Hey Shamus, Check this Guy Out!

[houseisland]

Melodically pretty. Fun technique. Harmonically limited.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ddn4MGaS3N4

Ain't open tunings fun?

Sort of reminds of Pierre Bensusan meets Earl Klugh (I think Klugh was the guy who did the tapping).

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It is my pure and virtuous heart that
gives me the strength of ten!

[NooNoo]

Sounds nice and looks fun.

[Ferrit]

thats very good

[houseisland]

Errr .... correction .... make that "Pierre Bensusan meets Stanley Jordan."

It is a lot of fun watching this guy.

Open tunings are interesting -- anyone can "sound" great if they have any rhythmic and melodic sense at all -- very hard to go entirely wrong.

DADGAD, a sarod tuning ported to the guitar probably by (the brilliant and revolutionary) Davey Graham, is responsible for much of the worst of the Windham Hill, vague, noodlely, vacuuous, New-Agey, mental-floss, sonic-wallpaper, nice-sound-in-search-of-an-idea, easy-listening, acoustic guitar genre. Note that I specify "much of the worst of." There is stuff in this genre that I am partial to. I am not "dissing" the whole.

Pierre Bensusan, an elfish-looking, little Algerian-Frenchman, is the absolute master of DADGAD. Listen to Santa Monica off his Solilaï album for an example.

I used to work in an alternative-type record shop. Whenever a good-looking woman of a certain style (Pre-Rhaphælite hair, a peasant type blouse, large hoop earrings, etc.) would come into the shop, I would put on the Solilaï album - guaranteed self-sale on Pierre's part almost nine times out of ten.


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It is my pure and virtuous heart that
gives me the strength of ten!

[houseisland]

This one shows a better view of McKee's right hand technique:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pbSv...elated&search=



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It is my pure and virtuous heart that
gives me the strength of ten!

[Richard1]

That's pretty impressive. If you are a fan of that type of percussive guitar playing, you guys should check out Ani DiFranco.

My favotrite song by her is "what if no ones whatching."

[shamus]

Melodically pretty. Fun technique. Harmonically limited.

That is cool, I found that a little while ago. There's another guy I've seen...I'll see if I can find the clip.

[shamus]

Haven't been able to find it, but I'd completely forgotten about Micheal Hedges *smacks forehead*

[houseisland]

Haven't been able to find it, but I'd completely forgotten about Micheal Hedges *smacks forehead*

I was dimly aware that Michael Hedges existed. Interesting.

His instrument is sort of a resurrection of the theorbo lute, a notoriously difficult instrument to play and keep in tune:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OYuowFuS_8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2ids...elated&search=

Lute technique requires a rolling of the strings off the ends of the right hand finger tips and a using of the same finger tips like piano dampers to stop notes when they have reached the end of their duration -- also no hammer ons or pull offs. Ralph Towner, my hero, has ported this technique to the 12-string guitar with good effect.

Here is Sting holding a theorbo lute as a prop: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNzK28eCdc8



He does a very nice job of a beautiful Dowland tune, though, IMHO. He has received a lot of scorn for his venture into the interesting and beautiful area of English lute songs. Academics don't realize, however, that lute songs were the pop music of their day. Sting, perhaps, has better claim to the material. The rock/pop music press does't realize that Dowland, Campion, Rosseter, et al were the Lennon/McCartney and Elvis Costellos of their day.

As an instrumentalist, Dowland was the Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck (all rolled into one) of the lute -- an international super star in his day. Major dude!



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It is my pure and virtuous heart that
gives me the strength of ten!

[houseisland]

A better look at Sting's theorbo lute:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRHutMf7_bU

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It is my pure and virtuous heart that
gives me the strength of ten!

[Mags]

Ah Ah ... I heard a real Theorbo twice last month, absolutely wonderful.

Young trio from Prague, the young man played a Theorbo ... they first played at Bournville Quaker Meeting Famine Lunch Concert, then at a local church the following evening, a friend and I went...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theorbo

And here is Thomas Berghan playing Chaconne on a Theorbo

http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/tom...aizenay_Ms.mp3

[houseisland]

Hi Mags,



This is an album you would probably enjoy greatly.


Paul O'Dette: Ancient Airs and Dances

Paul O'Dette, a great lutenist, did a lot of work tracking down the source pieces that Ottorino Respighi used as the basis for his Ancient Airs and Dances Suite No. 2. O'Dette recorded them as they probably would have been performed at the time of their composition. Rogers Covey-Crump, the singer on the album, has an amazing voice. A lovely, lovely album.



There are two samples you can listen to on the Hyperion website (link above).
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It is my pure and virtuous heart that
gives me the strength of ten!

[Mags]

Well, I listened to Molinaro: Saltarello del predetto ballo and wanted to dance !

And not so keen on Besard: C'est malheur, prefer instrumentals sometimes and wasn't sure what he was singing?

Night night ..

[shamus]

Stanley Jordan

[houseisland]

Stanley Jordan

Yes. Stanley Jordon. Which gets us back to almost where we started. Andy Mckee's "Drifting" is like Pierre Bensusan meets Stanley Jordan.

Jordon is cool.



Although, I remember not liking him when I first heard him -- the tapping always sounded a little out of tune.