John Cipollina, Greg Elmore, David Freiberg, Gary Duncan, and Jim Murray were the founding members of the San Francisco psychedelic rock band known as Quicksilver Messenger Service. During the 1960's, Quicksilver Messenger Service was one of the most popular and well respected bands playing in the acid rock scene. The band played alongside the other top legendary San Francisco bands such as Janis Joplin with Big Brother and the Holding Company, Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, and many other great acts. During his years of playing with Quicksilver Messenger Service, John Cipollina developed his trademark guitar style and sound. John's sound was defined by the technique of his guitar playing and the equipment he used to play the music. John Cipollina's guitar playing and his advanced ideas in equipment and special effects, helped make Quicksilver Messenger Service a great influence on many musicians.
John Cipollina developed his own unique style of guitar playing that relied on the use of finger picking, while pulling on the vibrato bar of the electric guitar, and his own custom amplifier stack and controls. Wearing two plastic finger picks that were custom filed to shape, he picked and/or plucked the strings with his thumb and index finger. His finger picking style was initially developed in classical guitar training that he was provided in his youth, as well as his study of the style of finger picking employed by Chet Akins. As John became interested in studying blues guitar players, he brought together finger picking techniques from all the genres he had played to create his own unique style. John's finger picking style was married to his use of the vibrato bar, and then broadcast via his custom sound system.
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