The 2002 Accent On Music Guitar Seminar at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon, is now behind us. We had another fabulous group of students, plus two wonderful pickers joining us as teachers for the week: Muriel Anderson and Stephen Bennett.

Muriel and Stephen did a marvelous job. Their understanding of the intricacies of fingerstyle guitar is substantial, and they passed along their expertise with a good deal of sincerity and a great deal of humor.

The attending students ranged from lower intermediate players to high level pickers with solo CDs. As it is every year, the camaraderie among people of such wide ranging abilities was wonderful, with the more experienced players freely sharing their insights with the less experienced.

The classes included the traditional Tuesday morning fingerstyle arranging session with all three teachers explaining our approaches. Stephen arranged "Home on the Range" on the spot, and Muriel ably demonstrated why she has an arranging book on the market. I explained the approach I have devised for the musically unschooled, and offered that my upcoming fingerstyle arranging book is finally the next title on my production list.

Mini-master class sessions were great fun, with four students meeting with each teacher for an hour every day. Students were given considerable individual attention. The student recitals on Thursday and Friday evenings were great experiences for the students, with many wonderfully musical moments. Most students have little guitar-performing experience.

Our recitals -- which are attended by the teachers, students, and a few relatives -- provide as supportive an environment as one can imagine for the uninitiated. Lots of laughter and lots of good music! Other highlights of the week included several hours-long jam sessions, with Stephen, Muriel and I taking a whack at nearly every tune we could think of. On Friday evening we were joined by Pennsylvania fingerstylist Tim Farrell, who was in town to teach the Saturday morning session. Hot licks were flying everywhere.

Stephen started the jamming by pulling out his guitar in the cafeteria after dinner one evening. That session attracted many other diners, including a group of teenagers from Japan who were attending summer school at L&C. Fingerstyle guitar is highly appreciated by the Japanese. (Our seminar has been covered in several issues of the magnificent, full-color, Acoustic Guitar book published semi-annually in Japan. We are included courtesy of our friend and perennial attendee Takeshi Hayakawa. Thanks, Kesh!) The same was true of these young people. Most of us couldn't communicate with them very well verbally, but the music surely connected us!

Fingerstyle virtuoso Doug Smith entertained on Wednesday evening with
his normal mixture of awe-inspiring fingerstyle compositions and vocal tunes. I joined Doug for part of his set to perform some of our original duets from our 2001 duo CD "Power of Two." Lots of fun!

Tuesday evening an under-the-weather Dan Balmer entertained the students with a jaw-dropping display of improvisational jazz soloing. Portlander Balmer is an amazingly focused jazzer, playing single-line solos at lightning speed. His understanding of improvisation is at the highest level, and his insights at times were deeper than some of our students could absorb! I jammed with Dan on Les Paul's "Bye Bye Blues," Django's "Nuages," and Patsy Cline's "Crazy." That was fun for me.

Tim Farrell entertained us on Saturday morning with his elegant fingerstyle compositions, mostly in open-E tuning. Tim's arrangement of "Little Martha" is featured on a Narada fingerstyle guitar sampler.

The Saturday evening public concert at the Old Church in downtown Portland was a great success. Muriel, Stephen and I each played solo for about 25 minutes during the first set. Muriel and Stephen incorporated their harp guitars into the concert as well. In the second set, all three of us were onstage, performing trios. The set included "Water Is Wide," "Amazing Grace," "Nuages" and others, all in largely improvised settings. Everyone agreed that there were many wonderful moments during the ensemble set.

Greta and I want to extend our sincere thanks to all the teachers who participated, and especially to the students who attended. If it weren't for you we wouldn't do this!

Mark Hanson