I’m a guitarist and it’s shocking how good Ralph does on guitar: that’s the best fake guitar playing I’ve ever seen. He’s playing the notes pretty close to the real tracks. Ralph is an amazing actor and you can tell he did his due diligence in actually learning the guitar parts. The skill it takes to play these parts is extremely difficult. He really makes it hard to tell that it’s not him. Astounding really.
Im a guitarist too, but its pretty uncomfortable for me to see how his hands are moving while listening to the actual music, but since he's an actor, i guess he did a pretty good job at imitating and catching the audiences attention by his fake playing.
I remember wanting to learn this as a teenager, so I taped it using a tape recorder while playing back the movie on my VCR, then tried to learn it note by note by playing the cassette back. Learned some of it but not all of it.
@George Frank He never said ralph macchio was like a guitar god to him or anything like that he just said he learned a part of a song that was on one of the scenes shown in this video
@George Frank Actually, Ralph Macchio could play guitar. He learned a lot of the basics for this movie. That way the guitar playing would be somewhat convincing for people who watched the movie. And obviously he can act, there's no question about that. You certainly wouldn't be able to act as well as Ralph Macchio. I don't see why you would belittle someone in that regard, when you clearly have no idea what you're talking about. I don't even like Ralph Macchio, and I was able to figure this out with a quick Google search.
@@dromeus21 No, crane kick was taught and maybe invented (not sure about this one) by Mr. Miyagi. Johnny just taught the move to Miguel to mock Daniel.
If you're a guitarist, you can tell which actors know how to play and which ones don't. He may not be actually playing the parts, but he definitely plays guitar enough to play these pieces if not as perfectly as you hear them. Fantastic job in these scenes.
He didn't play a single note in the movie. He may play guitar but he definitely can't play any of these pieces otherwise his playing would look more real(not criticizing him he did a great job). Steve vai overdubbed every single note played in the movie
I find it funny when in movies these classical teachers get mad when a student adds their own flair to a classical piece. . Mozart wouldn’t find it disrespectful if someone added their own flair to his pieces, he would welcome it. Mozart was a child at heart and one of the most creative people on the planet.
Mozart was a joker himself. He used to mock those snotty classical shit and stuff. The film Amadeus brings us a little of his life, in this sense. I recomend.
Mozart would have liked the flair, but he was wasting the teachers time and the teacher had a right to get pissed. It was still disrespectful to the teacher.
My God, Ralph is GOOD at mimicking playing! Really good! Basically, no, what you are hearing, Ralph Macchio isn't actually playing BUT what he is fingering is exactly the correct notes. Any guitarist can tell. He worked his ass off on this, otherwise any close ups of him playing simply wouldn't work.
There's an interview with someone who worked on the movie. A direct quote from the guy who tutored Ralph. I'll find it. But any guitarist worth his salt can see his fingers 'look correct.'
You know this is a non guitar playing actor playing a musicial prodigy, right? The work Ralph put into this was monumental. I think he does an INCREDIBLE job! Bottom line is, he sells it. You can watch this and believe he's playing it. So he did his job. Found this in the 'People Also Ask' section of Google : Is Ralph Macchio really playing guitar in Crossroads? '........the actor is actually playing note for note the music of Steve Vai and Ry Cooder........' I'll keep looking for the original interview I mentioned previously.
Interesting thing is - I have been playing guitar for 23 years and building guitar pedals for over 10 years now - and I remember watching this way back and thinking that the classical instructor was a dick - but the reality is I never appreciated the fact that the "Lightnin'" character actually loved the blues and wanted to play and be appreciated and jam. His classical teacher ultimately told him to explore what he loves and understand that the world of classical music is very much a rigid and stressful environment lacking the fun or "joke" that he revealed in the exam/performance. Looking at it now I see the teacher as really setting the player free to go where he really needs to go - doing what he loves.
It's really good, I only figured it out when he shifted down to hit a higher string, even the thumb over the top was great. Also he made a few...peculiar looking chords
He's a top notch actor. The guy learned to actually play the guitar for this role and had high hopes of even actually being the one playing in the movie. Even though there was no way he was going to be able to get good enough fast enough to actually be the one playing the fact that he threw himself into the role and learned to play a guitar for it says a lot about him as an actor. Without that level of passion the movie would have looked very fake every time he played.
I remember Trailer on TV where they showed Lightening coming out his fingers, which made me want to see, but that scene wasnt in Movie, but he was called "Lightnin' Boy"
Instructor: it was a crossover to show expressive talent that most humans fear in doing that is not truly harmful in nature to his fellow human beings. His luv for various styles is true and very heartfelt.
Dude i play the guitar and I can tell. Thins kid can fake like a pro! He almost tricked me into believing it was him playing. He trained a LOT for sure. Edit: it was a typo.
lucabrito Good call. I think he knows some blues and he is playing some of the easy parts of the classical piece. The arpeggios he was faking but faking well. That is certainly the best Hollywood has done with faking guitar.
Yeah...no music teacher in the world would have had a problem with that ending. They would have laughed and then said, "just don't do it on the Juilliard audition."
Yeah they do. I got shit when I was in college because my "vibrato was too modern." Apparently, music is about playing what you feel so long as you do it like an 18th century robot.
Really love this clips, best guitar movie in my opinion. Ralph Macchio did great, you can tell he put a lot of effort into practicing the guitar to be able mimic the actual playing.
There are a lot of actors that will catch onto hobbies from the movies they star in. Ik that paul newman picked up playing pool from starring the color of money. Maybe macchio was inspired from this movie
Yeah for this he doesn't play any of this. He just learned how to "fake" it to where it looks like he's playing. the guys that did the actual guitar recording. Ry Coode, Arlen Roth and Vai are incredible musicians that have been playing they're whole lives.
Now we have movies about rap,technology progresses while morals,creativity and human intellect decline,I'm afraid popular mainstream music will never recover from the dumbing-down we now see in American culture,The 80's were very special in popular music😥
its called the flood its an old blues melody from the road the ended alot of road songs with it but after the 50s were over nobody played it ever again untill this part in the movie
I've been playing git fiddle for 45 yrs. and I'm a good player ... NO WAY I could fake that well! He DEFINITELY CAN play to pull it off. I would like to hear his playing. I thought it COULD BE him. I had to check it out, for sure.
Thanks a million! Great quality. I woke up at 5 am being a kid just to watch Ralph Macchio on the cable back in the day. On RU-vid the movie is not well downloaded.
The pieces in this clip are played by two top class guitarists; Bill Kanegiser (classical) and Arlen Roth (blues), Macchio did an amazing job of faking it though!
@@christopherlees1134 Ry Cooder played the parts on the Telecaster from the middle to the end...Steve Vai played himself. He later said he thought he was the best until he met Ry, impeccable timing.
As a guitarist I can tell he's not really playing the music, but he's doing as good a job of faking it as you can do without actually playing the pieces. Fantastic acting job, he must have worked very hard to make it look so plausible.
Not quite. - Arlen Roth trained Ralph Macchio to play guitar in preparation for the movie shoot, but no, Macchio actually never played a note. Roth trained him to mimic the playing. - Bill Kanengiser and Roth played the classical and most of the blues parts respectively. For all the credit he gets, Ry Cooder only played some of the blues parts. - Contrary to popular belief, Steve Vai played every note of the electric guitar duel scene, both sides, including Macchio's bluesy parts. Vai is on record as stating this more than once.
I met Arlen Roth. He said he taught him and he could literally play everything but he was too nervous to do it on film. Ralph moved in with him for a while and taught him how to play
It is Caprice no 5 slowed way down? It doesn’t sound like no 5 to me. (We’re talking about the second classical riff the guy plays, right? At about 1:15?)
At first when i started playing guitar, blues was an obsession, literally loved it with all my heart but now when i hear it, it makes me wanna throw up. With all do respect.
