News, Views and Opinions for Acoustic Guitar Players
Posted in Acoustic Guitar Players on Jun 15th, 2008
Martin Simpson’s expressive playing of Celtic Aires is truly breathtaking. Even when he plays a single line with no accompaniment, he skillfully chooses the position of the notes to set the tone. And what tone and color he achieves from his Sobell guitar. If you havn’t come across his playing I suggest getting some of [...]
Posted in Acoustic Guitar Players on Jun 11th, 2008
“Tune it or Die!”, a great slogan I saw on a t-shirt at a session recently. If you are playing by yourself, as long as the guitar is in tune with itself it doesn’t matter too much. Or does it? I find that by always keeping my guitars at concert pitch my ear improves. I [...]
Posted in Acoustic Guitar Players, CD Review, Fingerstyle Guitar on May 13th, 2008
While I was adding the pages with tuition DVDs I listened to the new Tommy Emmanuel live CD, Center Stage. I really like seeing Tommy play live, or on DVDs and You Tube, but I wondered whether I would enjoy listening to a recording as so much of his performance is about connecting with his [...]
Posted in Acoustic Guitar Players, Tablature, Video on May 9th, 2008
Paul Brady owns the traditional song, ‘Arthur McBride and the Sergeant’. His Lowden accompaniment sounds effortless, but shows great dexterity and passion. Although first recorded in the mid 1970’s, his versions of ‘Arthur McBride’ and ‘The Lakes Of Pontchartrain’ are still being asked for by audiences today. In many folk clubs Arthur McBride is on [...]
Posted in Acoustic Guitar Players, Book Review, Online Course Review, Video on May 7th, 2008
I’ve been a fan of British guitarist Gordon Giltrap for many years. Heart’s Song was the first thing I heard him play as it was used as theme music for the BBC’s Holiday program in the 1970’s. It went on to be nominated for an Ivor Novello award.
Over the years, Gordon has worked with [...]
Posted in Acoustic Guitar Players, CD Review on May 2nd, 2008
The new recording from Neil Diamond is released on May 6th, so this is a pre-review. However, after seeing him play Pretty Amazing Grace on American Idol I immediately preordered the delux edition. If you missed it here he is, courtesy of YouTube:
Posted in Acoustic Guitar Players, Fingerstyle Guitar, Video on Apr 28th, 2008
In this first post I’m going to share a video of one of my favorite acoustic guitar players, John Renbourn. I first met John at a guitar gathering in Cheshire, England. After following his playing for many years, I was thrilled to see and hear him play in a very small and intimate venue.
Here [...]
