Music on Srikanth Cherla

New Guitar Video – Just the Same by Gentle Giant

Sun, 14 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Just the Same opens Free Hand (1972), my favourite among all of Gentle Giant’s brilliant albums. The song is built around interlocking guitar and keyboard figures with the characteristic rhythmic unpredictability that defines their writing — never settling long enough to feel comfortable, which is exactly what makes it so interesting to play.

New Guitar Video – Corpse Pose by Unwound

Sat, 16 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Corpse Pose is from Leaves Turn Inside You (2001), the final record Unwound made before disbanding. It’s a quieter, more abstract piece than much of their earlier work — part of an album that saw them pushing further into noise and texture. One of those songs where the space between notes matters as much as the notes themselves.

New Guitar Video – Revolve by Melvins

Mon, 11 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Revolve is from Houdini (1993), one of the Melvins’ most accessible albums. It’s also the first Melvins song I ever heard, which got me curious about the band (that verse riff!). Melvins is one of those bands that you don’t really get a lot of their stuff right away, but the longer you stick to it the more rewarding it gets. This song is just an easily palatable teaser to the mammoth collection of songs they’ve written. Having seen them live a couple of times, and being a huge fan, I’ve been wanting to learn their music for a while.

New Guitar Video – You Think I Ain't Worth a Dollar by Queens of the Stone Age

Wed, 16 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The opening track from Songs for the Deaf (2002), one of QOTSA’s finest records. It’s a fast, aggressive sprint of a song — under two minutes — that sets the tone for the whole album perfectly. The guitar tone on the original recording is enormous. Fun to play loud.

New Guitar Video – Invincible by Tool

Sat, 18 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Tool is one of my favourite bands, and Invincible is a piece I’d been wanting to cover for a while. Practice time has shrunk considerably since becoming a parent, but I made this one a priority.

The challenge wasn’t technical complexity — it was sustaining focus across a very long piece without losing your place. I usually aim for single takes on all my videos. This one needed two: I slipped near the end of the first attempt.

New Guitar Video – Man in the Box (Acoustic) by Alice in Chains

Mon, 23 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000

An original acoustic arrangement of Man in the Box by Alice in Chains — released as a tribute on the 30th anniversary of their debut album Facelift. Video editing by my wife, Nina.

New Guitar Video – Rusty Cage by Soundgarden

Sat, 06 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

My favourite track from the Road Rash video game soundtrack — see the Outshined post for how I came across both songs.

I skipped the longish intro because aligning it with the backing track without metronome cues proved too awkward. Practised alongside the Outshined cover and recorded both around the same time.

New Guitar Video – Outshined by Soundgarden

Wed, 24 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

My connection to this song goes back to before I even knew what Soundgarden or grunge music were. I first heard it on the Road Rash video game soundtrack — a game that introduced me to Therapy?, Monster Magnet, and two Soundgarden tracks: this one and Rusty Cage.

A fond look back at those days, with the tuning dropped a step for a more satisfying effect.

New Guitar Video – Superunknown by Soundgarden

Mon, 25 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Despite Soundgarden being one of my favourite bands from the 1990s grunge era, I’d never learned to play any of their songs. This cover of Superunknown — the title track from their landmark album — is hopefully the first of a few I’ll upload.

Performed on a PRS guitar in drop tuning to match the backing track.

New Guitar Video – Americana by the Offspring

Thu, 24 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

A cover of Americana by the Offspring — not one of the album’s most popular tracks, but one of the most fun and energetic ones to play. The album has special personal significance from when I first bought it as a teenager.

My last video of 2020. Happy to be producing more next year. Happy Christmas!

New Guitar Video – Wynona's Big Brown Beaver by Primus

Mon, 21 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Third in my series of Primus covers. This one was quite challenging, especially the second solo — a good showcase of Larry Lalonde’s unique and quirky playing style. I’ll be exploring other artists before returning for more Primus.

New Guitar Video – Jerry was a Racecar Driver by Primus

Sat, 13 Jun 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Second in my planned series of five Primus covers. Jerry was a Racecar Driver is one of the band’s more recognisable pieces — a nice and easy exercise in volume swells, and a crazy solo that jumps in and out of scale alongside one of Les Claypool’s most intricate basslines.

New Guitar Video – John the Fisherman by Primus

Thu, 11 Jun 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve long admired Larry Lalonde’s distinctive guitar work alongside Les Claypool’s intricate bass playing. To properly appreciate it I set out to learn five Primus songs.

John the Fisherman is the first — not a difficult song, really, and a lot of fun to play. A great one to get started with. Also the inaugural video on my new Ibanez RG-3120.

New Guitar Video – Perpetual Black Second by Meshuggah

Thu, 23 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Perpetual Black Second is from Nothing (2002), recorded during the first weeks of pandemic lockdown. Meshuggah’s guitar playing sits in a category of its own — the polyrhythmic layering creates a hypnotic, disorienting effect that I’ve found fascinating since first hearing Destroy Erase Improve. Their guitars are tuned down to F, which accounts for a significant part of that heaviness.

New Guitar Video – The Pot by Tool

Thu, 26 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I wasn’t immediately taken with this song but reconnected with it while preparing for Tool’s Fear Inoculum release, and got drawn in enough to learn it properly.

My first video on a new PRS SE Mark Holcomb Signature Edition. Played in Drop C standard.

New Guitar Video – Hangar 18 by Megadeth

Tue, 13 Aug 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Hangar 18 from Rust in Peace (1990) is essentially a vehicle for one of thrash metal’s great dual-guitar solo sections. Marty Friedman and Dave Mustaine trade leads across an extended passage that accounts for most of the song’s final two minutes. A considerable technical challenge, but one of the more satisfying ones.

Passed Rock School Grade 7 (Electric Guitar) Exam… Unofficially

Sat, 06 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Two years after passing Grade 6 with distinction, I spent about a year preparing for Grade 7. Since I’m now outside the UK, I sat a mock examination via Skype with my guitar tutor Nicolas.

Nicolas scored me at 88 out of 100 — a strong pass, just below distinction. Unofficial, but a definite pass. I’ve uploaded the three exam pieces to YouTube.

Jeff Beck – Cause We’ve Ended as Lovers

A New Blog Series on the Music Tech Community – India Website

Fri, 24 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been volunteering with peers in India to promote awareness of music technology through the Music Tech Community – India initiative. We’re launching a blog series featuring interviews with people working in the field — to showcase what’s possible and offer career inspiration.

The first post features an interview with Ajay Srinivasamurthy, a researcher applying Information Retrieval techniques to Indian classical music. Great start — looking forward to more conversations like this.

New Guitar Video – Red Barchetta by Rush

Sat, 30 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0000

The Rush cover I hinted at after Jacob’s Ladder. Red Barchetta is from Moving Pictures (1981), built around a Neil Peart story about a future where vintage cars have been outlawed. Alex Lifeson’s clean-toned arpeggiated intro is one of my favourite moments in classic rock guitar — deceptively simple, and instantly recognisable.

New Guitar Video – Man in the Box by Alice in Chains

Sat, 13 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This track was what got me into Alice in Chains. I learned it while recovering from a broken finger — a good excuse to work on wah pedal technique, which this song is perfect for. I used a Vox wah pedal, a bit squeaky but it worked.

The recording isn’t perfect — time constraints during recovery — but I’m happy with it. A Rush cover is next.

See also: the acoustic version recorded in 2021.

New Guitar Video – Jacob's Ladder by Rush

Sun, 03 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000

I learned this piece while recovering from a bicycle accident. Jacob’s Ladder has some fascinating time signature work — sections in 11/8 and 13/8 — which is a big part of what drew me to it. Alex Lifeson’s guitar writing is exceptional throughout.

Another Rush piece is already in the works.

Passed Rock School Grade 6 (Electric Guitar) Exam

Wed, 28 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0000

I passed the RSL Awards Rock School Grade 6 Electric Guitar exam on June 9th with distinction. I recorded performances of the three pieces — with solos composed by myself — and uploaded them to YouTube.

Favela

Mohair Mountain

That Sounds Like Noise

Merry Christmas!

Sun, 25 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000

My lovely wife Nina and I recorded a little video where we play a cover of the song “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane, to wish all our loved ones a merry Christmas. So here’s wishing everyone a merry Chirstmas and a very happy New Year from the both of us!

A Visit to MusicMuni Labs

Mon, 12 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000

While Nina presented on Music Therapy for Dementia at ARDSICON 2016 in Bangalore, I visited MusicMuni Labs — a startup founded by Gopala Koduri and Sankalp Gulati, mentored by Prof. Xavier Serra and researchers from the Music Technology Group at Universitat Pompeu Fabra.

They’re building on research from the CompMusic project — focused on Hindustani and Carnatic classical music — with two products currently in beta:

Riyaz — An Android app for beginner to intermediate students that uses music technology to evaluate singing against reference lessons and give detailed feedback.

Music and Connectionism

Mon, 01 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000

The many contributions made during the past three decades to computer-assisted analysis and generation of music with the aid of Connectionist architectures can be seen to have occured in two waves, in parallel with developments in Connectionist research itself. During the first wave, the founding principles of Connectionism were introduced (Rumelhart et al., 1986) through the idea of Parallel Distributed Processing according to which mental phenomena occur as a result of simultaneous interactions between simple elementary processing units, as opposed to the then prevailing notion of Sequential Symbolic Processing which explained the same phenomena in terms of sequential interactions between complex goal-specific units. Its significance is largely theoretical, with a few experimental and empirical results to support the feasibility of the theory. Following several years of reduced interest, the second wave further strengthened the claims made by its precursor through a series of successful high-impact real-world applications. This was owing to both the proposal of newer theories, and the availability of greater computational power and vast amounts of data that enabled the demonstration of the efficacy of these theories nearly two decades on (Bengio, 2009; LeCun et al.,2012). The innovations that came about as a result of these two phases trickled down to several application domains (Krizhevsky et al., 2012; Hinton et al., 2012;Collobert et al., 2011) of which music is one (Todd and Loy, 1991; Griffith and Todd,1999; Humphrey et al., 2012). This section reviews notable contributions among the many that demonstrated the application of connectionism to symbolic music modelling during these two waves in order to present a historical perspective together with an overview of the techniques employed.

New Guitar Video – Them Bones by Alice in Chains

Sat, 26 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Them Bones opens Dirt (1992) with one of the most distinctive riffs in the grunge canon — a lurching 7/8 groove that gives the whole song an unsettling, forward-leaning feel. This was recorded not long after my Man in the Box cover, continuing a run through the Alice in Chains back catalogue.

New Guitar Video – Vicarious by Tool

Tue, 08 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Vicarious opens 10,000 Days (2006) and was one of the first Tool songs I worked through properly. The rhythmic complexity is characteristic Tool — a recurring 5-against-4 feel woven through an otherwise driving riff. Not their most technically demanding song to play, but one of the most satisfying.