Blues on Mahogani Telecaster with Walk of Life pickups

Last month I made a video of a mahogani body Strat. Mahogani is a standard wood for Gibsons but not very popular for Stratocasters. Nevertheless, Mark Knopfler’s metallic red Schecter Strat is said to feature a mahogani body, and possibly his red ‘Walk of Life’ Schecter Telecaster as well. I also built a Telecaster with a mahogani body some time ago – unlike the Strat this Tele was not built […]

Sound check of a Mahogani body Strat with the Alchemy Pickguard

Here you can watch me trying out another guitar I am building at the moment: with a  Mahogani body, a dotless birdseye maple neck, brass tremolo, and the Alchemy loaded pickguard it should be obvious that this was inspired by Knopfler’s red Dream Machine Schecter Strat. The guitar is still in a rough state so ‘unfinished’ does not only mean no red finish yet but also a lot of other […]

Mark Knopfler’s contribution for the Soundbreaking series

If you have not seen this already, here is Mark’s contribution for the Soundbreaking series on Youtube. Soundbreaking is a documentary series about the creation of new sounds in the rock music history, based on more than 160 interviews with celebrated recording artists, producers, and music industry pioneers. Mark is demonstrating various guitar techniques and instruments. I guess you have seen one or the other lick in similar videos with […]

Some notes on the Dire Straits “Honky Tonk Demos” – released on vinyl single on Record Store Day 2015

On April 18, 2015, some ‘historical’ Dire Straits recordings were officially released for the first time – four tracks from the ‘Honky Tonk Demos’, a demo tape the band recorded in July 1977. These were the first recordings of Dire Straits at all, five tracks recorded in a little London studio for a demo to help get a record deal. The four songs released now are Wild West End, Sultans […]

Playing some riffs, licks & solo from Dire Straits – Setting me up

Today I was just sitting around and playing bits and pieces of Setting me up from the first Dire Straits album. As the camera and recording gear was still in place from the last video, I spontanously decided to film a short sequence. It is not really a performance of the song in the sense of playing the right pieces in the proper order but rather some jamming with myself […]

Songs that Mark Knopfler plays with a pick

  This  blog post was written by Jean-François. Thank you J.F. ! 🙂 [some comments by Ingo in brackets]   Mark Knopfler has always been associated with fingerpicking. His totally unique right hand technique has become his landmark since the first Dire Straits album in 1978. However, Mark also sometimes plays with a guitar pick – not only but mostly during his solo career. Among his childhood guitar heroes, Chet […]

Interested in video tutorials or lessons to play the Mark Knopfler guitar style?

I often get emails from people who ask me for help with playing some particular Mark Knopfler stuff, for tutorial videos, or for personal video tutoring via e.g. Skype. In fact I have been thinking about this for some time but am not sure yet in which direction to go (DVDs, online tutoring,…), or how many fans are out there who might be interested in this. If you are interested […]