the lineup
Atholl Palace and Fonab Castle, Pitlochry 11-15 May
Spending four days in a stunning location learning from one of the world’s greatest guitarists, as well as a team of hand-picked talent for the tutors? Sounds like a dream scenario to us…
Tommy Emmanuel’s Guitar Camps have already been a success overseas with a relaxed atmosphere for players of all levels. And now he’s hosting a camp in Europe for the first time, in stately surroundings in the heart of Scotland no less. Fellow tutors include Certified Guitar Player John Knowles, British fingerstylist Richard Smith, jazz ace Frank Vignola and rhythm king Vinny Raniolo. We spoke to Tommy to find out more… How would you describe the guitar camp from your perspective? “Everybody gets a chance to be together because we all stay in the same place. We eat together and I take the entire group in the morning myself. I answer questions and demonstrate parts – each day I have a different theme. One morning I’ll talk about performance and preparation, and the next day I’ll talk about arranging songs. And people ask me questions about all sorts of stuff. Sometimes students want you to break down one of your songs and show you how it all fits. There’s a bit of everything and I also try to see students one on one.” What questions come up the most? “Most people want to know how they can get to be doing what I’m doing. How can they get good enough to be a concert player and travel the world. How do you do that? And I talk about all that stuff. I talk about how hard you have to work to get anywhere in the music business. I try to tell people the realities of life in music and I don’t sugarcoat it. Because that’s important.” It’s about more than just the playing… “Right! And another question I get asked is ‘What happens if you’re having a bad night? What do you do if you’re not inspired or you’re tired and all that sort of stuff. What do you do?’ I tell them I make sure I have some good songs to play. Because even on my worst night, if I’ve got good songs, I can still put on a show that people will enjoy. Even if I’m not feeling 100 per cent. It’s rare that I’m not inspired but there are times when you go out there and you’re looking for the magic to appear and it doesn’t. And you better have something good to stand on.” Are all abilities welcome at the camp? “Absolutely. We normally have three or four groups and some of them are just strummers and singers, folky kind of people. Then others are electric guitar people who are getting into acoustic and then you’ve got the people who are particularly into my songs and my style of playing and want to learn those songs.” And there will be evening concerts where you’ll play together? “Every night. I’ll feature a soloist each night and I’ll play on my own. I’ll play with Frank and Vinny, John and Richard as well. Players usually break off into groups during the camp too and you’ll see them jamming everywhere. It’s great. The whole idea of this is you immerse yourself and you don’t do anything else. You’re there to learn, play, jam… it’s guitar heaven. We try to give people a way of looking at a life in music from a different view.”