At one end of the spectrum there are those guitar players — the ‘social players’ — who’ll share a few chords round the campfire every once in a while and then pop it back in the cupboard until the next gathering. At the other end, there are those who sit in their bedroom throughout their adolescence grafting away at a Van Halen solo until their skin is grey and their fingers are worn to the bone. But that sort of dedication can pay off, as this piece of superhuman virtuoso-ing demonstrates.

SPONSOR

This is a fantastic piece of guitar playing. The John Butler Trio have been tearing up the roots scene Down Under for years now, and you can see why. He looks like your average nu-age folk singer-songwriter, but his obvious deep-rooted connection to the guitar — as demonstrated by his staggering sense of rhythm and chord structure — are pretty exceptional.

Six years of playing down the line, and I only recently nailed my first Clapton song. The joy and relief it brought to me and my parents, who forever politely smiled as I destroyed tune after tune, was palpable. So, it was with bitter jealousy that I watched this kid, eight-years-old, doing nothing less than laying waste to the fretboard. He’s already playing major venues, and they predict he’ll be an international name within a few years. Little s**t.

The revolutionary Gibson Robot Les Paul Studio Limited Electric Guitar has some groundbreaking controls at your disposal. At first glance, the four control knobs seem to be indistinguishable from those on other Les Paul guitars. But look again. While the knobs do provide the standard tone and volume controls for each of the two pickups, the Multi-Control Knob (MCK) — the one with the illuminated top — serves as the master control for all aspects of the Robot Les Paul Studio Limited’s amazing self-tuning system. Which is kinda fun when you think about it.

Songsterr solves problems by creating tabs you can play back and along with in real time. As the song progresses, Songsterr indicates where you should be in the tab. Just what us guitar hacks needed. Now, where the hell is my Guitar Hero axe?

SPONSOR

Peter Nalitch is Russia’s answer to Manu Chao. His video for the song Guitar is a Borat-like jab at low-budget, post-Soviet awkwardness — absurd English lyrics, Eurotrash earnestness, bad wipes, and cheap subtitles. But its tongue-in-cheekness is quite apparent, and the song is disarmingly catchy and romantic.

I don’t care if Jimmy Hendrix was dragged kicking and screaming from where he lies, put through a torrid round of detox, and handed an invisible guitar – a Flying V carved out of the bones of Robert Johnson. It would still pale in comparison to this. You could throw Eddie Van Halen, Steve Vai, and that cute girl out of Pollyanna into a sack together and refuse to let them out until they had riffed out the greatest guitar solo ever and it would mean nothing. You hear me? Nothing. Because no one will ever play the air guitar better than C. Diddy. This shredding powerhouse is a bubbling furnace of grimaces and twitches, part theatre, part musicianship and completely unwired. Yes sir, there’s a fine line between insanity and genius, and Diddy crossed it about 40 seconds in. But heck, he is the master. The almighty tremolo pickin’, palm shredding master. And we should all bow down now to his holy temple of exuberance. [check out the original Air Guitar hero, Zac 'Mr Magnet' Monro, in action]