interested with acoustic/classical guitar and therefore he began to experiment with a technique known as lap tapping, in which the player lays the guitar across their lap, and taps the strings on the fret board with both hands.


The classic way of performing tapping is just like what is shown above. However, Erik has another extended way of playing his very own lap tapping.


So what is lap tapping? As you can see from the picture above, Erik Mongrain is performing wonderful lap tapping technique by treating the guitar as a xylophone. This is an mazing video clip that I manage to find from YouTube showing how Erik does his tapping.


This method increases the flexibility of the instrument, in that it makes it possible to play more types of music on a guitar, and also producing more sound effects.