About This Piece
The title Acousticore says everything about its genre: acoustic guitar played with the intensity and energy of metalcore. Rauscher takes the percussive-acoustic approach he developed in Still Awake and pushes it toward its extreme — the piece has a genuine aggression and drive rarely heard in fingerstyle guitar.
With over 5 million views, it proved that the audience for intense, high-energy acoustic guitar was much larger than anyone expected.
Technical Overview
- Heavy percussive framework: The guitar body is hit harder and more frequently than in Still Awake, creating a genuinely loud, visceral rhythm section
- Distortion-like tone: Rauscher's aggressive attack produces overtones and edge that approximate electric guitar distortion
- Two-hand coordination under pressure: Maintaining clean melodic lines while hitting the body hard is physically demanding
- Open C sustain: The low C string's resonance provides the "dropped tuning" quality of heavy music
Learning Path
Requires strong physical conditioning — your strumming arm will be genuinely tired after playing this at full intensity. Build the percussive technique slowly and at low volume first, then gradually increase the intensity. The technique can cause hand fatigue if approached too aggressively from the start.