TRANSCENDENTAL SKY GUITAR is the conceptual title for a series of albums, which are largely dedicated to explore music through the eyes and ears of the Sky Guitar. The unique instrument is both the traveller as well as the main protagonist and story-teller. As the S-Guitar is in many ways a new instrument, it enables Uli to cross over into a range of new musical territories, which were previously not within the reach of guitarists.

The music Uli Jon Roth chooses for these voyages reflects his personal tastes and interests. Within the TSG concept Uli is not aiming to please the masses, but rather to follow his artistic instincts and curiosity. This is the framework which allows Uli to explore the unknown and to experiment with unusual combinations.

While this is serious business on an artistic level, Uli also treats this self-created genre as a musical playground - it allows him to play for the pure enjoyment of it and to simply enjoy the magic of the Sky Guitar.

It is not so much homogeneity, which Uli is striving for within the TSG concept, but diversity and the traversing of vast musical distances. He manages to build bridges between often seemingly polar opposites such as the music of Chopin and that of Hendrix. Uli gets a kick out of finding ways to put these musical giants next to one another and somehow make it ‘work’ ingeniously, without violating the spirit of either. Never one to fit into given categories -
Uli simply makes up his own ones - he defines his own rules and framework.

U.J.R. sees it as part of his musical mission to explore and further the cause of the electric guitar as a classical concert instrument, which can hold its own against the violin and the piano in more ways than one.
TSG is designed to further that cause - to boldly go where no man has gone - on the guitar and to constantly redefine the boundaries of guitar playing.
At the same time it is a quest to connect more deeply with some of Uli’s favourite pieces of music and to look at them in a light which is essentially very much his own.
This way he has ‘turned on’ many listeners to all sorts of precious music which is close
to his heart.

Albums to date:

THE PHOENIX (1999/2000)
THE DRAGON (1999/2000)
METAMORPHOSIS OF VIVALDI’S IV SEASONS (2002-2003)

                   (The Story of "Transcendental Sky Guitar" is To Be Continued ...)

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