Vicki Genfan
Vicki Genfan (born June 15, 1959) is an American guitarist based in New Jersey with a unique self-styled slap-tap approach to playing who won Guitar Player magazine's fourth Guitar Superstar Competition.[1][2] Her original composition Atomic Reshuffle impressed judges with a unique sound. In her playing style, Genfan reaches over the guitar neck to combine light touches, often producing sounds based on harmonics, along with traditional finger-plucking, chords, hammer-on and hammer-offs merged with arpeggios, and interspersed with rhythmic tapping of the guitar's body. She plays a Luna guitar and has a contract with Luna to promote its guitars. She is also a singer-songwriter.
Genfan studied guitar since the age of five, and was born into a family of guitar players including her father and brother.[3] She developed her style which she calls folk meets funk over many years which blends jazz, funk, pop music, and folk music. She uses various open tunings, complex harmonies and rhythms intermixed with a persussive tapping of the guitar. She credits her father for being a strong musical influence, and credits other musical influences on her style being James Taylor, Michael Jackson, Pat Metheny, Joni Mitchell, M'Shell Ndegocello, Marvin Gaye, Jonatha Brooke and Leo Kottke. She is openly gay.
References
- ↑ JIM FUSILLI. A Guitar Contest With a Winning Surprise, The Wall Street Journal, SEPTEMBER 16, 2008. Retrieved on 2010-04-06. “Note: the WSJ said her style was "flap tap"; she said afterwards in a subsequent performance that she had said "slap tap"”
- ↑ Joel Selvin (September 15, 2008). Acoustic player wins Guitar Superstar contest. San Francisco Chronicle.
- ↑ Vicki Genfan’s page at Luna Guitars. Accessed on November 18, 2007.