Meet Weesay, the Blind and Homeless Oil Can Guitar Master

Wesseh Freeman, a.k.a Weesay, became an internet sensation last December for his badass strumming skills. His unique handmade guitar – cobbled together from an old stick, a paint can, and three used strings – caught the attention of brothers Nikhil and Sachin Ramchandani, the owners of O! Chips, a potato chips company in Liberia. So they asked him to write a jingle for their brand, and posted a video on the company’s YouTube channel. The two-and-a-half minute clip instantly went viral.

Weesay, 37, is blind and homeless. But that hasn’t affected his musical abilities in the least. The man is truly gifted, and that’s evident just from the guitar he managed to fashion for himself. According to Guitar World, “His frets are made from bike spokes or coat hangers and are apparently movable; yet he has a mastery of intonation. This instrument should be completely out of tune…but it’s not! Weesay plays it like a boss.”

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Tennessee Musician Creates 27-String Guitar

Keith Medley has been a master guitar builder for most of his adult life, and while he has created custom instruments for many famous musicians, his most impressive guitar is the one he made for himself.

If you’re missing a guitarist or two for your band, stop worrying, because the 27-string guitar Keith Medley invented has the power to make them obsolete. The only trick is learning how to play it. That’s in fact the biggest problem, White House-based Medley had to overcome, as well. “Building this guitar turned out to be the easy part,” Keith explains on his site. “The hard part has been learning to play it. Through two years of bittersweet struggle between myself and these 27 strings, I determined it would not defeat me but would play the music I heard in my heart.”

But why would anyone need a 27-string guitar, when most guitarist seem to do very well with just 12, or even 6? Keith says the music he hears in his head is more than can be played on six strings, so after many sketches and nights of contemplation, he came up with this unique 27-string instrument. He claims it’s like playing three instruments at the same time, but that apparently isn’t good enough since he’s now working on a guitar with 34 strings.

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Argentine Farmer Makes Giant Guitar with 7,000 Trees

Pedro Martin Ureta, an Argentine farmer from General Levalle, has used 7,000 cypress and eucalyptus trees to create a giant guitar in memory of his late wife, Graciela.

Seeing this incredible design for the first time, I bet the first thing that comes to mind is “Photoshop”, but this one’s for real, folks. 70-year-old Ureta embedded this carefully planned design into his farm many years ago, and maintains it in honor of his wife, Graciela Yraizoz, who died in 1977, when she was only 25.

Mr. Ureta met Graciela in the 1960s, when he returned home after traveling to Europe, where he spent a lot of time with artists and revolutionaries. He was 28 when he first saw this beautiful 17-year-old girl and soon decided he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. Despite the priest’s reluctant attitude, thinking Pedro wasn’t committed enough to loving Ms. Yraizoz all his life, the two got married and proved extremely devoted to each other.

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Star Wars Fan Builds Working Millennium Falcon Guitar

Using an electric guitar and a vintage Millennium Falcon toy, Travis S. managed to build a unique instrument shaped like Han Solo’s starship.

Having built guitars with his father, in high-school, this was a relatively easy task for Travis S., but the idea of building something that has never been done before appealed to him. An avid Star Wars fan, with a sizable collection of memorabilia, he decided to combine his love for the sci-fi franchise with his passion for guitars. It only took him a month, working on weekends, to complete the guitar, but he says he could have completed in under a week.

Since this is an electric guitar, using a plastic toy as the body doesn’t affect the way it sounds, but the artist had to add a maple block from the start to the end of the ship, to keep it from breaking under the tension of the strings.  The back of the Millennium Falcon guitar has been fitted with blue LED lights, powered by their own batteries.

Despite its futuristic look, the guitar was designed to play, and I can only imagine the reaction of the public when someone brings this baby on stage. If you think this is cool, just wait until you here what Travis S has planned next : a Lord of the Rings themed bass guitar. I can’t wait!

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Playable Guitar Made with Popsicle Sticks

Actually making a playable guitar is hard enough, but making it using just popsicle sticks, some glues and basic house tools seems nearly impossible. Still, someone managed to do it.

Instructables user busupholstery managed to leave everyone speechless when he uploaded photos of the guitar he made, using posicle sticks. He bought 4,000 of them, worth $900, and ended up using 2,000 to create his DIY masterpiece. Using his own Gremlin parlor size guitar as a pattern, he spent 240 hours gluing and cutting popsicle sticks, until his unusual guitar was completed.

The most amazing thing about this man’s achievement is that he managed to build a popsicle stick guitar, somewhere in Costa Rica, basically using just a handsaw, some clothespins, rubber bands and glue. Let’s face it, most of us wouldn’t be able to make something like this with the latest power tools available.

And though it may not sound as good as the best guitars on the market, the popsicle stick guitar is playable. Before you even ask, it’s not for sale.

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