MERIH ASKIN
"I believe that the world could be much more peaceful place if everyone felt the music of their souls..."
Merih is a very talented and well-rounded young Turkish musician. He began early with traditional Anatolian folk music, but later, like so many others, experience an inner musical transformation after meeting the revolutionary musician (the world's first serious acoustic fretless guitarist) Erkan Ogur. Merih began playing fretless guitar and now allows his musical spirit to flow through a variety of instruments including Turkish-style acoustic fretless guitar.
myspace.com/merihaskin
GUNNAR BACKMAN "I had a guitar an acoustic steel-string Hopf that didn't tune up with the frets there was something off with the neck. So I ripped the frets off. This was in 1977."
Multi-instrumental, multi-genre,
multi-tasking, multi-talented Gunnar
Backman has been around for a long
time offering his own unique breed
of creativity to the world of music
and the arts. Very pleased are we to
have here Gunnar's fretless Dobro
track... it is one of our very
favourites!
brakophonic.com
myspace.com/brakophonic
BEN BADENHORST "I feel that music can generate great healing, and can be a great source of inner peace and sense of well being."
South African Ben Badenhorst is a wild electric player who also plays the Acoustic Fretless Guitar. Ben's music shows maturity, fire, and openmindedness - melting together rock, jazz, African, and Indian influences.
myspace.com/defrostyourchops
MATT BEARNE "The simplicity of the acoustic fretless (obviously not to play!) is what drew me to it I think."
Young and upcoming musical genius Matt Bearne is a cat to watch out for. Matt is new to the Acoustic Fretless Guitar but already plays with depth and accomplishment not found in many veterans. Matt has a profound and global musical curiousity and it will be very interesting to see where this will take him.
myspace.com/matthewsmusicshed
MELIH COBAN
"I think acoustic fretless guitar has a more natural sound than electric fretless guitar. Nowadays, music is losing its naturalness day by day."
Melih is a very talented and sensative young Turkish guitarist who has been greatly influenced by the work of Erkan Ogur. Melih's work is highly melodic and shows a profound tonal sensativity.
myspace.com/merihaskin
CENK ERDOGAN "I think in the future people will want to hear pure music coming from the source, and the pulse will be coming from acoustic instruments."
Cenk is an accomplished and widely respected Turkish guitarist, equally at home playing Turkish makams on fretless Spanish guitar as he is playing modern jazz on fretted electric. He earns his living primarily by composing and recording his own original music for full length film productions and TV programs, therefore Cenk can usually be found in his private recording studio in Harem, Istanbul. Cenk's debut album is now complete and soon to be available.
cenkerdogan.net
myspace.com/cenkerdogan
BUZZ GRAVELLE "I have always been drawn to non-commercial music. That has led me down a long and winding musical path."
Buzz is a newcomer to the world of the Acoustic
Fretless guitar but has none-the-less deeply shocked
us all with the beauty, depth, and maturity of his
very first offerings. From L.A., Mr. Gravelle is a
veteran guitarist of many styles but very likely will
go down in history as the world's first Western
classical fretless guitarist - he seems to have been
the first, and to now hold the genre all to himself!
So now, thanks to Buzz, we can finally hear classical
guitar playing in "Just Intonation".
myspace.com/buzzgravelle
NEIL HAVERSTICK "I do not like or enjoy shallow art of any sort; sound is the foundation of the Universe, and music is a very powerful means of expression. If used wisely, it can be a great force for good in the world"
Neil Haverstick is primarily known for his pioneering music and
research in the area of microtonal equal temperament - (what is
THAT?)... or more simple put, playing and exploring the possibilities
of guitars with more than 12 equally placed frets per octave. He is
also intrigued and incredibly imaginative with fretless guitars, which
of course do not deal with equal temperament. Neil is a veteran
die-hard, soon to be reaching Legend status, who's career is now,
after many decades of dedication, really beginning to blossom.
microstick.net
myspace.com/microstick
JURICA JELIC "Well i have a feeling that music is a major part of my soul!
Maybe a tool to put my heart out in the open! An instrument
the helps me to develope my self as a being and a person."
A fretless and microtonal guitar (19TET) player from Croatia. He was first introduced to guitar by his father at an early age. From that time affinity towards rock, experimental, blues, jazz was constantly developed. Jura teaches, performs, records, and proudly carries the beacon microtonality and alternative tuning systems into the world of music.
myspace.com/juricajelic
KEVIN KASTNING
"...I think music is the highest form of non-verbal communication. It comes from and reaches into places which words can't. For me, music is like breathing; it has always been there, and I don't know how I'd exist without it."
Kevin is primarily a fretted acoustic player well known and respected for his modern classical abstract intuitive style which feels something like quantum physics in sound form - however in recent years he has been drawn deeply to the fretless acoustic guitar. Featured as the 'exit' track on the new UNPLUGGED UNFRETTED compilation CD, we are all eagerly awaiting new AFG offerings from this immense talent.
kevinkastning.com
myspace.com/kevinkastning
NEWBIE BRAD "...my preference is to make music that is not embarassed by its influences but stands apart."
Brad, from 3 Pups Music is perhaps UNUN's most original and alternative minded member. Brad has taken UNUN's non-materialist philosophy to new hights playing his self-built Acoustic Fretless Guitar which is in fact cut straight out of a sheet of plywood(!). Sounds GREAT to us!
3pupsmusic.com
myspace.com/3pupsmusic
EDWARD POWELL "Our music can greatly influence the consciousness of other humans, and therefore their behaviour. This is a great responsibility."
Edward began as an electric guitarist, but later switched to the sitar and Indian music. Over the years Edward's passion grew to include the oud and Middle-Eastern music. Known as one of the early pioneers of the fretless guitar after having modified a steel-string acoustic guitar into something which might be called a "sarod-guitar". Edward now plays a 33-string, 3 neck acoustic fretless guitar of his own creation, which was inspired by the oud, the sarod, and the acoustic guitar.
edwardpowell.com
myspace.com/edwardpowellmusic
SANDOR SZABO
"I consider music as part of the nature such as we human being, plants or animals. It is a level of existence. I want to discover this audible world."
Sandor Szabo is Hungary's first solo acoustic guitarist, beginning his career in the 80's. In the 90's he achieved international acclaim with his unprecedented work with the 16 string baritone guitar. In recent years Sandor has also included the acoustic fretless guitar in his repertoire and is featured on the 2005 UNFRETTED release "Village of the Unfretted". Sandors most recent addition to his astonishing collection of top quality acoustic guitars is a double-neck oud which he intends to play on his upcoming CD which will entitled "The New Hungarian Makam". There are more than a few of us who just can't wait to hear that!
sandorszabo.com
myspace.com/sandorszaboofficial
ITSIK SHETRIT "I wanted to try a new sound and fretless guitar seemed to be the perfect choice."
Acoustic fretless guitarist, teacher, painter,
sculptor, Itsik also builds his own guitars
himself at home! This Berklee trained Israeli
musician is bringing yet another voice,
another beautiful colour to the world of
Acoustic Fretless guitarists.
myspace.com/ishetrit
PETER THÖRN
"Music must come from within, otherwise it can not become art. My music has never been a priority, more a necessity..."
Peter Thörn from Sweden offers our ears a breath of fresh wind and a taste of raw earth in a musical world forever dominated by sterile professionalism and pointless pursuit of technical perfection (nowadays called "shredding"). Peter present us with none of this nonsense but instead a rootsy, foot-stompin', right-out-of-tribal-africa groove on recycled acoustic fretless guitars rescued from the guitar graveyard. Peter is featured on track 5 of the UNUN COMPILATION CD.
myspace.com/peterthrn
YAN VAGH "On the electric, the sound is partly given to you through the pickups, amps etc.....on the acoustic instrument, I would say you're 100% responsible of what you produce...."
Yan is a rare talent and a well kept French secret. His 10 nylon string acoustic fretless guitar can be heard on the opening tracks of the world's first fretless guitar compilation album "Masters of the Fretless Guitar". It is difficult to categorize Yan's beautiful, jazzy, understated music - except to say that he has successfully carved out a style uniquely his own.
yanvagh.com
myspace.com/yanvagh
MICHAEL ATONAL VICK "I feel with acoustic fretless guitar one can get the purity of tone and intonation that has been missing from most guitar literature, and on the flipside, the electric fretless guitar can project the artist and listener completely into outer space where no absolute rules apply. They both can present the player with more sonic possibilities ever imagined, and through this they are tied inherently to the past and the future in a sonic continuum."
Michael can be credited along with Jeff Berg and others, for bringing the fretless guitar movement into the mainstream - Michael is the founder of the NYC International Fretless Guitar Festival. Musically, Michael's playing style and personality are inseparably intertwined, the music clearly reflecting his courageous, exploratory, witty, and compassionate character.
themichaelvicktrip.com
myspace.com/themichaelvicktrip
UNUN has just decided to expand into the realm of VIDEO!
Today - - - The UNPLUGGED/UNFRETTED YouTubeChannel was born.
Here is how it works. . . . . anyone who has a video clip of an acoustic fretless musical performance and would like to have it posted on UNUN U-TUBE then either:
1- upload this clip to YOUR youtube channel, and give us the link to it. We will download it from youtube and upload it with a new name onto UNUN U-TUBE.
2- upload this video to your FTP and give us the link.
3- send us a physical CD with the clip (send us a PM if you want this option)
"Unplugged & Unfretted" is a page exclusively devoted to the Acoustic Fretless Guitarists of the world.
Any serious musician focused primarily on the non-electric, non-fretted guitar as his/her main instrument
is welcome to be documented right here. To request documentation, just send us a message, and WELCOME!
Originally all guitars were acoustic. The invention of the electronic pickup, and it's application to the
guitar, in fact signified the birth of an entirely new instrument. Playing techniques, sound, and musical
possibilities are vastly different between acoustic and electric guitars, hense the absurity of the outdated notion that a "guitar is a guitar" be it acoustic or electric.
All music was originally untempered, and therefore all guitars were originally fretless, or perhaps it
would be more accurate to say that the grandfather of all guitars was a fretless instrument. The guitar
was born in Spain inspired by the "lute" which is a fretted version of the Middle-Eastern "oud" which is
fretless.
Furthermore, all guitars were originally strung with low-tension "gut" (nylon in modern times) strings.
The relatively recent invention of high-carbon steel wire and it's use on the guitar, has harolded
appearance of yet another distinct genre of instruments; the steelstring acoustic guitar. The "steelstring" revolution tranformed the tonal colour of music around the world as the soft, warm sound of
gut/nylon string instruments was suddenly replaced by the more fashionable, metalic sound of steelstringed versions of previously gutstringed instruments. Spanish guitars became steelstring guitars;
ouds became lautos; Afgani rababs became sarods; sarangis became esrajs... very definately there is a
genre gap between the nylon string and the steelstring world of guitarists and fretless guitarist, but
for now, on this page, we shall consider an acoustic guitar as being either nylon or steelstring. In
fact, some guitarists today are playing strings which are made from both steel AND nylon.
Welcome to the first space on the net dedicated to the new and undeveloped field of the Acoustic Fretless Guitar!
thanks guys !! what a cool page with some brilliant musical contributions which i found very enjoyable indeed....nice to hear something heartfelt & different. Many thanks, jD.
** Unplugged & Unfretted ** Thanks for your friendship. I love your site. Exotic sounds and so unique... Musically Yours, Ken Krupnik Singer/Songwriter
There really is some great stuff here, but I have to say: getting used to micro-tonalism is hard. I have a blast with my fretless electric guitar from times to times, but I always stick to western tonalism when I do. Maybe I should venture :)
Online!
