ACOUSTIC GUITARIST OF THE YEAR 2020: ALAN GOGOLL
In the past two years, acoustic guitarist Alan Gogoll won first place in the 2019 Furch Guitar International Guitar Competition and bagged the top spot in the 2020 Magic Guitars International Guitar Competition. One might think the Australian native has become jaded by all the acclaim, but Gogoll, who took the crown of GW and GP’s 2020 Acoustic Guitarist of the Year, quickly lays such a notion to rest.
“The full impact of winning hasn’t really sunk in yet,” he says. “I need to say to myself a few times, ‘Alan, you’ve won the highest award for what you do in the world!’ I’m very grateful to have had the chance to compete, and I want to thank everybody who voted for me, especially the judges who made the final decision. To receive that level of recognition from other professionals is really very special.”
Gogoll’s winning entry, a whimsical and transporting original composition called “Otter Rain,” is a star-turn performance in which he displays his dazzling, innovative “bell harmonic” technique. Playing an Åstrand Å-OMC guitar (handcrafted in Sweden), he utilizes both hands to simultaneously pluck radiant, bell-like tones from the strings. He punctuates this technique with spirited, rhythmic raps on the guitar’s body, thus dispensing with the need for an accompanist.
“I wrote ‘Otter Rain’ last summer in France, so it’s quite a recent piece,” Gogoll says. “Like pretty much every song of mine, it came about through practice and working on technique, not actively sitting down and trying to write something. So it was all very subconscious, you could say.” He points out that live streams and his YouTube clip of “Otter Rain” have already become fan favorites. “The song holds a special place in my heart.”
Having started on the guitar at 5, the mostly selftaught Gogoll discovered his love of harmonics when he was 9. “They unlocked this magical, beautiful side of the guitar,” he says. “Perfecting how to use them was challenging and rewarding. Over time, I realized I didn’t have to be in a band to get a full sound or make music. I could play bass notes and do all sorts of other things on just one guitar.”
In 2017, Gogoll produced a video series called
Stringscapes for which he built a custom guitar and camera rig to capture string vibrations from inside the guitar while looking out onto various landscapes. He’s also released a number of albums, including 2014’s Whimsical Toad, 2017’s Mulberry Mouse and last year’s
Moonlight Lantern.
Thanks to his heavy presence on social media, he’s been able to tour internationally, and he’s looking forward to a post-COVID world in which he can perform live again.