Review by Howard Keith (Farmhouse Studios)
Review by Reuben Dimech
Review by Eric Montfort
Review by Yannick Pace
Review by Peter Borg
Review by Patrick Harvey
Review by Robert Tomasuolo
Review by Alexei Sammut
Review by Samuel Sultana
Review by Daniel Rosner
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By Peter Borg
"I am writing to say how JeanPierre Zammit influenced me, Peter
Borg, both as a guitarist and a person. He influenced me as a guitarist,
first of all because of the fact that he is in my opinion and many
others like me, one of the best, if not the best, guitarist in Malta, so
I look up to him a lot and when you look up to a musician you
automatically learn from him. He has mastered all the techniques one
could possibly imagine on the guitar. He knows each scale note for note
and doesn't stick to the simple pentatonic when writing music.
I went to JeanPierre Zammit before I even knew how to hold a pick in my
right hand, and only 5 years later, i.e. 5 years of JeanPierre's
lessons, I can play a reasonable solo and write a reasonable
riff, still NOWHERE near his level though!! JeanPierre is a great
teacher because he shows you how to position your left hand, and how the
right hand should correspond. He will show you the scales, note for
note, and all the theory behind them. That is just a start. Later on he
will start showing you power chords, and the world of riffing in rock
music. When you master this, he will start you off on a little bit of
soloing and vibrato techniques. I remember I started off with blues and
people still tell me that I have a bluesy touch to my playing. He also
showed me hammers and pull-offs, tapping. Later on, he showed me, in my
opinion, the coolest form of soloing in rock music, the legato. This is
JeanPierre's forte, because he has mastered this technique in huge
amount of detail, as one can see in the middle of the song Deep Joy
Within. Therefore this is how JeanPierre influenced me in my guitar
playing. If it weren't for him I am nowhere near the level I am today
both technically and theoretically.
Before, I said that he also influenced me as a person. This is because
thanks to him I matured a lot as regards to my songwriting. JeanPierre
always told me that when writing a solo or a song I must not simply
improvise around for example, a pentatonic, but I must add a theme to my
solo. Therefore he influenced me as a person because I don't thing of
the world solo and just think of very fast licks, I think of a melody
that creates a theme and matches with the theme of the song. He also
whilst songwriting it is important to keep your style, in our case
Classic Rock, but it has to be catchy, modern, and most importantly
original. Therefore when me and my band write music, we write songs with
the classic rock roots, but with modern sounds and styles because
although we all love classic rock, we know that we have to be original.
Some may say that JeanPierre is an imitation of Joe Satriani or Steve
Vai. I do not agree, because although their style is similar and
JeanPierre can easily play whatever Satriani or Vai play, JeanPierre has
acoustic based rhythms, which makes him different from the other guitar
heroes therefore original."
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