GUITAR HEROES: NUNO BETTENCOURT

Nuno Duarte Gil Mendes Bettencourt (born September 20, 1966) is a Portuguese-American guitarist and singer-songwriter best known for his role as the lead guitarist of the Boston hard rock band Extreme whose hits include the acoustic ballads "More Than Words" and "Hole Hearted". The songs reached #1 and #4, respectively, on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in 1991.

He has since recorded a solo project called Schizophonic as well as with bands he founded including Mourning Widows, Population 1, DramaGods, and more recently with The Satellite Party (headed by Jane's Addiction's former frontman and Lollapalooza co-founder Perry Farrell).

Since 1990, Bettencourt has had his own line of custom guitars designed by Washburn Guitars. His line is known as the N-Series, and is currently promoting the Washburn N4.

As a guitarist and songwriter, Bettencourt draws from an eclectic variety of styles and influences. However, his most prominent work has been in the realm of rock and heavy metal guitar despite his most popular commercial hits being acoustic songs. Bettencourt's technical guitar playing is influenced by many different guitar players who have key attributes in their playing, that have rubbed off on Nuno such as Eddie Van Halen, Al Di Meola and Jimmy Page, while his solos and sense of melody are influenced by Brian May of Queen. He is particularly adept at arpeggios articulated via string-skipping tapping. One of the strongest elements in Nuno's playing is his sense of rhythm, often using a very loose wrist technique to execute fast triplet picking licks to create a funky sound to his rhythm playing and also his use of poly-rhythms to blur bar lines and create a unique sound.

In December 1990, Washburn Guitars unveiled the Washburn N4 Nuno Bettencourt Signature Series - a series of Bettencourt-designed guitars which endures today.

The Nuno Bettencourt models are flagshipped by the American hand-made Washburn N4. The Washburn N4 guitar is a small reverse headstock super-strat which features the unique Stephen's Extended Cutaway neck joint for easy access to the higher frets. It also contains Bill Lawrence and Seymour Duncan pickups, and a Floyd Rose licensed tremolo. The production budget model of this guitar which was machine built in Korea is known as the N2 and features a standard bolt-on neck. The N3 was a short run Korean reproduction of the Washburn N4 using Washburn stock pickups. The original N2 and N3 guitars were prototype guitars built for Nuno. The N2 lacking the Stephen's Extended Cutaway and the N3 using a Bill Lawrence L500-R in the neck rather than the Seymour Duncan 59. Other models include The N5 and N6. Nuno has also endorsed several Washburn acoustic models. (from Wikipedia)




tutorial:
http://rapidshare.com/files/258227114/Nuno_Bettencourt-Guitar_Demonstration_.rar

enjoy!
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zuluwashere