Guitarists are brutally picking apart this awkward stock photo fail

16 November 2020, 17:06 | Updated: 18 November 2020, 18:10

A discordant photo from a stock library leads to a string of witty comments on social media.

A stock photo of a guitarist has created a social media storm over the weekend.

The picture is one of a man, romantically serenading a woman in a summery lavender field. However innocent it may sound, it was the placement of the guitarist's left hand that struck a pedantic chord.

Eschewing the usual way of playing, by pressing chords on the instrument's fretboard, the grinning guitarist is instead pictured reaching past the nut (the final part that holds the strings aloft), and fingering his chords around the tuning pegs. Which, alas, would have very little impact on pitch.

Read more: These stock photos of cellists are getting roasted on Instagram >

It's something that caught the attention of hundreds of eagle-eyed guitarists worldwide, and inspired a string of plucky comments.

Had he even played a guitar before? Was he confused by the size of the instrument?

“What chord is this?” asked Martín Suáre on Twitter.

“The worst thing is that the fingers have almost the same positioning as D major,” observed another tweeter.

“Never seen a guitar before!” said another.

Others questioned the smiles of the woman. Is she smiling because she thinks “It's lovely”, or is it that she doesn't want to be sincere? asked Edgar Ovando. “She smiles because he isn't actually playing anything”, said another.

The reasons behind her carefree, nose-in-the-air smile may well remain a mystery.

Opinions, however, were not universal.

Back to technical matters, Juliano Bonato leapt to the defence of the flashy fingered guitarist, citing the possibility that this is extended guitar technique for dramatic impact:

“The guy is pressing the rope to give Jimmy Page bend, you don't know and keep talking,” he maintains.

“Expression that requires octaves outside of the fretboard”, suggested Mateus Hestonovski Marona.

Another user, Wagner Toledo Ribeiro (great name), suggested he might be playing the opening of Nothing Else Matters by Metallica, which features a repeated broken chord over the open strings. More power to the guy who serenades his love in a lavender field with Metallica.

Guitarist and music meme truth-seeker Laura Snowden suggests it's all about the protagonist's specialty in extended guitar techniques. She filmed this helpful reenactment to prove it.

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A post shared by Laura Snowden (@laurasnowdenguitar)

Well played in every way, Laura.

Well, whatever the truth behind this vignette, we enjoyed the journey.

And for any interested in learning, here's Milos to demonstrate conventional means of creating notes on the guitar.

Milos plays Milonga by Cardoso