{"id":142982,"date":"2023-12-12T13:55:14","date_gmt":"2023-12-12T21:55:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/?p=142982"},"modified":"2023-12-12T13:55:20","modified_gmt":"2023-12-12T21:55:20","slug":"review-adrian-holovatys-playful-and-precise-melodic-guitar-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/review-adrian-holovatys-playful-and-precise-melodic-guitar-music\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Adrian Holovaty\u2019s Playful and Precise \u2018Melodic Guitar Music\u2019\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3TmFiwB\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"750\" height=\"750\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/melodic-guitar-music-Adrian-Holovaty-cover.jpg?resize=750%2C750&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"melodic-guitar-music-Adrian-Holovaty-cover\" class=\"wp-image-142984\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/melodic-guitar-music-Adrian-Holovaty-cover.jpg?w=750&amp;ssl=1 750w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/melodic-guitar-music-Adrian-Holovaty-cover.jpg?resize=500%2C500&amp;ssl=1 500w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/melodic-guitar-music-Adrian-Holovaty-cover.jpg?resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1 150w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/melodic-guitar-music-Adrian-Holovaty-cover.jpg?resize=300%2C300&amp;ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Adrian Holovaty, Melodic Guitar Music (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.holovaty.com\/melodic-guitar-music\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"holovaty.com\">holovaty.com<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>In his day job, Adrian Holovaty is the founder\/developer of Soundslice, an online music-learning tool that syncs audio, video, and music notation. In his free time, he\u2019s a fingerstyle guitarist who for the past 17 years has been posting covers of pop and rock songs on YouTube. (The boldest perhaps is a spirited <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=HWLs28oEJis\">Gypsy jazz version of Aerosmith\u2019s \u201cWalk this Way,\u201d<\/a> edited seamlessly with Steven Tyler\u2019s original vocals; the semi-classical theme from <em>MacGyver,<\/em> ending with a well-earned smirk of satisfaction, coming in a close second.) But <em><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3TmFiwB\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Melodic Guitar Music<\/a><\/em>, which Holovaty calls his \u201cfirst proper album,\u201d is something completely new: ten original instrumentals, all deliciously playful, that celebrate his love for melody, improvisation, Chet Atkins, the Beatles, and Django Reinhardt.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Melodic Guitar Music <\/em>exudes a Reinhardt\u2013like bounce, often propelled by a Chicago-meets-Amsterdam variant of <em>la pompe<\/em>, the rhythmic foundation of Gypsy jazz, played on Holovaty\u2019s 2016 Traditional model by Portland, Oregon, luthier Bob Holo. Atkins-inspired crispness manifests in the album\u2019s endlessly cool and complex variations, with Holovaty double-tracking himself on a 2010 Martin 000-15M. His reverence for the Beatles is apparent in the record\u2019s perpetual cheeriness and love for melody. And when all three influences come together\u2014say, on \u201cGrand Ole Bopry\u201d\u2014the results are astonishing: sweet, precise, and so light they defy gravity.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe title=\"Adrian Holovaty - Bluespop (from &quot;Melodic Guitar Music&quot;)\" width=\"1290\" height=\"726\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/h-cAldtUjrE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>When there\u2019s seriousness, like in \u201cThe Aching Waltz,\u201d it\u2019s a quiet counterpoint that easily resolves into sunshine, and when the mood turns light blue in \u201cBluespop,\u201d it\u2019s really just playfulness in a different key\u2014yet another reason to let the two guitars dance across the mix, leaving colorfully syncopated jazz riffs floating over the boom-chuck rhythm. And the melodies? Delightfully clever, exquisitely constructed, and impossible to listen to without a smile.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Holovaty\u2019s \u201cfirst proper album\u201d comprises ten instrumentals that celebrate his love for melody, improvisation, Chet Atkins, the Beatles, and Django Reinhardt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":142983,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"Holovaty\u2019s \u201cfirst proper album\u201d comprises ten instrumentals that celebrate his love for melody, improvisation, Chet Atkins, the Beatles, and Django Reinhardt.","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[885],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[1568],"class_list":["post-142982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-album-reviews"],"blocksy_meta":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Adrian-Holovaty-photo-bandcamp-e1701896046431.jpg?fit=800%2C552&ssl=1","authors":[{"term_id":1568,"user_id":0,"is_guest":1,"slug":"kenny-berkowitz","display_name":"Kenny Berkowitz","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Kenny-Berkowitz-Photo_web.jpg","url2x":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Kenny-Berkowitz-Photo_web.jpg"},"user_url":"","last_name":"","first_name":"","job_title":"","description":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142982"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142982\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":143020,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142982\/revisions\/143020"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142982"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=142982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}