San Holo—DJ, producer, songwriter, and at his core, a highly skilled guitarist from a small town in Holland. While he’s known for breaking the internet with remixes, producing tracks with industry legends, and pioneering the future bass genre, most of his work begins in the same place: him and his guitar.
What makes San Holo’s approach unique is how he blends his guitar playing with electronic production, creating atmospheric, emotional soundscapes that have defined a generation of electronic music.
I met with him in Echo Park in Los Angeles to discuss his guitar philosophy and techniques, particularly focusing on how he uses drone notes, semitone intervals, and dynamic control to create his signature sound.
The Foundation: Simple Melodies with Complex Harmony
San Holo’s philosophy starts with simplicity. As he explains, he loves simple melodies—but the magic happens when you change the chords around that melody to alter its emotional vibe.
Let’s start with the fundamental melodic idea from his track “Worthy,” played in the key of E:
On its own, this melody might sound a bit plain. It’s straightforward, singable, and uncomplicated. But that simplicity is exactly the point—it becomes a blank canvas for harmonic exploration.
The Secret Weapon: Drone Notes
Drone notes are central to San Holo’s guitar sound. A drone is a note (or notes) that continues to ring while the harmony changes around it. On guitar, this often means letting open strings ring throughout a progression.
As San Holo puts it: “I love drone notes on the guitar. I think we all love that—notes that keep ringing whether it’s one or two notes. You can change the chords underneath.”
So instead of playing a simple progression that moves from E to C#m to A in the open position, San Holo plays those three chords like this:
The open B and E strings act like the glue here that makes everything feel like it exists in the same sonic world. Without them, each chord change feels more separate and distinct. With them, the progression flows as one continuous, floating texture.
This creates what San Holo describes as a “floaty” guitar sound—ethereal, atmospheric, and perfect for electronic music contexts.
The Magic Interval: The Semitone
One of San Holo’s signature techniques is his use of semitone intervals and exploring the tension between closely spaced notes.
A semitone is the smallest interval in Western music—the distance of one fret on the guitar. Examples include:
- C♯ to D
- D♯ to E
- B to C
San Holo illustrates this by taking the note of D♯(at the 8th fret of the G string) and then playing the open E string directly afterwards. As he explains:
San Holo explains: “If you just play this on its own, almost anyone would say that sounds weird, sounds ugly, sounds not nice. But then when you add a beautiful chord to it, suddenly it becomes something else.”
This is the leading tone effect—a note that creates tension and wants to resolve up by a half-step.
The Major 7th Chord Application
One of the most effective uses of this tension is the major 7th chord. When you play an E major chord and add the D♯ (the major 7th), you get that characteristic “floaty,” unresolved quality.
This interval “represents life in a way,” as San Holo puts it. “Life could be this [tense], but life could also be this [resolved]. It’s the way you look at it—just the right moments for the right sounds.”
Transforming Simple Progressions
Let’s take the basic progression we started with and see how adding these concepts transforms it.
San Holo takes the basic chord progression we started with, and adds melody, drone notes and the bass notes of the chords to create a beautiful progression that looks like this:
This might look complicated, but breaking it down reveals it’s built from simple components we’ve already covered.
San Holo teaches me how to play this picking pattern and the specific fingerings he uses for each chord. So use the tab above and follow along from the 8.20 minute mark to learn exactly how to play it.
The Role of Dynamics
As you’re playing through the piece, pay close attention to your dynamics.
The melody is not played on the highest strings, and actually sits below it on the G string.
San Holo emphasizes these melody notes by playing them harder than the surrounding strings. So even though you’re strumming all the strings and there is a drone being played on the open B and E stringd, the melody stands out because of the accent.
Final Thoughts
San Holo’s guitar technique demonstrates that innovation doesn’t always mean complexity. Sometimes the most powerful approach is finding new ways to use the simple, natural qualities of an instrument—in this case, the guitar’s ability to sustain multiple strings simultaneously.
The beauty of drone notes is they’re available to everyone. You don’t need expensive gear or years of practice. You need open strings, creative chord voicings, and the willingness to experiment with what sounds good to your ear.
Start simple: pick a key, let some strings ring, move chords around underneath. Listen for the moments when something unexpected and beautiful happens. Those moments are where the magic lives.
