2004 Accent on Music Guitar Seminar
August 2-8, 2004 - Portland, Oregon

View Photo Gallery from the 2004 Seminar

The 2004 Accent On Music Fingerstyle Guitar Seminar was a great success. Virtuoso Tommy Emmanuel regaled the 30 attendees with great stories, boundless energy, and an amazing ability with the acoustic guitar.

Equally forthcoming for the students was longtime Chet Atkins right-hand-man John Knowles. John is as calm as Tommy is energetic, making for a fitting pair of CGPs! (Certified Guitar Players - an honor created and bestowed by Chet himself, to only four other players.) John's elegant nylon-string work is beautifully crafted and played. And he is a brilliant teacher.

I had a great time teaching all week. Special highlights for me were the sessions explaining "chord substitution" to groups of eager jazz-wanna-bes! More to come in 2005!

On Tuesday and Wednesday evenings enjoyable performances were conducted by two of Portland's best guitarists, steel-string virtuoso Doug Smith and classical guitarist extraordinaire Scott Kritzer. Many of you know of Doug's great abilities, and Scott was dubbed "king of the elegant endings" by John Knowles. Scott tours worldwide with his guitar/soprano vocalist duo.

The week of workshops, performances, student recitals, and late-night jams culminated in a SRO concert at the Historic Old Church in downtown Portland. I opened the show with 20 minutes of solos, and was then joined onstage by John. I harmonized with him on his arrangment of "It Had to Be You," after which John finished the first set.

After intermission Tommy Emmanuel came out for his inaugural Pacific Northwest concert and nearly blew the roof off the building. I've seen Tommy perform a half dozen times, but I had never seen him as energized as August 7, 2004. Dressed in a tuxedo befitting the elegant surroundings of the Old Church, Tommy blasted his way through nearly 90 minutes of mind-blowing fretwork. His rendition of the Beatles' "Michelle" (not really my favorite Beatle tune) was simply stunning.

At the end of the evening, Tommy invited John and me to join him for"Avalon" and "Blue Finger." That was great fun trading licks with two CGPs! In fact, my trio the Acoustic Guitar Summit has added "Avalon" to our repertoire. The show ended with Tommy's blistering Beatles medley.

Sunday morning the students met one last time for a catered breakfast, and finally were whisked off to the airport by the shuttle service. Strains of "Till next year!" could be heard as people departed.

--Mark Hanson