Shai Agmon

Location: Doetinchem, Holland
Date of Birth: August 17, 1988
Been playing guitar since: 1999

I was born and grew up in Haifa, Israel. At age 11 I discovered Aerosmith and fell in love with the sheer power of Rock’n’roll and music. I asked my parents for guitar lessons, and they found me an exceptionally gifted teacher, who gave me a through musical foundation. I studied classical music, Spanish music, music theory and contemporary music.

Later on I picked up the electric guitar and during my teenage years I would spend countless hours practicing shredding techniques. I was absolutely determined to be able to play like my guitar heroes- Tony Macalpine, Yngwie Malmsteen, Jason Becker and the likes. Mastering the art of shredding has helped me developed strong discipline, determination and belief in myself. It also served to help me build a strong technical and musical foundation that allowed me to express myself flawlessly through the guitar.

Later on I expanded my musical horizons to other musical genres, started playing live and worked in various musical environments - accompanying singers, playing with wedding bands, big band orchestras on cruise ships, and doing solo gigs. I had worked and performed with many bands and singers in so many different musical contexts and have absorbed a lot of different musical influences along the way!

I love composing and recording original music. Most of my music is instrumental and I use both the classical and electric guitar. I really enjoy molding and merging together a wide variety of musical styles - Celtic music, Spanish music, electronic music, orchestral film-style music, rock, metal and more.

I also enjoy teaching and passing my knowledge and passion for the guitar and music to the world. My specialty is in helping my students discover their creative abilities - improvising, composing, arranging, discovering their original tone and feel. I feel a great satisfaction from seeing my students realizing their own creativity, and I am very good at it.

I am also very experienced with helping devoted shredders to build a highly efficient workout routine, creating customized etudes and exercises to meet the exact needs and skills of each student.

I have my own website where I share my power metal/neoclassical shredding etudes (including backing tracks and tabs) - organized by technique and difficulty level.
I also have my own music page on soundcloud where you can listen to my original music.

Playing and Influences
As a teenager I was completely obsessed with shredding and metal - I would order all of the Shrapnel albums from Amazon (Tony Macalpine, Greg Howe, Richie Kotzen, Jason Becker, Paul Gilbert, Marty Friedman, etc.) and I was also very much into power and progressive metal - especially Luca Turilli (Rhapsody), Michael Romeo (Symphony X) and John Petrucci (Dream theater). I have read all the interviews I could find and watched all the instructional videos that were available at that time, in order to learn everything from my guitar heros and to become like them.
Later on I started playing at bands and also opened up to other genres of music. I listen a lot to fusion guitarists John Mclaughlin and Al DiMeola, and I also love great rock players like Joe Perry, Jimi Hendrix and Jimi Page.


At GMC
I'm looking forward to sharing my techniques, etudes and creative musical approach. I believe that the most important thing in learning and mastering the guitar is to have fun and be creative! I love creating musical etudes that are fun to practice with, and hope that they will help you improve your chops and have fun while doing so!

More: My Facebook, My Youtube, My Soundcloud, My Website

Interact with Shai: Forum Posts, Forum Profile