Recently I had the opportunity to attend “A Conversation with Mateus Asato”, an exclusive intimate event brought by Swee Lee and Dawson’s.
It was held at only two locations, Swee Lee Clarke Quay in Singapore and Dawson’s in London.
Due to the intimate nature of both events, tickets were sold out within less than 90 mins (as far as I’m aware of) for the Singapore event and the London tickets were quickly sold out as well.
For context, I live in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and purposely made a trip to Singapore to attend this event featuring Mateus Asato.
Meng Ru Kuok, founder and CEO of Caldecott Music Group, hosted the session along with Mateus Asato answering questions, sharing stories and tips. Mateus also played different songs and guitar parts to demonstrate the concepts and things he’s learned over the years.
Meng described Mateus as a generational talent, someone so talented that he is someone who comes once a generation. This makes perfect sense especially looking at the success that Mateus has achieved over his still youthful career.
#1 – FIND YOUR INSPIRATION
The session began with Mateus sharing stories from his early years in Brazil, growing up listening to his mother playing guitar and singing. At that time, he was mostly into football (that’s soccer, for Americans). It was only when he heard his uncle play guitar that he was enamored by the sound of the guitar. It was only then that he approached his mother and ask her to teach him guitar. Mateus was nine years old and that is when he picked up guitar.
To Mateus, music was always a secondary thing, it was present but was not the main thing in his life. He also described how we would hear music in movies, or in cafes or restaurants, music gave the atmosphere but is not the main thing — however, we would feel a lot of loss of music wasn’t there, since it does contribute to everything around us.
Talking about music, Mateus shared how the band Red Hot Chili Peppers was one of his early influences. He recalls learning the song, “Scar Tissue”.
#2 – WORK ON YOUR VIBRATO
When asked whether he had any bad habits that stayed with him from learning guitar as a kid, Mateus mentioned that he has a bad habit when it comes to vibrato, which he does a John Sykes kind of vibrato. Although Mateus’s vibrato sounded generally good, Mateus felt that it wasn’t as controlled as it could be.
He recalls finally fixing his vibrato around 2021 when he received advice from an experienced guitarist in Brazil, Juninho Afram of the band Oficina G3 who pointed out this issue to him. Mateus says that you can play a good vibrato is you visualize a wave. Before that, Mateus always found that his vibrato was okay for the beginning part but not towards the end of note decaying.
#3 – LEARN TO PLAY CHORD MELODY
Elaborating on his love for chord melody playing, he says it come out from sheer necessity. He wanted to still be able to play even when he didn’t have a band backing him. He talks about of his composition, Change which is an example of his take on solo playing. In addition to that, Mateus also played his version of “How Deep Is Your Love” and how he approached arranging it as a solo guitar piece. Mateus feels that the song lies really nicely on the guitar fretboard.
Using the song as launchpad for discussing guitar playing, Mateus also demonstrated the importance of learning where every note is on the fretboard. He played his octave exercise that goes through a single note jumping in octaves across the various positions on the guitar neck. I’ve seen Mateus play this in different videos and interviews. It was good to see him talk about this live, and to see how important this was to him.
Mateus also talked about how Sungha Jung was also an influence to him exploring solo guitar. He also mentioned that he wanted to do what Sungha did, but on electric guitar, with the considerations and expression (in terms of technique and sound) that would come with playing solo on an electric guitar.
#4 – THE MELODY IS KING
When arranging for solo guitar, Mateus regards the melody of the song as the ALPHA of everything. It’s only after you have the melody that you should start adding the flavor to the melody.
I particularly liked how Mateus made musical decisions such as changing the octave of a melody to create a more expressive arrangement for it on guitar. This is what we can hear in his arrangement of “How Deep Is Your Love”.
Learning solo guitar was something that he worked on after completing music school, and to him, he had to erase everything he learned in music school in order to create these solo renditions. It’s also important to know the style of music that you’re playing and of course, as he mentioned before, know all the notes on the guitar. You begin with single notes and then move on to chords.
On to the topic of his move from Brazil to the United States, Mateus said that the biggest thing he learned when he was in the US (or specifically during his time in Musicians Institute) was how rich the world is in terms of culture. Growing up in Brazil, there is an immense pride in terms of what Brazil has created, so being in the US and meeting classmates from different parts of the world opened up Mateus to new things. Mateus says that there’s always something new that a person could teach you, there’s always a new thing that we could learn from someone else.
#5 – GET INSPIRED BY SINGERS
Going into guitar technique, Mateus says his technique probably is around 70% left hand focused and 30% right hand focused. He says that he struggled a lot with rhythm since his approach has always been more focused on melody. He relates what he does to what singers do. He doesn’t have words, but he has a melody. To Mateus, it’s always been melody first.
When asked about his experience working with some of the best singers in the world, Mateus says that he attributes his “micro slide” (a thing that people notices he does a lot) to listening to vocalists. He used to transcribe vocal runs from the singers he works with.
#6 – GET GROOVY
Talking about working with Silk Sonic, he calls that “the shortest season that he learned the most”. He shared the story of getting a call from Bruno Mars to work on the project and how he learned the nuances of 70s music to prepare for that project. Coming from a rock background, it was a challenge for him to go from playing very much in the grid (locking into the time) to developing a laid back feel more suited for the style. It’s not easy for him!
On a more technical level, he used to used 1.0mm picks but since then started using 0.73mm picks to get a better sound and feel for that kind of groove-oriented music.
When it comes to rhythm, he had to reshape himself and to avoid the habits that he always played. Mateus said he would usually play some kind of fill in between the chords but for this music, he had to develop restrain and just play the chords with the right feel.
For this kind of thing, he said you need to record yourself, get a chord progression that works for funk and pay attention to the grid. He also mentioned that drummers influenced him the most in terms of time.
#7 – UNDERSTAND YOUR PERSONAL APPROACH
Moving on into his new course, Asatonics – Mateus shared how he learned more about his own playing in the process of developing the course. He realized that he mostly played pentatonics in most of his solos and then sometimes pentatonic with extra flavors.
That led him to develop his five step process which is:
- Visualize – seeing where you want to go
- Get in Shape – learning all the shapes
- Change Your Mind – adding extra flavors?
- Get Out of Shape – adding more flavors to the original limitation
- Set Yourself Free – choosing not to be restricted anymore
This is of course an oversimplification (based on what I remember him saying) – so if this interests you, do check out his Asatonic course available on his website here.
Mateus then continued to say that over time, he feels that he is relearning his instrument again, and part of it came from him examining his playing when he wanted to teach his ideas in his courses. He also said that there are more courses to come in the future!
#8 – KNOW YOUR PLACE
Talking about collaborations, he shared his experience working with Matty Healy of the 1975, and how with collaborations in the studio, each meeting is kind of like a Tinder date… and you have to see how it goes. He also emphasized the importance of knowing your place and to read the room in that kind of situation.
#9 – CHOOSE YOUR CAREER DIRECTION
In 2016, Mateus reached a turning point in his career when he did his first ever guitar clinic in South Korea. 500 people bought tickets to see him at this guitar clinic.
That is what opened up his mind to the possibility of embarking on a solo career as an artist.
To Mateus, he looked at his career path in two possible main directions:
- Being a session musician (which was his path up to that point in time)
- Being an artist (which was he started to consider in 2017, after his experience in South Korea the year before)
He said the experience of having the whole stage to himself in South Korea, with everything available to him was a positive experience that shaped him to explore the possibility of doing his own music.
After his work with Tori Kelly, he did embark on session work with Jessie J, Bruno Mars and Silk Sonic — but now at age 31, he said he understood that there’s a reason for everything — and now he sleeps and wakes up thinking of working on his solo album and he’s set a personal deadline for himself, which is May 24 2025.
At the end of the session, Meng opened up the floor for two questions from the audience. The first question inquired about his experience working with Plini. Mateus shared the story behind that experience and how both of them brought their musical influences together in a positive way to create something special.
#10 KNOW YOUR WHY AND BE IN GOOD COMPANY
For the second question, I asked Mateus about what has changed in terms of how he approaches life, social media, and his music career nowadays — compared to how he viewed it back in 2017 (when I first met him, studying in his guitar camp in Singapore).
Mateus opened up about his experience moving back to Brazil during 2020 to be with his family, and how that really affected him. He shared how prior to the lockdowns, musicians were generally in two camps:
- Live performers who didn’t do social media
- Musicians who thrived and embraced social media
When the world shut down and musicians were forced to be at home, suddenly EVERYONE was online… and that affected Mateus.
He shared what led to him quitting social media and also his thoughts at that time. The biggest thing for him was when he received a call from Rick Beato who shared advice with Mateus.
In regards to this, Mateus said that it’s important to be in good company… meaning you need to be surrounded by people who can support and inspire you.
The second lesson, perhaps the biggest lesson for the entire session is to always remember your “WHY” — this is your purpose and when you understand why you do music, this can keep you inspired even in the darkest of times.
And with that, Meng closed the workshop and we took a group photo!
After that, I also managed to meet Mateus for awhile and then got to catch up with other friends. It was fun.
All in all, I am grateful that I had the opportunity to get a ticket for the event and make the trip to Singapore. I know many didn’t get a chance to attend the session (including even my private guitar students) — which is why I wrote this post from my handwritten notes, so that hopefully this post will help others that are fans of Mateus.
Thanks again Swee Lee Clarke Quay, everyone who organized and worked to make the event happen, Meng and his team and of course Yin who was open to this musical adventure. It was especially awesome because Meng hosted the session. Meng is a fan (and friend) of Mateus, and he definitely prepared great questions that opened up so many insightful stories for all of us to learn from.
Shoutouts to Anthony, Elgin, Wax, Simon, David and everyone else that I managed to talk to. Till next time, hopefully in Kuala Lumpur!
If you enjoyed this post, I encourage you to explore my other articles and posts, which offer even more guitar and music tips.
You might enjoy reading:
10 Things I Learned From the Ichika Nito Guitar Clinic at Bentley Music Auditorium, Mutiara Damansara, Petaling Jaya, Malaysia
Event Review: Laney Presents Lari Basilio Asia Clinic Tour at Bentley Music Auditorium, Mutiara Damansara, Petaling Jaya, Malaysia
7 Things I Learned From Mateus Asato
and this series:
[WORKSHOPS: LEARNING FROM THE MASTERS]
10 Things I Learned From The Mateus Asato Singapore Guitar Clinic (2017)
10 Things I Learned From The Julian Lage TIJC 2017 Workshop
10 Things I Learned From The Jack Thammarat Kuala Lumpur Workshop
10 Things I Learned From The Guthrie Govan Kuala Lumpur Workshop
And for jazzers… interested to check out what I learned from the Thailand International Jazz Camp 2017 (12 hours of workshops & 2 hours of jam sessions), check out the 3,100+ word blog post here: Thailand International Jazz Camp 2017 with Shai Maestro/Desmond White Group and Thailand International Jazz Camp 2018 with Will Vinson Quintet.
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