Embryo
I wrote Embryo specifically to leverage the talents of an incredible guitarist named Vicki Genfan. Vicki is a fingerstyle and percussive guitar player of world class credentials. She is the 2008 winner of Guitar Player Magazine's "Guitar Superstar" competition, judged by Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, George Lynch, and more. It is normally a metal shredfest, but Vicki walked in among the men and won it with a solo fingerstyle piece called "Atomic Reshuffle"; I present it for you here:
Since Vicki's specialty is open tunings (she is up to 34 she uses on stage), I wanted to go in that direction; as such there are five guitar parts in the song, and only one of them is in standard tuning. Here are the others:
- Main rhythm guitar (just right of center): Me on my Luna Vicki Genfan Signature series; open D tuning
- Vicki's tapping part, hard left: Her Luna VG signature, DADGAD tuning
- Nashville (high) strung part: Vicki on my Martin DXME, Drop-D tuning
- Arpeggiated harmonics in bridge: Vicki on her Luna VG signature, DADEAD
- Melody: Me on Fender Strat, 1st pickup, standard tuning
I wanted to find a way to have a well-forged alloy of Vickis's signature tapping/percussive/open tuning sound and my smooth jazz musings. I think it worked out well.