Music |

Battle Scars by Marty Friedman – Nic Holson Cover

This is a cover of “Battle Scars” by guitarist Marty Friedman that was released on his Bad D.N.A album in 2010.

As I was unable to find any notation for this piece of music I ended up transcribing it by ear. Although it took quite a while it developed my musicianship skills tenfold.

Rather than doing a note for note copy of the solo from 3:25, I created my own by pulling influences from Marty Friedman’s solo whilst trying to add my own stamp on the piece. It was from watching a lesson by Marty Friedman from Guitar World where he discusses making licks your own that I really started to think differently about how I approach my playing. He stated “Don’t sound like everybody else, I mean everybody plays the same notes. It’s your responsibility to change things around” (Marty Friedman 2014 – Guitar World: Full Shred with Marty Friedman – Making Licks Your Own)

Hopefully this recording showcases my ability as a lead guitarist.

On this recording:

Lead Guitar = Nic Holson
Rhythm Guitar = Nic Holson
Bass Guitar = Nic Holson
Keyboard = James Hind
Drums = Rohan Bumbra

This recording was mixed by Rohan Bumbra.

©State of Truth 2016

Empty – State of Truth

Track 1 from State of Truth’s debut EP, released June 16th 2016

Lyrics and Music by Karen Mowat and Nic Holson

Recorded by Nic Holson
Mixed by Liam Saunders, Loopmaniac Studios Dunfermline
Mastered by Alan Silverman, Arf Productions, New York

Vocals: Karen Mowat
Guitar: Nic Holson
Guitar: Connor Cockburn
Bass: Ian Clyne
Drums: Rohan Bumbra

State of Truth – State of Truth

Track 2 from State of Truth’s debut EP, released June 16th 2016

Lyrics and Music by Karen Mowat and Nic Holson

Recorded by Nic Holson
Mixed by Liam Saunders, Loopmaniac Studios Dunfermline
Mastered by Alan Silverman, Arf Productions, New York

Vocals: Karen Mowat
Guitar: Nic Holson
Guitar: Connor Cockburn
Bass: Ian Clyne
Drums: Steven Barr

I Fight Myself – State of Truth

Track 3 from State of Truth’s debut EP, released June 16th 2016

Lyrics and Music by Karen Mowat and Nic Holson

Recorded by Nic Holson
Mixed by Liam Saunders, Loopmaniac Studios Dunfermline
Mastered by Alan Silverman, Arf Productions, New York

Vocals: Karen Mowat
Guitar: Nic Holson
Guitar: Connor Cockburn
Bass: Ian Clyne
Drums: Rohan Bumbra

Rent Demo Reel – by Nic Holson

In this Demo Reel I show my ability to play for theatre shows by performing a number of songs from the hit musical Rent, including: Another Day, Take Me or Leave Me, One Song Glory, The Tango Maureen and Rent.

All Guitars recorded and performed by Nic Holson.

Backing Tracks all come from www.karaoke-version.com/ and the licence to use these tracks has come from www.tencymusic.com/

To Zanarkand by Nobuo Uematsu – Nic Holson Cover

This arrangement of “To Zanarkand” from Final Fantasy X by Nobuo Uematsu comes from the Final Fantasy Guitar Solo Collection by Nobuyuki Hirajura.

I have added a bass line to create another layer of interest to the recording and make the piece move a little bit more.

This recording shows my ability to play finger-style guitar as well as my ability to re-arrange and add ideas to music.

Guitar and Bass recorded and performed by Nic Holson

Kibou – by Nic Holson

This is a guitar piece that I wrote in 2014 which is heavily influenced by the music of Marty Friedman. I spent some time listening to different J-Pop artists such as Spontania, AKB48, Baby Metal and Aya Matsuura as well as traditional Japanese Enka’s and tried to blend it all with heavy metal music.

Guitars = Nic Holson
Bass = Nic Holson
Drums = Drum backing track from DrumTracks which has been edited – Drumtracks – Metal-drums-for-free-goin-160

Black River – by Nic Holson

Music written and recorded by Nic Holson

This solo guitar piece follows a day in the life of the River Forth and was influenced by a number for different finger-picking guitarists including Bert Jansch, John Konesky and Newton Faulkner.

Three Small Words – by Zoe Moskal Guy Ft. Nic Holson

I had the amazing opportunity to work with the fantastic Zoe Moskal Guy on her song “Three Small Words”. This was one of my first experiences where I was coming to an already finished song and adding guitar to it and it definitely helped develop that as a skill that as I use a lot now.