Inimitable, and therefore widely imitated. The Malmsteen paradox

“If you want to turn this into a career that lasts more than forty years, you can’t sound like anyone else. But being stylistically unique is almost impossible.” Yngwie Malmsteen tells Il Foglio when discussing the many young guitarists who have followed in his footsteps. He has built his legend on being inimitable, which is precisely why he has become one of the most imitated musicians in history. And now, with artificial intelligence, he is also one of the easiest to replicate.

Born in Stockholm in 1963, Lars Johan Yngve Lannerbäck decided he wanted to play the guitar at the age of seven, whilst watching Jimi Hendrix set his instrument alight on television at the Monterey Festival. In 1984, he made his solo debut with Rising Force, infusing the speed of hard rock with the music of Bach, Vivaldi and Paganini, and becoming one of the pioneers of neoclassical metal. Since then, he has released twenty-two albums and never strayed from his style. “It’s a strength, because it’s all natural; it comes from my soul,” he says. At 63, he considers himself “even more of a purist, even more fussy”.

The twenty-third album, “Hell or High Water”, is due for release on 13 November, five years on from “Parabellum”: the longest gap in his career. He describes it as “very Malmsteen”. His surname becomes an adjective, his style a unit of measurement. He had “80 or 90 ideas”, he says, and kept nine of them – “the crème de la crème”. He composes almost instinctively: he sits in front of the television with his guitar in hand and, when inspiration strikes, rushes to record it. “They’re magical moments; they come as a gift.” He can write “anything, at any time”, because for him “music is all maths”: eight notes, an octave, the third, the fifth, a chord progression. Ideas also come to him whilst he’s driving his six Ferraris or playing tennis.

The album also features an ‘Am Caprice’, which is Paganini’s Caprice No. 24 under a different name. The most imitated guitarist in the history of the instrument has forged his own style by transcribing that of another, and at the age of sixty-three he continues to do so. In his case, imitation has never been the problem. Indeed, it may well be the method itself.

And this is where the challenge of artificial intelligence comes in. “AI analyses everything,” says Malmsteen. It can recognise the elements of his musical language, take classical composers and transpose them onto an electric guitar. “It can get very, very close” to what he does, he admits. But he still hears “a huge difference”. Because, he explains, “sound is also the movement of air and the modulation of frequencies”. The machine can replicate the technical aspects of sound, but not what really matters to him: “The soul of a person who thinks freely, who creates”. After all, in his studio in Florida he has 56 Marshall amplifiers connected to around thirty speakers, “at stadium-level volume”.

Faced with the prospect of an artificial solo performance indistinguishable from his own, he does not seem concerned. “Would you buy a ticket to go and see a computer on stage? Or would you rather see a human being playing something that comes from the heart and soul?”, he replies. AI “will take over in many areas”, he admits, but “not when it comes to what is personal”.

His style – harmonic minor scales, arpeggios, tempo, Baroque influences – has, after all, been studied, notated and reproduced by generations of young people, long before any machine took it on. When asked whether such absolute fidelity to himself has not become a prison, he has no doubts. “I’m not in a cage; I’m free.” Punk, disco, new wave, glam rock, grunge: he’s seen them all come and go. “It was all just noise. I’ve never been part of a fad.”

He doesn’t need other people’s judgement. He talks about concerts with AC/DC in front of thousands of people: “I’d come off stage convinced I’d played badly, but everyone else was celebrating me. I know what I’m good at and I know what I’m not.” He is his own sole yardstick. “I’m not trying to prove anything to anyone; I never have.”

So what keeps him going, then? “When I’m gone, my music will remain. I won’t compromise; people can say what they like. I make music simply because it’s the reason I’m on this planet.” As for machines learning to play like him, the issue seems like old news to him: “There are already enough Yngwie Malmsteen copycats about.”