Mar 08, 2011 - 10:46 AM

Mike Ruta

WHITBY -- Whitby guitarist Juan Coronado's second solo disc, Ultrasonico, continues the journey he's on to forge a unique sound.

Coronado says he's "always been a rock guy," and you can certainly hear his edgy, hard sound on a number of the tracks. But there are also two acoustic tracks which, along with a lot of the percussion on the disc, show his Latin roots.

"I'm trying to do a fusion where you have elements of different music happening at the same time," Coronado says in an interview.

He arrived here from his native Colombia seven years ago and, while Coronado was already a sensation there, the accolades and awards have continued coming. A self-taught player, he has twice been named one of the world's top 10 Guitar Heroes by Guitar Player magazine. His blistering fret work has caught the attention of legends such as Joe Satriani, with whom Coronado had a chance to play, and who told him "you play really great."

And while he says it's nice to be considered one of the best on the planet, Coronado tries to keep the praise in perspective.

"As guitar players go, there's no way to say who's better," he says. "I think what's more important is the kind of music people do. I'm not trying to be the fastest guitar player ... What I'm doing is coming up with music that's unique."

Coronado has received an invitation to perform at the prestigious Montreal Jazz Festival and says "I am so going."

That he plays at all is amazing for several reasons. While mom and dad played guitar and encouraged him to take it up, he was never interested. He recalls receiving a guitar as a Christmas present when he was around five.

"I remember opening it and thinking, 'Oh no, a guitar, this is the worst Christmas of my life'," he says.

It was roughly a decade later that he heard Def Leppard's Gods of War. He was so into the song, and in particular the bass line, that he decided to learn it, digging out his old Christmas present.

"All of a sudden, it hit me, I have a guitar, not a bass," Coronado recalls. "Mom showed me how to tune it and that was it."

He's been playing guitar full time ever since and teaches out of his home studio, working with roughly 60 students per week from all over Durham.

But it almost came to a terrible end two years ago.

Coronado says he's "not a handy person at all," so he enlisted a friend to help him lay a hardwood floor in his basement studio. One day, deciding that he wanted to forge ahead alone, Coronado was cutting boards with a table saw when he badly mangled and fractured three of the fingers on his left hand. He was told he wouldn't play again and admits he was scared. But looking at his hand today, you would never know he was injured.

"For some strange miracle, my fingertips grew back," Coronado says.

But the road back to playing, and playing at the level to which he was accustomed, was a tough one. The pain was "horrible" and he pushed himself hard.

So, Ultrasonico was a triumph for a number of reasons. Coronado wrote all of the music and played all of the instruments, with some exceptions, which he's anxious to point out: he enlisted legendary bass player Stuart Hamm and Protest the Hero guitarist Tim Millar.

Next up for Coronado is a collaboration with a local vocalist, Oshawa's Mike de Guzman, on a project that he says will be more pop than rock.

"He's an amazing singer; I'm excited to see what will happen," Coronado says.

Check out his website, www.juancoronado.com, where you can hear some of his music and buy Ultrasonico and his first solo disc, Renewal.