Maybe they were just bored with playing guitar the normal way… Maybe they were experimenting with to find never before heard sounds…and maybe, they were just high. In any case the following prodigies took a walk on the wylde side and departed altogether from plain vanilla strummin'…

First up, Jimmy Page playing his Les Paul with a violin bow, coaxing some haunting and creepy noises out of it:



Ok, I know this next one probably doesn’t count as playing the guitar, but it’s cool anyway. Behold! The iconic footage of Jimi Hendrix setting his guitar aflame and then smashing the hell out of it:



Next up, the astonishing Stanley Jordan playing Stairway to Heaven. He first uses one guitar and using tapping, plays rhythm and lead simultaneously upon it. As if this weren’t enough, he then plays two guitars simultaneously!



And finally, the incomparable shredmaster Michael Angelo Batio, considered by many to be the fastest player alive. In an obscene and masturbatory display of excess, Batio uses his lightning fast chops on a quadruple necked guitar of his own design. As goofy as this stuff may appear, I’ve watched a couple of Batio’s Speed Kills videos and he has a good number of tips that can be used even if you don’t want to play at warp nine!



I am speechless.