Daang-Daang - Dang-Dang-Dang

The invisible sound of air guitar

The air guitar is unique in the world of imaginary instruments. Of course, one can witness occasional jingling and drumming, but there is no such thing as air piano or air drums.
"To play a song on the air guitar means having your lyrics and music resonate between the outer walls of the world and the inner walls of your soul as loud as possible," writes Roel Bentz van den Berg. The Dutchman named his article about rock music in the NRC Handelsblad Kolumnen "De luchtgitaar". Not later than guitarists stopped acting well behaved on stage, did the fans try to express their feelings about the music by playing air guitar.

But whoever thinks that, contrary to real guitar, anybody can play air guitar is mistaken. On the Internet or in books one can find advice on how to perfect ones air guitar technique. The student of air guitar learns to play in sync with the music. Although he is not required to play real chords, he has to watch his fingering, since different notes have to be expressed differently. Also the picking technique has to be varied according to the music. Most of all, he will have to work constantly on his gestures and mimic. The air guitarist moves like his real idol: He falls to his knees, imitates the duck walk of Angus Young or tries to copy the legendary jump of Pete Townshend. He underlines his performance with expressive mimicry.

Once the air guitarist has achieved a certain skilfulness, he can compete on an international level. Every year the world championships take place in Oulu, Finland. In 2003 the champion was C.Diddy (aka David Young) from the United States. After winning the national preliminaries he competed with the champions of Austria, Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Belgium, Finland, Norway and Great Britain. Germany did not participate last year.

You can even buy air guitars on ebay. At first, this sounds like joke. Who would want to spend money on air? But what you get is an inflatable guitar. Admittedly, they contain a lot of air, but a real air guitarist would never perform with such a dummy. Just like Tennis rackets and brooms such an air guitar can only be a rehearsal device. On the websites of German air guitarists many praise those inflatable guitars or other home made devices.
Maybe that is the reason why Germany was not represented at the world championships. The rules require that the instrument must be invisible.

Thomas Kronenberg

Literature:

Van den Berg, Roel Bentz, Die Luftgitarre. Bowie, Springsteen und all die anderen, Frankfurt/M. 1999

West, Ian / Gladdis, Steve, How to Play Air Guitar. All the Greatest Moves from your Guitar Heroes, London 2002