Dominic Frasca is a guitar player, more famous by his YouTube video called ‘’Impossible guitar’’. Video has at last count 39,305,349 hits. After seeing his video, we at Vintage & Rare were totally blown away.
Could you please tell us a bit about your background as a musician and how you got into playing music? Do you remember any specific moment that sparked your interest in music?
I have always listened to the music from an early age. I had four older sisters and an older brother who turned me onto everything from Stevie Wonder, Steely Dan to Disco. But it was when I started listening to AC/DC that I really decided I wanted to play guitar.
Do you have formal musical education?
I got my degrees in classical guitar and Composition from University of Arizona and Yale.
What musicians or bands have inspired the most over time?
Prince, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Maurice Ravel, Anthony Davis, Iron Maiden, Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Wonder, Pink Floyd to just name a few.
From a hard rock guitar player you became a classical player. What inspired you to go in this direction?
It was kind of in the air for my generation. There was a big neo-classical thing happening with a lot of the electric players of the 80’s so it seemed natural to progress to classical. I really enjoyed the discipline and the musical structure that classical had to offer, but in the end I am still a rocker in my heart.
How important do you see Youtube as a promotion tool and channel for you?
Youtube really changed everything for musicians as well as most other profession. Whether you are a street fighter or a comedian or a guitarist you can now reach so many people without ever leaving your home. This also means now that you need to be educated and have skills in many areas such as video, marketing, engineering etc. In a lot of ways it is a great time to be a musician.
Please tell us something about the Fixations project.
Fixations is an ongoing piece I created for surround sound and surround video which I perform in my performance space The Monkey in NYC. Fixations deals with those things that people fixate on from money to sex to religion. After having played guitar for so many years I really wanted to create something that stretched beyond just the guitar.
So I built a performance space and started experimenting with everything visuals sound design to what type of drinks people have when they come to the performance. The space in a lot of ways is the last extension of my instrument and when people come to see the show it is like they are entering into my mind, which for some people is not always a good thing.
Any famous last words?
In the words of Viv Savage from Spinal Tap “Have a good time all the time”.
www.dominicfrasca.com
https://itunes.apple.com/au/album/deviations/id448474429
Would you like to add something about Dominic? Please leave a comment…
