Don Ross plays "Aerial Boundaries" by Michael Hedges

[funnystuff1284]

man it just goes to show you how amazing michael hedges was, if someone like don ross had troubles playing it, granted he hasnt played it in a long time, the song looks easy to play but damn i hear its hard.

[Soilwar]

It's good to see even masters forget songs they've learned some time ago!

[edshift]

I think it was amazing playing on someone else's guitar from memory.

I mean really. Put a guy on the spot?

He did well.

[LukeSniper]

Don is such a wonderful person and musician. I'd love to see him perform this piece on a guitar he was more comfortable with (and not trying to pull it from memory on the spot)

[HarrrySpider]

Michael wrote the liner notes to Don Ross’ first CD, Bearing Straight (1989):

"... I play the guitar because it let’s me dream out loud. Don’s record is like a good dream. I can’t tell you what the dream is about, but I can feel it. Thanks for the music, Don. Love, Michael Hedges..."

[ehhhhhhhhhh]

So funny watching Don fuck up. I've watched 50+ videos of him and never seen him screw up.

[catamaranman333]

Yeah yeah, Taylors are great guitars but I'd stay away from the ones with the 3d pickup that uses a "aa" battery. The battery vibrates in its "niche" badly and the official fix from Taylor was to wrap a post-it note around the battery. It helps but doesn't eliminate the buzzing, especially when heard through studio monitors. After nothing could be done to fix the problem, I traded mine in on the D-35 I've been wanting forever. IMO Martin is the better sounding guitar, 2x the price though!

[byange821]

oh...after all...don is human..

[hypekillacsplaya]

this goes to show how good michael hedges was, don ross is an amazing guitar player, the guitar here is small for his hands but michael played it so flawlessly, lol.

[GibsonHummingbird]

more power to DR . i love watching this 'warts and all' Thanks Don.

[rastatouf2225]

It makes me happy to see that even him can have some trouble playing....

[sacredgeometry]

what model of taylor is that? the neck looks incredible.

Beautiful playing Don i really wanted him to the beautiful riff at the end though:(

[alefingerstyleguitar]

Don Ross Great guitar player!!!

[jksdvb8]

to be honest, i think this is an amazing rendition of aerial boundiares, really nice tone aswell in my opinion

[DuskY1991]

Dammit Don, slow down! Helpful video too actually.

[kaylylyn]

Enjoy!

[Koto1013]

thanks for this interesting post. Just shows you how well a guy like don ross can "wing it". This guy is freaking amazing.

[mrtraumatic]

Respecting Don's amazing skills, wondeful music and videos and guitarmusic1's profile, I think this one should be removed.

In my opinion Aerial Boundariecs shouldn't sound like that...

[guitarmusic1]

I'm not going to remove this video. It is what it is. Maybe it doesn't have any value as a rendition of Aerial Boundaries but it shows how open Don is in his workshops and his skill at remembering a difficult tune he hadn't played for many years.

[catamaranman333]

@guitarmusic1 great video....if nothing else it shows up close and personal the techniques Michael used for this song.

[Funkatronical]

learn to spell jack ass... lets see your videos...

[funkyjimbob]

What the fuck are you talking about? Why be such a pretentious tit? It's just a video of someone trying to play a song....

[amegatron07]

Disagree ... Only due to this video I got to know Michael Hedges who is now like an idol for me ...

[glebbezgin]

@amegatron07: totally, the same story!

[rovinglycan]

@mrtraumatic let's see you learn s song, then replay it in 10 years without practising it.

[Baker3939]

lol wow how can you mistake a taylor for an ibanez?

[bodylove33]

that is ibanez shit not good for a song like that but good job anyways don you are the man

[guitarmusic1]

It's a Taylor, not an Ibanez.  Read the description of the video.

[bodylove33]

ojojojoj sorry dude my misstake it looks very like Ibanez

[sacredgeometry]

@guitarmusic1 What an idiiot it even says taylor on the headstock :/ people these days....that and ibanez make some really nice affordable acoustics

[sacredgeometry]

@guitarmusic1 idiot*

[chaoticblue123]

Lol if you just look at the video you can clearly see that its a Taylor...

[RicardoBatistaPassos]

@bodylove33 Hey, first i have to say that ibanez is not shit... though there are greater options to play Michael Hedge song, ibanez have alot of greaat guitars that do the work for sure, and secondly, like people already said, its a Tayler dumb ass -_-.

If you delete your comment than ill delete mines...

[ScooterNerd]

Hedges lives on, channeled by young guitarists like Ross...McKee.

[abyxie]

Preston Reed.

[KNWProductions]

If Hedges was still alive Don Ross would be older than him

[Tman4000]

No. Michael passed when he was 43, in 1997. Don Ross is now 48 years old. If MH was still alive, he'd be 55 this December.

[stargate669]

How old would Don be in cat years?

[conancito]

ross is older than hedges would be...

[babbersabber]

can anyone send me the Tabs pls?! Pls Reply!

[SwissShuffle]

You wouldn't even need a tab if you were playing at this level :P

[veggieburgerfish]

michael, michael, michael...

see what I did there?

[L0PP0]

its incredible to see Don playing the leyendary "aerial bondaries" by Michae Hedges.... its such fucking great!!!

[stratosguitars]

lol

love don

[bobakalushbobakalush]

anyone know the tuning for this song

[Tman4000]

CCDGAD

[Tman4000]

"I always screw this part up..."

Nice to know I'm not the only one. :D

[Gregrg7]

Even through all that ham-handed clunking, it blows away any attempt I could have at that song.

[Stratboy999]

Good effort. about 500% better than I can play it, sad to say...

[oakvilledataguy]

Hey! I recognize that guitar. Sold it back in February. Needed to cull the herd to pay for the new Karol.

[Superterrestrial]

Gotta learn this.

[Tman4000]

I've been saying that for months

[jkshoujk]

"Wait... yeah, wait no... that's not it."

xD Gotta love Don Ross

[JoeLaFigue]

Very nice, we can see now thet the stuff you use is very important when you play music. Even master Don Ross has diffculties to play on another guitar than his own one.

Let's remember with this to always stay simple.

[govegove]

great playing, great song, although this reminds me of watching my friends in high school play guitar. We'd sit around for hours and they'd always be, "Oh wait..." every fifteen seconds when they screwed up. "Oh wait..." "Wait..." Still, I enjoyed this.

[stefguitar1000]

2:06 That wasnt a scratch Don i was watching!

[skibum1981]

Should raise the action on that Taylor Don! I can't hear the natural harmonics on the 12 fret at all...

[gragh]

hahahah i love it when he meses up and goes "oh.. well thats not right either"

[Peaceandfearlesslove]

hmmm..makes me want to buy an acoustic.

[bilabong267]

he could kill someone with those finger nails hes got their lol btw great song and hes an awsome guitar player

[robertreilly666]

don is a genius, equal to hedges and his playing of this peice is a mark of respect to mr. hedges.

[HereICome2SaveTheDay]

Uh, no.

But it is a Mark of respect.

[instrusam]

nice taylor

[mattjamison88]

It's the timing and rhythm that's the hardest part of this I think.

[cyrensong]

Don is awesome and this goes to show how difficult it was to play like Michael, MH played and tapped like it was easier than breathing...

[crunkykong]

Don was mostly having trouble remembering the song not the physicalites involved with actually playing it. That, and the Taylor guitar he was using has a fairly narrow neck for his big mitts.

[pappsmeere]

Neat.I'm learning this MONSTER of a tune rite now.HEY..all you guitar guys,even though he plays more electric guitar,check out STANLEY JORDAN another wicked 2 hand type styleist.

[GoldenYawn]

check out enver izmailov, deadly player.

[olsaltybastard]

I think it's great that other people are even attempting to learn how to play Michael Hedges music. I just don't see it showing up on "Guitar Hero" video games.

You have a good ear!!

[cloudbuster66]

taylors martins,gibsons fenders,all good,wish i had any of em,got a dean though nice sound

[thisisjustjeff]

I'm surprised he can get that kind of sound out of a Taylor... o_0

[camouflage9]

Taylors are fine guitars

[guitarmusic1]

As a Taylor owner, I also have to say Taylors are fine guitars (thisisjustjeff is probably a Martin owner). The only issue Don had with playing the Taylor was that the neck was narrower than what he was used to ... the guitar itself sounded great.

[camouflage9]

I've got a Taylor too, and it's awesome. Ha! yeah, every guitarist/music shop I know likes Taylors more than Martins.

[DubVGtr]

@guitarmusic1 Also, acoustics built for fingerstyle generally have wider spaced strings to allow for more precise finger picking. Classical guitars (used only for fingerstyle) have super wide strings compared to normal steel strings.

This more spacing at the nut really helps with the the difficult string muting while keeping the ostianoto going in aerial boundaries. Its a difficult song to cover in general but even worse with a very thin necked guitar.

[crunkykong]

there are some nice examples out there but overall they kinda strike me as acoustics for people who play mainly electric guitars

[SomeMuppet]

not really, yamaha takamine and ibanez fall more into that category. taylors are some of the finest sounding and readily available acoustics out there. the sound they produce is great (much better than martins at least) they also have great expression system. untill u get to the £2k+ region, i would say taylors are the best acoustic guitars you can buy

[incidentshappen]

I'm a Guild man meself- I have an 84 D-35 and It's probably one of the best sounding guitars, great deep bass and beautiful mids and highs.

[axisboldas]

It wasn't that he couldn't get it, he was pausing attempting to remember what was coming next. He obviously has the technique down, seems he hasn't played it in a while.

[YoruTaro]

Im kind of laughing that he couldnt get some of the parts but shit atleast now I know how hard it is @_@

[guitarmusic1]

It's not that Don found this tune "hard" to play, it's that he couldn't REMEMBER how to play it. The tune itself is not very difficult once you get Hedges' technique down (I learned to play it from John Stropes book). But someone in the workshop asked him out of the blue if he could play this tune and Don said he try to remember how to play it. Also, he was playing it on somebody else's guitar (a Taylor with a narrow neck) and Don has big hands.

[scootercat0]

This guy is a legend in his own right, to struggle with Hedges seminal tune is just further testament to Hedges' talent!

[yongtaufu]

if a person who could copy anyone's song perfectly without warmup and trial&error, i'll call him Einstein the second.

[jdean9]

even einstein couldn't do that

people become geniuses because they work hard

[SwissShuffle]

Kim peek :D

[myguitarstyle]

i disagree. hedges definately had talent and was a pioneer in his time for acoustic tapping. but ross was struggling to REMEMBER this song, not struggling to play it. Ross is a true virtuoso, i must say. Hedges songs aren't that hard, just a breakthrough during his time.

[jcphockey7]

some of Ross' pieces are just mindblowingly fast...this is true. But I'm a MUCH bigger fan of Hedges sound. As Michael said himself he was more of a composer; he wasn't highly technical. And I'll take beautiful composition over the slightly funky sound of Ross anyday

[jazzpsalti]

Hedges tunes are far more difficult than don ross tunes. You can tell a hedges cover that isn't phrased right, but with don ross' tunes you can go anywhere with them and they sound great. Don ross is a great introduction to fingerstyle guitar though, he's got all the tech stuff down to a tee

[kingary]

I would agree. The amazing thing about Hedges was not what he played, but what he didn't play: so much of his music depends on stopping strings from vibrating as much as getting them vibrating. "Two Days Old" is a perfect example of that.

[spiritrelaxhq]

you know... i searched for the song... /Two days old/ and listened to it... amazing... thanks for mentioning it here : )

[stuntbaby63]

Thanks for this. I'm a huge Hedges fan. Have you discovered the Japanese gutarist, Kotaro Oshio? If not, check him out. He picks up where Hedges left off.

[Gungosh]

hey, thanks for the hint, now i've discovered him ;)

[MuNkYBizNess]

Interesting insight, it looks far from easy to master

[stunned1]

Its amazing watching this, I've always wondered how it was played. I've used some of the same right hand tecknigue that Don uses but never thought is was legitimate...then I watch a genius like him and realize how nice it can sound. Gread vid.

[andrewgorny]

stop that!

[conancito]

heyheyhey!!! Im a big fan of Don oss to, so stfu! I just said that he cant compare to the others in tems of impovisation, performance and guita playing skills, but still one of the best out there!

[ehsanul]

can't compare to who? michael hedges?

[ubernaffa]

Lmfao, you've got no idea.

[conancito]

Don Ross is great, but no match o Michael Hedges or Tommy Emmanuel

[Poopfemur]

hah... it's different when you play a song you created he is just as good as they

[BubbaBrewski]

Why should it always be a competition?

[andrewgorny]

exactly! that's what tommy says!

[Helliconia]

Why is that you cant see one video without some idiot trying to turn it into a pissing contest. No one cares who you thinks better, just enjoy what you enjoy and stop trying to make it like music is some competition.

[toonstegen]

Wow he has really big hands

[Guitarman504]

Don, you've forgot more than most of us will ever learn. LOL. Thanks for posting these. You are an awesome player!