Ruminations in Korea

Recently, I have been getting a number of hits from google and other search engines from people searching for “korean guitarist,” “Impressive Korean Guitarist”, and similar terms.

I think they are searching for Jeong-Hyun Lim, a Korean guitarist who was written up in the New York Times. I first became aware of him in an article on Marmot’s Hole posted by R. Elgin.

It seems that Lim has become an internet sensation because of this video of him playing a rock arrangement of Pachelbel’s Canon:

As a guitarist, I offer my assessment of him: Not a bad kid. He has memorized a difficult piece. However, to me, his playing is robotic and emotionless, very much like Yingwie Malmsteen. As a guitar-playing, robotic parrot, he’s good. As an emotive musician with a wide range of dynamics and feeling, he’s not very good.

There are better Korean guitarists out there. People coming to my site end up at an earlier post I wrote about a very good, impressive Korean guitarist named Zack Kim, who is also self taught.

Here’s Zack playing the same piece, at its intended speed and with much more feeling….oh yeah. Before I forget, he is playing it on two guitars at the same time.

Watch Zack play Mozart’s Piano Sonata in C major here…on two guitars at the same time.