ABOUT
Guitar Lesson with Cyril Achard (1993)
Aix-en-Provence, France
Ludrium Band (2014-2015)
Arthur Pentameter (2015-2016)
David picked up the guitar at the age of 20 with the intention to follow his idols Joe Satriani, Steve Rothery or Akira Takasaki. His father who used to play guitar
taught him the first chords and that was it. Self-learning player until he took lessons with one of the best musician in France Cyril Achard, he was introduced to the CAGED system and continued to develop his own technique .
The year 1996 make him doing a big turn in his life, leaving France to settle in Japan and start a professional career outside the music industry. But the love of music is not giving up with him and in 2004 he decide to launch a program of guitar lessons for the young students of the French school in Tokyo. The guitar lessons are a success and more than 20 students are learning the instrument with him, using a specific program called "Power Tool for guitarists" which would become the foundation of his future book "The CAGED Guitar System Bible" published in August 2018 by DOREMI publishing.
See more on the Guitar School International Guitar School
David joined the band〔LUDRIUM〕created by Cody Carpenter, who play a Prog Rock synthesizer based sound very specific to Cody's composition. The tunes includes some complex guitar/Keyboard dialogues and the band met a great success at the music event of summer 2015 at the French institut of Tokyo.
David joined the band〔ARTHUR PENTAMETER〕created by Phil P'Connell and performed essentially the original tunes of the released CD, added by some David's compositions. The band made many gigs in the Tokyo area between 2015 and 2016.
〔MAREALION〕a MARILLION's tribute band in Japan !
In 2017 he creates the band〔MAREALION〕with his drummer/vocal friend and made his first official gig on March 11th 2017 at the Silver Elephant (Kichijyoji).
The band performed classic songs from the Fish era including Kayleigh,
Icommunicado, Tux-on, Going-under, Torch song or Sugar Mice.
2017 was also the year that the UK band MARILLION came to Japan in October for a 2 nights concert, after 23 years since their last tour in Japan.
So far, the band has given several shows in Tokyo and shared the stage with other cover bands (Genesis, Pendragon, A.C.T,...). The last show was in September 2019 at the famous "Bauhaus" live house before the Covid-19 stroke the world.
In 2020 a new keyboard player from England joined the band and since we have been preparing our repertoire with new songs.
Marealion (2017~)
Meeting with the real Marillion band !
Japan Tour 2017, club Cita
Marillion Guitar & Bass transcription book
Since 2017, David is working on a music sheet book dedicated to the band Marillion, including the most classic songs from the 80's to the 90's (Until Seasons End album).
Some of the transcriptions are shared on his YouTub channel or available for download on this web site.
Japan Tour 2018, club Cita
First book published in Japan
Written in Japanese the book introduce the CAGED method to play chords, scales and arpeggios along the neck, as well as Modes or open tunings. It's contains a lot of diagrams arranged in the CAGED order and includes a CD of David's original songs. It was also important to make a serious educational book on CAGED for the Japanese market, which had not yet been done excepted the few articles on the magazines.
"I hope this guide will help a lot of people to get more familiar with CAGED and help them to improve their guitar play."
What's next ?
After the publication of his first book, David has several projects in mind including the release of his debut Album,
a more practical guitar book on modern licks using techniques like chicken' picking, String skipping and based on CAGED system,
and a booklet covering the style of Steve Rothery (Marillion) whom David is a huge fan since the 80's.
The 2 coming years will be definitively focused on making more tuition videos, licks series and educational materials.
GEAR
Ritchie Kotzen Telecaster®
Fender Japan
Features:
I have been playing this guitar since 2009 after a long period using Ibanez guitars,
The neck is fat, the body is massive with almost 5 kg but the guitar sounds amazing.
I did many gigs with it and it never let me down. As a signature model this telecaster has few interesting features which are not in the standard models.
I generally play on neck position pick up to have more middle and bass for my soloing but occasionally switch to the bridge position to play a high gain distortion solo.
I used to equip the guitar with 0,11-0,46 gauge strings but recently changed to 0.09-0.42 to play Marillion's tune more comfortably.
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Contoured ash body with bound flame maple top
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Maple neck with large “C” profile
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Maple fingerboard with 12” radius, 22 jumbo frets and abalone inlays
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DiMarzio® DP173 Twang King™ neck pickup and DP384 Chopper T™ bridge pickup
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Three-way pickup selector switch and rotary series/parallel switch (no tone control)
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Gold through-body Telecaster bridge
Guthrie Govan Signature model
Charvel
I acquired this model in 2016 because I was looking for a high end guitar able to provide an accurate and professional sound, as well as a good playability in all modern ways of the guitar.
Lighter than the Fender Japan RK model, having more space for soloing and the freedom of the tremolo bridge brings more inspiration and possibilities during the gigs and recordings. This Charvel is doing well the job and I am sure I will be playing for a long time with it. The guitar is equipped with 0.09-0.42 Elixir strings.
Features:
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Caramelized 2-Piece Flame Maple with Graphite Reinforcement
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12" to 16" Compound Radius (304.8 mm to 406.4 mm),
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Jumbo Stainless 24 frets.
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Pick-up Configuration:
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Charvel® Custom MF Humbucking
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Charvel® Custom MF Single-Coil
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Charvel® Custom MF Humbucking
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Scale: 25.5" (648 mm)
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5-Position Blade and 2-Position Toggle with multiple switching options
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Recessed Charvel® Locking Tremolo Bridge
Guitar Processor GT-1
Boss
I agree, this is not really a high end class effector and it's built into a cheap plastic box but....it's light and good enough to go on the local gigs with a minimum of presets. I mainly set up with Comp, Reverb, delays and others Fx for each songs. I let the OD/DS work to my preferred pedals (Suhr, Xotic) that can deliver a more fusion like tone and bring more dimension to the overall sound. I changed my GT-10 to this GT-1 for a matter of weight reduction first, knowing that all sounds and patterns are similar to the previous versions.
Soul Driven (Allen Hinds model)
Xotic
Soul Driven Overdrive pedal deliver a super nice tone to your ears and It is by far the best pedal I had until now.
I use it for soloing with a light overdrive but not aggressive, and sometimes in addition to the Suhr Eclipse distortion as a clean boost pedal. A highly inspiring pedal created by Xotic and the great Allen hinds whom I had the pleasure to met in 2016 in Japan.
EP Booster
Xotic
I use EP booster to let some room for raising the volume when the band is playing full capacity and when the guitar is going to disappear in the middle of a gig. It helps also to change slightly my tone with the micro-switches and bring more middle and fatness. A very nice supporting pedal !
dual-channel distortion Eclipse
Suhr
ECLIPSE is like having a Turbo V6 engine on my pedal board. A nice box that can deliver a stable, high gain and multi-tone distortion that will fit to the musical genre of Prog-Rock, Fusion or blues. A switchable dual-channel is so useful when you need to raise the tension from an Overdrive solo to a more aggressive distortion solo.
Strings and Cables
Elixir, Orange
