Maneli Jamal - The Guitar Journal

Award winning guitarist Maneli Jamal has wowed audiences around the world with his visual style of playing acoustic guitar. He incorporates many musical textures in his performances while keeping rhythm with his two hands but you’ll swear he has a trio with him. You’ve got to visually see him live to experience what you thought is possible with the acoustic guitar. He has over 5 million video views and 90,000+ followers on social media sites making him an artist to watch for.

Acoustic guitarist Maneli Jamal has lived in five different countries (Iran, Belarus, Germany, USA, Canada) and moved twenty times by the time he was 18. The young artist gained a sense of musical maturity rarely seen among his peers especially when he transforms his nomadic life experiences into musical movements using extended guitar techniques.

There aren’t many players in his style that have Jamal’s balance of power and sensitivity, nor his breadth of ideas. His rhythmic concepts can be alternately short and dense, or explored carefully through several movements and real life stories. This becomes evident with having won countless music competitions around the world including most recently placing 1st at Canada’s Soundclash Music Awards. Having been brought up in a purely artistic and musical family has contributed to shape his unique and comical story telling approach in live settings.

He has already performed in 5 continents and 15 countries as a solo performer, has a signature model acoustic guitar named after him and was on the front cover of 2015 Toronto magazine (500,000 copies distributed worldwide). The world is his home and he plays from one end to the other.

One of my personal favorites is his tune “Lucid Drawl”.