Eric Roche

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Eric Roche (4 December 1967 - 6 September 2005)^[1] was a fingerstyle guitarist who died from throat cancer.

Eric played many musical genres on solo guitar such as classical, Celtic, folk, jazz, blues, rock and pop. As well as being a gifted guitarist-composer, he was also well known for his solo guitar arrangements. Some of these solo arrangements include:

'Jump' by Van Halen
'Higher Ground' by Stevie Wonder
'Killer' by Seal
'Blue in Green' by Miles Davis
'She Drives Me Crazy' by the Fine Young Cannibals
'Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)' and 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps' by the Beatles
'Take Five' by Dave Brubeck
'Smells Like Teen Spirit' by Nirvana

He will probably be most remembered for his percussive style of playing which involved drumming on the body of the guitar to create the sound of various different drums and even a sound similar to DJ scratching. He was well versed in not only standard tuning, but also in various other altered tunings on guitar, especially DADGAD. Just like Pierre Bensusan and Laurence Juber, Eric was able to play in multiple keys on this tuning without the need for a capo.

He was head of the guitar department at the Academy of Contemporary Music in Guildford, as well being the acoustic guitar columnist for Guitar Techniques Magazine since 1996. Eric has also released a guide to acoustic guitar playing entitled "The Acoustic Guitar Bible" (with a foreword by Tommy Emmanuel). Guthrie Govan dedicated a song called "Eric" in his album Erotic Cakes to Eric Roche.