I finally have something to write about – just returned from a Tommy Emmanuel concert in Singapore.

Concert

His music was so full of feeling, yearning and groove. He was such an inspiration. He said something that really struck me: Follow your dreams and make them come true. This was especially meaningful to me as I’ve always wanted to be some kind of artist. I couldn’t be a philosopher, logician, poet or dancer and have given up dreams of being any of those. And yet, I still hold on to the dream of being some kind of musician or guitarist. And seeing him play and say those words really inspired me not to give up this last dream of mine. Despite first picking up the guitar at 14, I’m still a long long way from my dreams after being stagnant for a number of years and not playing for some years until 2004 or 2005, when Chris lent me his Carvin guitar. I’m almost 30 now and I’ve decided to seriously pursue music/guitar and give up my other interests. I’ve been making progress on my own and at times I do feel I’m a bit too old to become the sort of guitarist/musician I wish. But I shall remind myself of what Tommy Emmanuel said during his masterclass before the concert: There’s no time like the present.

Anyway, I wanted to be constantly reminded of what he said. So, during the autograph session, I told him to write “Boon, Follow Your Dreams!” so that I can put it up at the desk where I can see it whenever I practise playing the guitar. Tommy Emmanuel, so wonderfully warm and obliging enough to agree to my request. Check out the photos of Chloe and me with him. We’ve taken a photo with a celebrity, one of the “Top 3 Guitarists of All Time” according to a reader’s poll in Acoustic Guitar magazine I hope some of his groove and feeling for music rubbed off me too!

Chloe loved the songs Questions, Since We Met, and Stay Close to Me. While watching him, she said that she had to tell me that what I was missing in my playing was feeling. She suggested that I restrain my impatience when I learn songs and not rush to go on to the next piece of music. She suggested that I learn the songs just cited so that I can develop more feeling in my playing. While I think I have more feel than the average blues player in Singapore, I think I still light years away from getting Tommy Emmanuel’s feel for music. Anyway, I agreed with Chloe’s analysis and told her that I’ll transcribe Since We Met since that sounded the easiest of the three songs. I told her to watch over me and make sure I become a great player and not let impatience, arrogance, my ego and wanting to impress other people get in the way of me becoming a good guitarist/musician. She said what struck her most about him was that he played for himself.

And let me tell you, Tommy Emmanuel’s enthusiasm for the music was clear for all to see. Such pure, singular and focussed love for the instrument and music. Chloe said that it was very clear he loved the guitar a lot. Much to my surprise, she was most impressed by a piece he played that emulated the sounds of aboriginal music and the sounds of the Australian Outback. She was impressed because she said that he was at one with the instrument. He hypnotised the instrument and the instrument in turn hypnotised him and they played as one, a clear example of what he said about Chet Akins earlier in the concert. Tommy had earlier said that even before he met Chet Atkins (a hero, mentor and influence of his), he felt that he already knew Chet Atkins cos he knew Chet Atkins’ music. And you can’t separate the music and the personality, the person and the music were one. Tommy was in a trance when he played that Australian Outback/Aborigine inspired piece. I was surprised Chloe liked that piece cos I thought she might have found it too loud and jarring with all the feedback from an acoustic guitar! I was getting a bit restless at the end of listening to so much guitar music and thought it was a bit indulgent but I think I wasn’t fully present in the moment and missed all the things that Chloe saw, enjoyed and appreciated.

And one final piece of info for the record. Tommy has a great sense of humour.

Master Class

I also attended a masterclass he held in the afternoon. Here’s the notes of the masterclass. Too bad Chris missed it.

First, think like a singer and phrase/state your melody like a singer does. This means letting the music breathe (and I tell you this is what I don’t have when I play the guitar. My music always sounds rushed and impatient) like a way a singer pauses to breathe. This means stating the melody sometimes ahead of the beat, sometimes behind. This means that the harmony/accompaniment is sometimes late.

Equipment. When playing live, focus on getting good sounds from the amp, not the guitar. He uses a specially made guitar made in Australia, which came with the sound equipment (minus the reverb which he got from Ebay for $50) he used. He uses 6 Piezo pick-ups and advised that a live musician should always at least be able to control the volume and sound as much as possible and not rely on the soundman to do everything. He uses a disc to cover the sound hole to minimise noises when playing live.

Artificial harmonics. What he does is alternate pick the harmonics and natural notes of a chord but the effect on the whole is that he appears to be picking all harmonics. He picks the harmonics with his thumb. Another approach of his (as in Somewhere Over the Rainbow) is to play the harmonics as triplets with pull-offs.

One-man-band on the guitar. Think like a band. Start with bassline, add drums, rhythm guitar and then the melody. Easier said than done and I was upset cos I thought that was fine for Tommy Emmanuel but mere mortals like me had to find a way to start and I wanted to know how I could start doing that. Erm, I don’t think I got an answer. But yes, anyway, I’ll start with the bassline.

Playing fingerstyle. A thumb that can move independently of the fingers is the key. Five steps. First, play chords C, F, G only with the thumb. Rest all other four fingers on fingerboard. Get a boom-chick, boom-chick groove. Remember to mute the strings with the palm. Second step, little finger remains rested on fingerboard with other three fingers spelling out the chord in this way: root note, chord notes, root note, chord notes, etc… Third step, add accent at end of each chord. Fourth step, arpegiate the chords with your fingers. Fifth step, learn Freight Train. Tommy uses Jim Dunlop medium thumbpicks (thumbpicks help him get a good boom-chick groove goign) and fingers (with no nails cos his nails are too thin and he can’t get a good sound with his nails) on his right hand. In general, thumbpick is more versatile as it allows you to play boom-chick bass groove and yet also pick individual notes when soloing.

Keeping groove/time. Tap your feet. Feel time with your mind, not only your body, i.e. the tapping foot. Separate from his foot tapping, Tommy hears in his mind a drummer playing along to his music in half time. He also suggested that we record ourselves playing.

General advice. Learning to play an instrument involves developing motor skills. To do this, repetition is necessary. Repeat till you don’t think about your hands anymore. But only you need the repetition, not your neighbours nor family. Haha, I know this from Chloe who heard me practise No. 1 Green Street almost every night for months. Anyway, I had a question. I wanted to know how I could practise repeatedly and still retain the feeling and excitement for the song when I first heard it. I think his general advice was to leave the song alone and not practise it everynight when you’ve more or less got it, which is also Chloe’s advice. He always left something for the song and doesn’t exhaust it by playing it every night. As an example, he cited Eric Clapton, who stopped playing Tears in Heaven, after the song lost the meaning it had for him (which was dedicated to his child who passed away) when he played it every night.

Improvisation. Play chords, sing a phrase/solo over it and duplicate it on the guitar. Listen as widely as possible (George Benson, whom he considered the best living jazz guitarist and a seriously underrated guitarist who didn’t get the recognition he deserved, Joe Pass, Hendrix, and Django. For great songwriting, listen to Clapton, Billy Joel (Tommy played a beautiful cover of Endless Road) and Elton John) and steal as much as you can. Don’t listen to guitar players so much, approach the guitar non-guitaristically, via other instruments e.g. piano. Listen to and recognise patterns in songs. Analyse why certain songs are great or grabs you in the heart, it’s normally because of a certain melody moving against the chords.

Pictures

Check out the pictures we took with Tommy Emmanuel after the concert. Tommy Emmanuel hugged Chloe! She was the only one that got the special treatment in the long queue of people taking pictures of Tommy Emmanuel! Ha, ha Chris, you could have taken a picture with Tommy Emmanuel and enjoyed the masterclass and concert too!