Nito, Ichika

The Canadian solo artist on his preferred techniques

“The first thing that attracts me to a player is the touch. It’s their vibrato, the sound of their hands. It’s not about how much technique they’ve developed, or what they can do with the guitar. It’s more about notes, pitch, harmony, songwriting, and melody. It’s the stuff that you don’t develop in the first 10 years of playing guitar. It’s the stuff that takes a lifetime. I use some legato lines, hybrid picking stuff, some of the bending stuff. I watch [myself] back and it’s like, ‘Oh sh*t, I’m doing that again!’ I like to take a note that’s not in key, just so there’s a bit of tension, then bend it up. Like, I’ll take the

b5,

bend it to [the] 5. Basically, I like to take stuff that’s not in [key], and bend it in. With legato, I like string skipping stuff. I do a lot of stuff with the volume knob and pickup slider – the guts of the guitar.”