When you're Al Di Meola, you get talked about a lot, and in most any magazine concerning guitars, acoustic or electric. Al can play either as well as anyone, and there really are some very significant differences in technique concerning playing acoustic and electric guitar. Mr. Di Meola, and his powerful technique master all.

As the story goes, Al, growing up in New Jersey, had joined some rock and roll band as a teen, but was kicked out of the band, as he sounded nothing like Peter Green, or Jeff Beck, or anyone else who was then famous. Can you imagine that? What a poor eye for talent that band had. I'm willing to bet the farm that that little group never left the ground, never recorded anything that anyone wanted to hear twice, and forever curses their immaturity.

A thing which bothers me is when someone says something which seems to suggest being a musician isn't really work. Facts are, to be a professional musician you are required to spend every bit as much time and energy developing your craft as any professional or Olympic athlete. You have to dedicate your life to music in the same way a pro baseball player or football player has to dedicate his life to the sport.

As a general rule, rock music and country music are often very simple forms of music. Some groups or bands, or even solo artists employee greater degrees of complexity than others. Jazz music, however, is typically one of the more complex forms of music there is. Fusion, if possible, is even more complicated, as it is Jazz mixed with practically any or all other forms of music found across the world. Al Di Meola has made his name as a jazz fusion artist, and he's incorporated many a genre from across the globe into his highly complex playing; but none more than he has the many forms of Latin music.

As a prototypical Caucasian, it's sort of demeaning; but the truth of the stereotype is real. Latin and African rhythms are often much more complicated than those common and waltz time signature tunes. Al Di Meola, like another fine artists, Paul Simon, isn't the least bit afraid of attempting to work within such musical formats. It's no stretch at all to say that either of those two have mastered them, as much as can be the case for anyone

Paul Simon, no slouch of a guitarist himself, featuring Al Di Meola on one of his solo records; specifically, the song "Allergies," from the 1983 album called Hearts and Bones .