The inventive guitar stylings of Molly Tuttle
Tuttle is an exceptionally gifted guitarist and musician who pushes the boundaries of roots and acoustic music.
All posts tagged: Acoustic Guitar
Saturday Soundtrack: Al Petteway and Amy White
Acoustic duo Al Petteway and Amy White will celebrate 25 years of music together at a special Institute of Musical Traditions (IMT) concert on Saturday evening, November 23rd. Favorites of the IMT crowd (and former Washington, DC-area residents before a move to the mountains of Asheville, North Carolina), these are musicians sure to fill the room at St. Marks in Rockville, the main IMT concert venue where I’ve heard them live through the years. Al and Amy’s music is eclectic yet uniformly lovely on the ears. Petteway is an award-winning fingerstyle guitarist (voted one of the Top 50 Guitarists of all time by the readers of Acoustic Guitar Magazine) while Amy is a composer and singer who is no slouch on the instrumental chops as well. Their repertoire has been described as “original, traditional, contemporary Celtic- and Appalachian-influenced music with occasional nods to Blues, New Age, and Jazz.” That about sums it up. Al and Amy have provided music for the soundtrack for several Ken Burns documentaries, most notably The National Parks: America’s Best Idea. …
Think slow
Our 15-year-old nephew — a budding musician — was in town this past weekend, so I took him to the House of Musical Traditions in Takoma Park. There he could see every type of musical instrument known to humankind (plus some) and, frankly, it gave me an excuse to play a few good guitars. Not that I don’t have good guitars at home. Later in the day my nephew had a chance to see and play my two prized Running Dog guitars made by luthier Rick Davis. Davis was profiled in Tim Brookes’ 2005 book Guitar: An American Life, where the author seeks to replace a badly damaged first guitar with a hand-crafted one “for the second half of my life.” He writes that as he nears 50 years of age, he finds an itch that can only be scratched with a new guitar. And as Brookes notes, “Guitar makers even have a word for these baby-boomers-who-always-wanted-to-be-great-guitarists-and-now-have-the-money-to-indulge-those-dreams: dentists.” “Much later, after the guitar is finished, Rick will refer to ‘the eternal and infinite capacity of …
Practicing
Over the holidays I returned to a book I first read some ten years ago. Glenn Kurtz’s Practicing: A Musician’s Return to Music is, in its simplest form, a memoir of a young child prodigy on the classical guitar who attends the prestigious New England Conservatory of Music and then quits playing in his early 20s when he realizes he won’t be the next Segovia. Fifteen years and a career change later, Kurtz returns to the guitar and finds, in the process, a richer love for music. But like all good memoirs, Practicing is so much more than a simple life’s story. Kurtz has been practicing since he was eight years old, but it isn’t until he returns after his hiatus that he begins to understand all the richness of the various aspects of preparing for performance, or life. “Practicing is training; practicing is meditation and therapy. But before any of these, practicing is a story you tell yourself, a bildungsroman, a tale of education and self-realization. For the fingers as for the mind, practicing …
Observations from the road: (The family, friends, community edition)
This is a tale of family gathering to grieve in the best way possible – by telling stories. It is a tale of being part of a community. It includes guitars. (Always guitars.) And it includes a haircut in a mini-United Nations. Hang with me. I’ll try to be brief. The Wednesday before Thanksgiving, I received a call early in the morning from my sister Debbie. She called to tell me that our brother-in-law Raouf – husband of my younger sister Carol – had passed away suddenly as a result of a heart attack. Their two boys had come home from college the day before and the family had shared a meal together on Tuesday night. By mid-day Wednesday, their lives had changed forever. My older brother Steve and I spoke. We were not able to get to the funeral, but quickly agreed to find a mutual time to travel to Tennessee to see Carol and the rest of the family. Our father – he of the recent 90th birthday – had just moved into …
Observations from the road: The “Thankfulness edition” at the end of our “Not all who wander are lost” tour
Tuesday, August 19th (and day #19) – is the last one of the cross-country Not All Who Wander Are Lost tour. Later this morning I’ll be flying home. I can’t wait to see Candice and Andrew (who leaves for his senior year in college on Friday morning). But I also want to put a wrap on the wonderful two-and-a-half weeks Claire and I had on our exploration of this amazing country we live in. It has been an experience I’ll never forget. I’ve had several parts of this series where I’ve thrown together random thoughts that I’ve entitled Observations from the Road. For those who want to see them in order, you can find them here as: The First Edition The Central Time Edition The Prairie Edition The Jeez, Montana is a Big State Edition The We Made It (Well, In One Sense) Edition The On the Edge Edition So this grouping of random thoughts wraps up the Observations From the Road posts as well as the series on our cross-country tour. I’ve entitled it …
Guitar: An American Life
Tim Brookes’ 2005 book includes extensive features on Rick Davis – the builder of my two Running Dog guitars.
Live at BWI
Every now and then there are advantages to getting on a plane once a week. Tonight I experienced one of them. I am a fan of guitarist Muriel Anderson. You’ve got to love a classical guitarist whose first influence was Doc Watson! She can play anything…from classical to jazz to bluegrass. So I was pleased and surprised when I saw on her Facebook page earlier this week that she would be playing something called BWI Live. At BWI Airport. In Baltimore. Among the baggage carousels and Hudson Books. On April 7th. The night I was returning from a day trip to Cleveland. Through BWI! So in the midst of a very busy day, week, month, season – you name it – I had a sublime evening sitting in the aforementioned baggage claim area listening to beautiful music with ten or fifteen other guitar aficionados. Muriel Anderson shut out the noise of passing travelers, the cleaning staff, and God knows what else to showcase music from her most recent CD New World Flamenco and other …
Finding my new Running Dog guitar
I’ve been thinking about a smaller guitar for some time, to take my music in different directions and to help move beyond what has been a rather long plateau of musical mediocrity when it comes to playing. But the time was never right, the funds were always tight, and I had other priorities. A couple of months ago I broke through a personal logjam, and in the process started focusing more on enjoying my music. (I am good enough to know that I’m not that good, but I decided not to worry about it anymore.) Candice and I talked, and I told her my dream of getting a new guitar. She said, “Let’s go for it.” Of course I had a plan and even discussed it with some friends. I had a builder in mind and even sought out some of their guitars to test drive. But then I stumbled across a beautiful Running Dog guitar and decided to seize the day. Two weeks ago we were in New England with our twins for college …
Muriel Anderson: Day Tripper
Muriel Anderson plays the wonderful and complex Beatles tune, all the while explaining her thought process. Amazing!
MORE TO COME... 