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Back from the Summit
Fretboard Summit- Great Experience and Highlights
– Meeting Tony and Aiden, Fellow TACers- Don and Sharon
– Being in same small room with Tommy Emmanuel, Jake Eddy, Tony and countless others who just pick up a luthiers guitar and play the stuffing out of it.
– Testing some really quality, out of my price range, one of a kind guitars
– Meeting Joe McMurray, Musician and Music Teacher and great finger picker (JoeMcMurray.com) and feeling the joy of youth he has for the music and the guitar. Unpacking his guitar while waiting for the L and just playing great stuff impromptu.
– Meeting Bob Taylor and deciding to buy a Taylor GS Mini and being made aware of sustainable woods efforts. (New Guitar Day in the future)
-Playing with 60 others guitars orchestrated by Bill Frisell, American Jazz Guitarist
– Hearing Jake Eddy talk about learning to flatpick (Listen first, internalize the melody, learn the chords, learn the notes, learn and play from the chord shapes, learn 40 traditional fiddle tunes).
– TJ Thompson and Mark Stutman made me appreciate he art of luthiery. How careful are you when working on a $100,000 guitar? (“Two choices- There is what you want to do and there is the right way”- TJ Thompson)
-Being blown away by Michael Miles finger picking “You’ve lost that loving feeling”, “Black Magic Woman”, and American Bach.
I could go on, but it was worth the flight from Austin to Chicago and being around the Old Town School of Folk music campus. (Vicki, my wife, didn’t go to the Summit except the last night but she had a great time touring the Chicago and was blown away by Tommy Emmanuel’s performance and all the rooms full of guitars). She got why I liked it.
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5 Replies
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I’m envious @albert_d ! What a fantastic trip, and to meet so many accomplished people in their elements. Would be so great. I knew Dom and Sharon and Tony were going, but I didn’t know the others would be going too.
Isn’t Chicago a great city? There is so much to do, and the music there is just unbelievable. I’m seeing Buddy Guy this week, and he’s a Chicago native. He has his bar, Legends there, and I’ve seen and sung with him and Jim Belushi years ago when he shoved a microphone in my face and said sing something. I’m not even sure what came out of my mouth – I was that shell shocked. But the lake front, the restaurants, and the music, and the people make Chicago a great place. I miss the mid-west temperament, friendliness, and fun seekers there. That’s where I lived the longest, I raised my daughter there, and I went to 2 1/2 years of high school and college there, and all my cousins and remaining Aunts still live there or in Indiana. Just a fun time every time I visit. My best friends still live there, and we talk every week, and I’ve been in Philly over 19 years now. I don’t have much family left, so I gravitate to my cousins a lot.
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Yes. Chicago is a lot of fun. Vicki wanted to get a high rise condo and live there part of the year since it wasn’t so hot in the summer. I told her she needs to visit in the winter before investing that type of capital. It does have four full seasons.
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Summers can get in the 90s and even in the 100s, and it can be very humid. It’s a shorter Summer than the southern or eastern, mid Atlantic areas, and yes the Winters can be rough sometimes. There is lake effect snow that can make accumulations increase significantly . It’s cold, wet, and windy (although many believe it’s called the Windy City because of its politics – haha). Things don’t shut down when there are several inch’s. People just deal with it. There are 4 seasons like you said. Might be fun though, because there is so much to do year round.
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Wow that sounds so great. 🙂
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It was so nice to meet you Albert. Yes, Summit was an amazing experience and it was near overwhelming being surrounded by so many amazing guitars. For the East Coasters, a similar event is coming up this weekend (Oct 13-15) called Woodstock Luthier Invitational. Not as many concerts and workshops but a chance to see many of those beautiful instruments and get a taste of what else is out there besides the production luthiers. If you do go, please check out Flammang Guitars. You will be impressed.
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