Why Marcin is changing the acoustic guitar whether you like it or not
At his sold-out show at New York City’s Gramercy Theatre in June – his first ticketed show on US soil – Polish guitar wizard Marcin musically coerced the crowd into a hushed silence, the kind one would expect at the more affluent Carnegie Hall, not a more contemporary space such as this. His 85-minute set consisted of original material off his upcoming record Dragon In Harmony, reimagined contemporary covers, and superlative shock-and-awe interpretations of songs as diverse as Kashmir and Moonlight Sonata.
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With his rapid-fire combination of Flamenco, classical, and percussive fingerstyle, he covered the lead, rhythm, and harmonic sections by his lonesome. The accessibility of sound, lighting, and smoke effects in this environment only enhanced the mystique of his performance further. A few days later, we sat down to chat about his rapid rise.
Marcin Patrzalek was born and raised in Kielce, Poland at the turn of the Millennium, and began playing guitar at age 10. Clearly blessed with a rare talent and dedication, it wasn’t long before young Marcin began showcasing his skills at local talent shows, which soon gave way to rather more high profile appearances on not-so-local, talent shows, most notably America’s Got Talent. At 18 years of age he made the semi-finals of the long-running show, but quickly pivoted to social media, building on the profile AGT had given him to become one of the most followed guitarists on Instagram – eclipsing guitar culture mainstays like Mateus Asato, Sophie Lloyd and even Keith Richards.
“It may sound anticlimactic, but I’ve never been a ‘troubled artist,’” Marcin reflects of his rapid rise and the brutal four hours a day practice regimen it takes to get there. “It’s all fun. I had goals. If I knew I wanted to complete a given piece, say, a classical piece, for a competition coming up in a month, I’d fulfil that goal. Anything else was just extra.”
Image: Press
Home Body
As his stock has grown, both online and in the public zeitgeist, Marcin, now a road warrior, admits that the touring lifestyle and its many charms don’t really appeal to him. Despite not seeming overly sentimental about it, he still sees Poland as his sanctuary.
“What my job is, is not touring, playing ‘public’ corporate gigs… or even releasing music,” he says. “The way that I would categorise it is that my job is to have an idea, that hopefully people like, and to realise that idea. That’s the way that I make my living… whether it’s a piece of music, or a hoodie that I put on my website… all of that. I can have ideas in different places, but in order to realise them, I need to do that in my house. Or I need to wake up, go to my coffee place, sit down and actually work.”
The realisation of at least some of his ideas has led to acclaim from A-list artists, both from the pop and guitar worlds, but his style of playing became a point of contention amongst traditionalists.
“It’s pretty challenging to evolve technique in a digestible way,” he says. “For a typical listener, any new technique is usually quite jarring. Some people feel it’s too much, and that’s fine. I’m happy there is discussion.”
Killing It
Marcin responds to the discussion in particularly punchy and some would say provocative fashion with the opening two original tracks on Dragon In Harmony – Guitar Is Dead and I Killed It.
“It’s literally a response to those purists… like a double entendre,” he says. “It’s like, if I am this asshole that’s ruining the guitar because I’m trying to play experimentally, then, congrats, the guitar is dead. Then I Killed It is saying, ‘Yes, I AM the bad guy,’… but it’s also ‘I killed it,’ like I’m doing something right.”
This idea of acknowledging progressiveness similarly applies to Marcin’s growing playbook, and guitar culture overall. “I don’t enjoy imitating anybody else, or myself even from a few years back,” he says. “In the percussive, acoustic realm, barely anything has been done. If you compare it to electric guitar… we haven’t even scratched the surface. Any realm that I put it in is an exciting and new technical, but also sonic, experience.”
Image: Press
Going In Circles
Watching him weave his intricate guitar patterns at the Gramercy show, Marcin maintains constant sound by way of a repetitive, and surely second nature, circular motion. A note was made, proposing the question whether his use of this motion is due to an awareness of the amount of time a note can linger before it ceases to exist, or if he is simply following what he sees as a natural progression.
“For rearranging something… making it anew, the answer, for me, is not changing the core of the melody, or harmony,” he explains. “What I do alternate from the original a lot is the rhythm and the percussion. I do not want to play like John Bonham on Kashmir. Kudos to him, but if I do that, I am one of many people who can do that. What I like doing is taking in those gaps that are left between the melody and the harmony, and filling them in with nicks and nacks on the body of the guitar, which creates this syncopation after every beat. It’s organic, like ghost notes for a drummer.”
A byproduct of this circular motion is the regular use of a sound reminiscent of a DJ scratching a record. This despite his hands, at least to the naked eye, nowhere near the expected placement – the source of it is right there on his guitar.
“It’s just the right-hand scratch-pad motion,” he says. “It’s basically an unpolished piece of spruce with lines cut out by scissors, like a cheese grater. It’s just the motion of all of the fingers joined together, scratching back-and-forth. So, if I’m doing a percussive run with the right hand, one of the points of the circle is going to be the scratch pad… so if I lower the ring finger and scratch it a bit, there’s going to be a millisecond scratch. You won’t even see it, then I can do a snare drum. The snare pops back to home, so I can do it all again.”
Dragon In Harmony, Marcin’s debut record set for release next month, is a partial reference to Carl Jung’s 1964 book Man and His Symbols, which explores the globally-recognized idea of the mythical dragon. The project features expertly performed reinterpretations of songs such as Nirvana’s Heart-Shaped Box and Sade’s Smooth Operator, the latter displaying a pleasant dip into the neo-soul genre that diversifies his repertoire further.
The record also features a plethora of original tunes, with vocal assists from Portugal. The Man, Delaney Bailey, and more on select tracks. Bite Your Nails, a reference to the coated nails of his right hand, and I Don’t Write About Girls, his instrumental ‘pop’ approach in regard to a breakup, are standouts.
His hope for this record is that listeners, critics, and fellow musicians set aside the fancy buzzwords… genius, whiz, prodigy, etc., in favour of just one: original.
Marcin’s ‘Dragon in Harmony’ is out on 13 September 2024 via Sony Music
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Source: www.guitar-bass.net
