Am I the only one that can see Herr Austria rockin' an eight string guitar? I wanted to draw with with an Ibanez RG series, because I think that this man would appreciate music of all styles and instruments. He can master a piano and violin, and if this man is a fan of Chopin and Liszt, he's probably a fan of other intellectually stimulating music players like Paul Masvidal and Tosin Abasi.

I would've done Nodame Cantabile's Chiaki for this, but I feel that Chiaki seems too much of a classical elitist to appreciate other forms or interpretations of music lol. But Roderich here obviously takes a liking to his instrument. I mean this mofo is classy, he don't need a 6 string screw that he can make an 8 string guitar weep.

I'm a fan of heavy metal, but realize that heavy metal isn't just a bunch of distortion with some sweaty dude screaming in the mic, it can be so much more than that. Which is why I take a liking to certain progressive styles of music, as well as other genres. Much has root in classical music actually. (If you don't believe me compare Arnold Schoenburg's serialism vs Slayer's chromatic solos . Damn scary.)

I actually made this in tribute to Tosin Abasi, an amazing guitarist in the instrumental band Animals As Leaders, a progressive jazz-metal fusion or "djent", which is a groove-oriented percussive style with a lot of syncopation and polyrhythms. Playing this style requires knowledge of your scales and modes and of course a crap ton of practice with a metronome, or in other words music theory. Although personally, I'm not a fan of this new "djent" subgenre that has recently developed within the last few years, I really enjoy Tosin Abasi's guitar style. He plays from the heart, unlike a lot of technical players whom are just guitar wankers (or in guitar speak, play sweep arpeggios and tapping legatos really fast for the sake of showing off how much technical skill they have). But playing music is more than just that. Abasi's guitar style cascades with technicality and melody, he manipulates his instrument to his liking and can masterfully execute difficult techniques with competence and mix elements of jazz and metal to form a beautiful synthestia with chords.

Here's the picture reference: http://todayinart.com/files/2011/04/tosin-abasi.jpg

I might do a portrait of Abasi later.

A demonstration of his progressive metal style in Animals As Leaders, the song CAFO (probably what Austria is playing): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqYPhe18Wjs

And his jazz fusion in the same band, the song Soraya: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IOukULYgh0