Mark Lettieri - what a monster

Does anyone here dig his playing ?
What a monster guitarist. He grooves like no one else, and his solo on ‘Can’t wait for perfect’ from Bob Reynolds is probably my favourite guitar solo of all times.
I’m not massively into his solo albums but he has some insane clips on Instagram.

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He’s an incredibly inspiring player. His rhythmic choices and overall sense of groove put a smile on my face every time I hear him play.

From a mechanical point of view, I don’t know if he does anything different/interesting picking wise.

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In terms of pure picking mechanics I don’t think there’s much to talk about, but he does do some very cool hybrid and finger-style playing.

Edit: actually there’s not that many players that really take advantage of the dynamic contrasts form mixing fingers and picks - he’s one of them, another one that comes to mind with his amazing phrasing is Jean-Marie Ecay.

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I’ve met him a few times through my friendship with Erykah Badu…I live in Houston and he went to North Texas State in D/FW which has a legendary music program…Norah Jones being another student.

He’s a really funny and humble guy and his chops and theory prowess are unbelievable…but that should be expected from someone with so much orthodox training. He’s a huge Van Halen fan and we talk about Eddie…mostly because of my love for VH and total ignorance about theory and fusion.

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I’m not familiar with this player but very curious after reading your posts. Could you link some representative videos of his playing for reference? Thanks!

Checkout the guitar solo on this track

And his Instagram
https://instagram.com/mjlettieri?igshid=6fpl1kqfucnt

He’s also on many of Snarky Puppy’s tracks.

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Great player, I haven’t payed enough attention to him. I hear him channeling Jeff Beck when he was playing with his fingers/bar.

Seriously this riff is so good:

And his left foot is more accurate than my metronome :smile:

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Fantastic. I admire this style of super-groovy playing, it’s so far away from the things I can do!

PS: He does not use DWPS-USX exclusively, but my first impression is that a lot of the riffing he does is based on that (often with the help of rest strokes for a more “assertive” feel).

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Yes I noticed the same with regards to rest strokes and UPX.
I wonder how he practiced to get to such tight time keeping and fluency with syncopations.

Lettieri has some great lessons on Soundslice that break down his approach to rhythm and funk lines. I’ve got some fun ideas and tricky grooves out of them!

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Thanks! I had totally forgotten about that.

A big thanks to @LuckyMojo and @lysander for bringing this player under my attention. That “can’t wait for perfect” solo/jam is brilliant; it’s like a complete guitar lesson in one song. Super groovy, tight, fingers, pick, different sounds, riffs, double stops, single lines, tremolo, only thing missing is a slide and playing with his teeth :grin: Will certainly check him out on soundslice.

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Cool stuff @LuckyMojo ! Would you recommend any of the courses in particular? I don’t know about the others but in my case I’d be interested in songs / musical etudes, not so much in “exercises”. Thanks!

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I bought them both yesterday, they are both based on songs and etudes, but the gruvskool is more focused on hardcore funk syncopations than the Lettieri approach to guitar.
Both seem excellent and I’m looking forward to working my way through them !

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Never heard of this guy before, but he’s my new favorite.

I learn about a lot of great players here, but they are usually in styles that I don’t play and don’t listen to except for checking out players and stealing ideas (metal, bluegrass, blues, etc.). Mark Lettieri is right up my alley both playing and listening. Now that Prince is gone :disappointed_relieved:, Mark is as close as I have found to the living embodiment of what I want to be, guitarwise.

Thanks so much for introducing me to his music.

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