I’m excited to introduce JC Valladares, a talented classical guitarist and educator, who will be joining me in bringing my video game arrangements to life. Born and raised in Spain, JC discovered a passion for guitar at 14, quickly blending his love for music and video games. Like many of us, he explored communities like gametabs.net, where he honed his skills playing guitar arrangements from his favorite games.
JC has an impressive background, with degrees in both Musicology and Guitar Performance from Spain. He’s studied under some incredible guitar masters and has taught over 100 students, many of whom have gone on to study in conservatories. Currently living in Montreal and teaching music, JC is dedicated to sharing his love of guitar and continues to work on exciting musical projects.
We’ve partnered up to record some of my video game arrangements, and I can’t wait for you all to hear the results! Look out for an upcoming behind-the-scenes video where JC will be sight-reading some of my pieces.
If you have any questions or want to reach out to JC directly, feel free to message him on Discord! Get ready for some great new music!
A Personal Note From Me
I wanted to take a moment to give you all a more personal explanation about this decision. When I came back to arranging, I was overwhelmed by the warm welcome from so many friendly faces. Your support means the world to me.
But time hasn’t been too kind to your old buddy Kabuki. Over the years, wear and tear from my jobs has taken its toll on my wrists and shoulders. Recording has become much harder, especially since I always aim to get the perfect take in one go—sometimes spending hours and countless reshoots for a single video. What I used to manage over five hours has now become a lot more challenging.
To keep sharing music with you, I’ve tried using generated recordings, but honestly, I’ve never been truly happy with them. I did it because I thought something was better than nothing. It’s always been important to me that you are the ones playing this music. When I started this, it was to get you excited about an instrument I had recently fallen in love with.
But it felt like something was missing. I’ve always believed that live, warm recordings are key, and that seeing the piece played is so helpful for many of you who have followed along with me as we learned some great video game tunes together. That’s why I’ve decided to go this route with JC.
You’ll still get the occasional low-quality webcam video of me fumbling through a piece here and there, so I’m not disappearing again. But I want to keep helping you grow as artists and inspire new players to pick up the instrument we love—an instrument that has been with us every step of the way through the music we grew up with.
That’s all I’ve got to say about that for now. :) Thank you all for your support!