Trace Bundy is an American
acoustic guitar
An acoustic guitar is a musical instrument in the string family. When a string is plucked its vibration is transmitted from the bridge, resonating throughout the top of the guitar. It is also transmitted to the side and back of the instrument, ...
player who lives and performs in
Boulder, Colorado
Boulder is a home rule city that is the county seat and most populous municipality of Boulder County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 108,250 at the 2020 United States census, making it the 12th most populous city in Color ...
. He is known to fans as "The Acoustic Ninja" for his
legato and
finger tapping skills. Bundy's guitar playing style is percussive and harmonic: he plays with both hands on the
fretboard, intricate
finger picking
Fingerstyle guitar is the technique of playing the guitar or bass guitar by plucking the strings directly with the fingertips, fingernails, or picks attached to fingers, as opposed to flatpicking (plucking individual notes with a single plectr ...
arpeggio
A broken chord is a chord broken into a sequence of notes. A broken chord may repeat some of the notes from the chord and span one or more octaves.
An arpeggio () is a type of broken chord, in which the notes that compose a chord are played ...
s and inventive use of multiple
capos. He was showcased and eventually discovered on websites such as
YouTube and
Facebook.
Early life and development of playing style
Bundy was born in
Austin, Minnesota and later moved to the small town of
Buena Vista, Colorado.
As a boy Bundy and his brother bought a guitar together, and Bundy began learning songs from guitar magazines.
Bundy is right-handed. During his teenage years he began experimenting with his playing style. He gave up using a guitar pick, and instead grew his fingernails long to develop his fingerpicking style. He also introduced a harmonic slapping technique, the use of various
effects pedals, and
capos.
Bundy met Jonah Werner (now an acclaimed acoustic
folk songwriter) in high school and started playing with him at a local coffee shop in Buena Vista. The duo played mostly
Jackopierce and other various folk songs. Bundy then met Tim Thornton from
Newcomers Home
Katie Herzig is an American singer-songwriter whose songs have appeared often in movies, TV shows, and commercials.
Personal life
Katie Herzig was born in California to a musical family. When she was one year old, her family moved to Fort Col ...
and started playing old
Dylan and
Cat Stevens
Yusuf Islam (born Steven Demetre Georgiou; ), commonly known by his stage names Cat Stevens, Yusuf, and Yusuf / Cat Stevens, is a British singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. His musical style consists of folk, pop, rock, and, later in ...
tunes. They all attended the
University of Colorado at Boulder and still continue to play together from time to time.
Bundy moved to
Boulder, Colorado
Boulder is a home rule city that is the county seat and most populous municipality of Boulder County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 108,250 at the 2020 United States census, making it the 12th most populous city in Color ...
and attended the
University of Colorado where he earned his undergraduate and master's degrees in civil engineering, and then taught at the university for a further two years. During this period his concert bookings increased steadily, and eventually he decided to become a full-time musician.
Career
Bundy's first musical release was in 1999 with ''O Night Divine'', a collection of traditional
Christmas songs. His next recording, containing all original songs, was 2000's ''Solomon's Splendor''.
In October 2004 he released a
CD/
DVD titled ''Adapt''. The DVD is of a live concert filmed in Boulder in the summer of 2004.
Many clips from this DVD have circulated on
YouTube and have received well over twenty-one million views. Some of the more popular clips are Bundy covering the
Backstreet Boys song "
I Want It That Way", and
Pachelbel's
Canon performed on an acoustic guitar using the fingertapping technique. Bundy acquired the nickname "Acoustic Ninja" after a review of one of his shows in a Colorado newspaper was titled "Attack of the Acoustic Ninja".
Following this album was ''A Few Songs for Christmas'', an
EP of more Christmas songs released in December 2007. In 2008, Bundy released ''Missile Bell'', a two-part project consisting of a studio CD, a live CD, and a DVD filmed live at the Boulder Theater in November 2007. The album was inspired by a trip Bundy and his wife Becca made to Central America, accompanying a humanitarian group.
At the end of 2008, Bundy was named "Most Promising New Talent of the Year" by ''
Acoustic Guitar
An acoustic guitar is a musical instrument in the string family. When a string is plucked its vibration is transmitted from the bridge, resonating throughout the top of the guitar. It is also transmitted to the side and back of the instrument, ...
'' magazine, and came in third in the same magazine's "Best Fingerstyle Guitarist of the Year" category.
Touring with
Sungha Jung
Sungha Jung ( ko, 정성하; born 2 September 1996) is a Koreans, South Korean musician who specializes in acoustic fingerstyle guitar. Jung creates acoustic covers and arrangements, typically by ear and/or by watching videos, and composes o ...
In 2005 Bundy discovered a finger-picking guitar prodigy when he saw a YouTube video of a 9 year old Korean boy
Sungha Jung
Sungha Jung ( ko, 정성하; born 2 September 1996) is a Koreans, South Korean musician who specializes in acoustic fingerstyle guitar. Jung creates acoustic covers and arrangements, typically by ear and/or by watching videos, and composes o ...
playing Bundy's version of
(Pachelbel's) Canon. Bundy twice toured South Korea and he would get in touch with Jung and have him open Bundy's shows. Then Bundy would call Jung up on the stage with him to play Cannon in unison. In 2009 Bundy flew Jung to the United States and the two did a U.S. West Coast tour. Since that time the two have played together often.
Bundy's most recent album, ''Elephant King'', was released on May 1, 2012.
“In 2014 Bundy was announced as the winner of the
ESPN ''
SportsCenter
''SportsCenter'' (SC) is a daily sports news television show, television program that serves as the flagship program and brand of United States, American cable television, cable and satellite television television network, network ESPN. The show ...
'' Fan Jam contest while he performed the program's theme tune live on the show on March 4, 2014 at ESPN's studios in
Bristol, Connecticut.”
In 2016 he was the subject of a short documentary film made by
Florida State University
Florida State University (FSU) is a public research university in Tallahassee, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida. Founded in 1851, it is located on the oldest continuous site of higher education in the st ...
student Robert Bevis, titled ''Acoustic Ninja''. The film was included in the official selection of six film festivals, and was a finalist at the Emerging Filmmaker Showcase at the
Cannes Film Festival in 2017.
Reviews
"Possessing a staggering acoustic technique, on both right and left sides, Bundy has made his reputation as a next generation solo guitarist of serious repute. Furious, marksman-like fretboard tapping, blizzards of bouncing harmonics, tricky in-song capo-sliding (or removal/addition), freehand guitar body tapping — Bundy combines a dizzying range of offbeat technical calisthenics and inverted melodic sense to create what can safely be characterized as performance art." Dave Kirby of the '' Boulder Weekly''.
Personal life
Trace Bundy married Rebecca on September 3, 2002. Together they have two sons.
Discography
Releases on the Honest Ninja Music label:
*''
O Night Divine'' (1999)
*''
Solomon's Splendor'' (2000)
*''
Adapt
ADAPT (formerly American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today) is a United States grassroots disability rights organization with chapters in 30 states and Washington, D.C. They use nonviolent direct action in order to bring about disability just ...
'' (2004)
*''A Few Songs for Christmas EP'' (2007)
*''
Missile Bell'' (2008)
*''
Elephant King'' (2012)
References
External links
Official Trace Bundy Web siteOfficial Myspace ProfileTrace Bundy on Sporscenter''Acoustic Ninja'' – Robert Bevis's documentary about Trace BundyTrace Bundy - Pachelbel's Canon
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bundy, Trace
Living people
Fingerstyle guitarists
People from Austin, Minnesota
Musicians from Boulder, Colorado
American YouTubers
American male guitarists
1977 births