Ultimate World Guitar Exhibition, Bologna, Italy

The free concert featured a bevy of world class guitarists, including our own Seymour W. Duncan along with Yngwie Malmsteen, George Lynch, Jennifer Batten, Glenn Hughes, Doug Aldrich, Ricky Portera, and Stef Burns; along with Neil Murray on bass and Gregg Bissonette on drums. Over 30,000 rabid guitar fans braved the rains and stayed well past midnight to experience this once-in-a-lifetime assemblage of guitar talent.

This concert was held on May 15, 2010 in Bologna, Italy. The venue was Piazza Maggiore, the 800 year old public square widely considered to be Italy’s finest. Bologna was chosen for this year’s Ultimate World Guitar Exhibition, because it was recognized by UNESCO as a world heritage music site.

Strapping on a Jackson® soloist, Seymour was quite comfortable amongst rock’s royalty, all of whom had their guitars tuned down to Eb. Though Seymour generally plays fingerstyle without a pick, when he found himself in the “middle of a million notes melee,” he quickly borrowed a Two Euro coin and used it as a plectrum to shred with the best of ’em.

One highlight was the classic “Smoke on the Water,” with Deep Purple’s Glenn Hughes on vocals and Yngwie blazing out front. According to Yngwie, “Because I wasn’t with my own band, the goal was to keep it straight and keep it simple and then let my guitar playing speak for itself. I have to say, it was major fun for me. Really great. Really magical.” The video, in which you can see Seymour and George sharing licks, is quickly becoming a YouTube.com favorite.

And speaking of Mr. Malmsteen, he donated one of his signature Fender® Strat® guitars to the City of Bologna. About his new signature Seymour Duncan model pickups, the YJM Fury, he says, “I found something I never thought was possible: the best of all worlds, the power, the definition, the violin-tone, the sustain, the bite, and everything.”

Fender, Strat and Jackson are registered trademarks of FMIC with which Seymour Duncan is not affiliated.

Seymour W. Duncan Clinics in Italy

In May 2010, I took part in the Ultimate World Guitar Exhibition in Bologna, Italy where I performed for 30,000 people along with Yngwie Malmsteen, George Lynch, Jennifer Batten, Glenn Hughes, Doug Aldrich, Ricky Portera, and Stef Burns; with Neil Murray on bass and Gregg Bissonette on drums. As long as I was in Italy, I figured I’d do one of my favorite things, which is to visit players and talk to them about guitars and tone.

In Rome, I put on a clinic at the Saint Louis College of Music. And in Bologna, I spoke at Music Academy 2000. At both clinics, I talked about my early musical influences like Duane Eddy, The Fendermen, Les Paul & Mary Ford; and later influences like Roy Buchanan, Jimi Hendrix, and Jeff Beck. To this day, I get comments from folks who come out to watch me play and tell me they hear my early influences in my playing. I consider that a great honor.

I talked about my early days working at the Fender Sound House in London where I had the pleasure of working with Jeff Beck, Free, Bad Company, Robert Palmer, Pink Floyd, Genesis, Golden Earring, Marc Bolan, Slade and Rory Gallagher. I also talked about some of the folks who were major influences on me as I decided to get into pickup building: folks like Les Paul, Leo Fender, George Fullerton and Seth Lover. Working with those artists and being able to interact with those musical instrument luminaries has always influenced how we conduct business to this day.

And finally, I got a chance to talk about my present career and how we build pickups and stompboxes for a variety of the best players in the world, as well as for the thousands of folks who simply want to sound better. In Italy, one of the highlights for me was meeting a local customer who had me re-wind his P-Bass pickup 25 years ago. I remembered him!

I want to send out big thanks to Casale Bauer, my distributor over in Italy. And to the fans who came out to catch my clinics and listen to me sit in with a bunch of world class guitars players. This is a trip I’ll remember for a long, long time.