Leonardo Guzman: Wins Guitar On Sky's first competition

For future competitions follow: Guitar On Sky

Thanks to Edwin Mclean for organising his first guitar competition and getting some great guitar players involved with the judging. Judges for this competition include Conrad Schrenk, Jack Thammarat, Damjan Pejcinoski, Edwin Mclean and little old me, Laurie Monk.

Congratulations to all entrants, as I know it takes a lot of guts and energy to sit down and video yourself for these competitions. So well done you! Once the votes were counted and ordered this is the final scoring and the winner is... Leonardo Guzman.

1st Place: Leonardo Guzman
2nd Place: Brian Auer
3rd Place: Haru Timothy

Leonardo Guzman continues to impress players with his technique and style. I think he is one of the impressive of the new wave of global guitar players. With state of the art licks and a dash of panache, Leonardo is always one to watch for in competitions. Leonardo Guzman also placed well in the recent Daniele Gottardo competition.

Guitaronsky Shredding Contest - Result


With my voting this time, I approached it slightly differently to normal. Rather than in depth review of each video, I went with my gut instinct on this one, pulling videos that did not make me instantly think, this appeals to me. Having seen them all I always knew it was going to be tough to pick from a list of great entries. I thought the overall backing track may be not as easy to solo as first appears, particularly getting the timing to the main theme right.

So how did I short list and pick my top ten? Well, for this competition you still have me selecting by my taste for guitar playing, with those added extras necessary to win a competition. The things that are added to my taste, are things like some degree of original sound, a sprinkling of great chops, some improvisational attributes and the solo piece has to have some an overall "story". On refection, I think Brian fit the bill, with his quickly put together solo, which had a lot of these qualities.


Laurie Monk's top 10

1 Brian Auer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EE0qKq4350
2 Pedro Molina http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kk8PRlqdJC8
3 Leonardo Guzman http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gd1Y9-J6T38
4 Bagus Nugroho http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hECAEpWBv7g
5 Mark McGuigan http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wc9veL81gp4
6 Morgan Reid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lPP9dFgGQ4
7 Hussein Haddad http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7HrmPNNxDU
8 Ivan DeFender http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8Jnmau-sX4
9 JFURAS http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsh6QyV1PQ8
10 Georgi Stanchev http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHTNyvT1eLs