Erich Andreas:Your Guitar Sage
By M. Alberto Rivera
Guitar Heroes who actually play guitar are becoming increasingly rare. So Erich Andreas is an endangered species sort of musician. Having come of age musically before the phrase Guitar Hero was something parents simply went out and bought, Andreas spend endless hours honing his chosen craft and has never tired of playing guitar. In the early 1990’s he packed up and moved to Nashville where he was forced to step up his game in a town full of phenomenal players. Bands came and went with varying degrees of success. After one spectacular implosion he hung up axe for good, selling most of his gear and focusing on a straight job. Andreas describes those years as “pure misery.” One day he started playing again and answered an ad looking for a guitar teacher. In the process of teaching others, and playing a lot of guitar, he realized he was infinitely more happy with this arrangement. He releases his own material and does some session work, but Eric made a choice to focus on something which has become second nature to him, teaching. He began posting instructional videos online and currently has in excess of 76,000 subscribers. His videos have been viewed in excess of 2 million times; uploaded a mere 19 million times. Because of a demand for greater instruction, he began producing instructional Ebooks for the students who needed more than what the videos had to offer. As a result his ebooks sell steadily and are reaching a worldwide market because of his direct relationship with his students. This sort of direct connection with a global market wasn’t even possible until recently. Andreas own work ranges from the surprisingly sublime and understated to overblown and grandiose. With recorded performances that can hold their own among the likes of Joe Satriani and Tony Macalpine. It would be easy to focus on the wild flourishes of speed he brings to the fretboard, but his more subtle moments hint at Robin Trower, and Gary Moore and when he plays acoustically, Paco De Lucia and Al Di Meola. In the future, we can expect to be wowed by Andreas effortless playing. Not only does he make it look easy, he shows most anyone can command a guitar if their willing to be taught.
