6/28/07

Yngwie J. Malmsteen


Malmsteen was born into a musical family in Stockholm. Yngwie was the youngest child in the family. On September 18, 1970, at age seven, he saw a television news broadcast reporting on the death of Jimi Hendrix which caused him to become obsessed with the guitar. The news segment showed only a clip of Jimi Hendrix burning his guitar, but no actual songs. To quote his official website, "The day Jimi Hendrix died, the guitar-playing Yngwie was born".

At the age of 10 he took his mother's maiden name Malmsteen as his surname, and Anglicised his given name Yngve to "Yngwie".

Malmsteen was in his teens when he first encountered the music of the 19th century violin virtuoso Niccol? Paganini, whom he cites as his biggest classical influence. Through his emulation of Paganini concerto pieces on guitar, Malmsteen developed a prodigious technical fluency. Malmsteen also cites Jimi Hendrix, Brian May of Queen, Steve Hackett of Genesis, Uli Jon Roth, and Ritchie Blackmore of Deep Purple as influences.

Malmsteen broke new ground and contributed to the evolution of modern rock guitar, particularly with his embracing of modal progressions and classically-influenced techniques not widely used in rock music. He is often credited, along with Randy Rhoads, with increasing the popularity of the neoclassical heavy metal genre and inspiring a new generation of electric guitarists including Paul Gilbert, Jason Becker, and Tony MacAlpine.

See his guitar tips, guitar technique on VDO box above

Photo from http://www.actiontab.com/artist_bio.html?id=20

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taps gallery audio&video clips

Yngwie Malmsteen + New Japan Philharmonic/Far beyond the sun

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