By Mark Kemp
In a recent interview with Radio Veronica, the pioneering hard rock/heavy metal guitarist Ritchie Blackmore talked about why he prefers playing acoustic guitar over electric today. You can watch him improvise on an acoustic in the clip above.
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“People are like, ‘Why do you play the acoustic guitar when you could play the electric?’ It’s because I want to, and it’s more difficult,” Blackmore says at minute mark 12:50 in the interview at this link. “I find it a lot easier just going onstage playing the rock & roll guitar, turning the amplifier up and blasting away. That, to me, is not a challenge. It’s fun; it’s not a challenge.
“I have adopted a different fingerstyle technique, and I play with all my fingers on the acoustic. When I play the electric, I play with a plectrum. So it’s totally different, the approach. Nothing is easy, but this music that we do in Blackmore’s Night is a lot more challenging. It’s like going onstage and you can’t hit them with volume and just jump around the stage. You’ve actually got to actually deliver something.”
Listen to the full interview here: