Before I write my experience with this year’s contest at Winfield I would like to first congratulate Kevin Horrigan from Brookfield, WI as this year’s first place winner in the Fingerstyle contest and Tomoaki Kawabata as this year’s second place winner and Keith Taylor as this year’s third place winner.  All of the players did a fantastic job and it was a treat to watch them perform.  Amazing fingerstyle players! What a treat to see them play backstage and also on stage.

We did shoot a video (with special Video pass from Winfield management) for a video documentary of this years Fingerstyle contest (though we only could video certain things and nothing from the stage). The documentary will basically show what it is like for a player to show up for the first time at Winfield and then play in this competition. Dave Massey is currently working on post production and editing and I will let people know when it is available.  I am the player in the video and it does show what it is like to compete though we do not have actual on stage footage due to License and Winfield rules, but a lot of other interesting footage.

The week at Winfield and the completion was fantastic and for me life changing as a fingerstyle guitarist.  First let me say that the Airlines did drop my $5000 dollar guitar and it was totaled but I do have insurance, and that won’t even dampen my fun experience at Winfield though it was a sad moment to find this out following my return flight.

I really did not know what to expect as far as how good other Fingerstyle players would be. I was, I have to say ,surprised at the quality of players and the experience for me was humbling.  But to be back stage with so many great guitarists and be able to hear them and talk about experiences and such was just great. I will never forget that. Other players that had been there before were so helpful on very practical things.  The stories and conversations were just great.

I did not place anywhere in the top 5 , but I have to say that I learned more in that completion then in past five  years as a player. I will share a few things here. I did write up 37 things that I would do different then next time I compete.   I will write these later sometime.

I learned that without question and without exception the top players have melodic and rhythmic groove down , and I mean really down.  A knowledgeable guitar player sat next to me in the crowd after I played and said something to me I will never forget. He said something like, why do so many of the players seem to not be able to play with good timing.  So I won’t talk about other players , because many were so great to me, but for me I really have to work on Groove. Both Melodic groove and also overall rhythmic groove. That really stood out.  To not just be fast but to be dead on with notes.

I will be writing a paper for this blog on that subject soon with much more detail. Believe me it is what makes the top 5 stand out, not fast chords or fast runs , but basic very steady groove. Wow what  lesson for me to learn!

Second and not least in importance is the smooth and effortless move from note to note or chord to chord or combination thereof. Basically what I mean is if a player is playing for example a run on a G scale or G A B C D E F#   the move from note to note is seamless and you don’t hear a kind of pause or space or noise between the notes to cover up effective changes.

I will write something on this also soon.

The first song I played was very off on Melodic groove and also overall rhythmic groove. The second song not so bad but not so good either I think. I am now working with a metronome to tighten this up, first for these 2 songs and then for all 14 of my DADGAD Hymns.  It is really fun to fix this, though a lot of work and change. But well worth it.  The Metronome is becoming my best friend.

So at Winfield if a player comes out with a pretty simple, and I do mean pretty simple song with excellent Rhythmic and Melodic groove and the melody is remember able and up front and the move from note to note and chord to chord and such is seamless, my guess is that they will be much more near the top 5. Yes, even over players that are much more busy and complex and advanced , I really believe this.  I saw it first hand. Forget about the fast notes, play simple ones clean, in groove, in tune and without noise between notes!

More later. Just a few thoughts to get started. Fantastic people that run Winfield and fantastic players, what a life changing event this was for me.

I am going to upload mp3 examples of how I grow all this next year in both kinds of groove. You will be pretty amazed at how things sound so much better with this fix! Not easy to do but powerful for the performance.

I will also write later about the importance of emotion over just quick runs and such.

Steve Massey

www.stevemasseyguitar.com

Thursday is Fingerstyle guitar contest. Wed is an all day class with Stephen Bennett.

Should be a great week! I will post photos later.

Steve

It has been over a year since I have written in this blog. I am one of 40 contestants at the 2011 International Finger Style Guitar Championships this Sept 14 through 18 2011 at the Walnut Valley Festival in Winfield Kansas. This has been a lifelong dream to attend this event. I will be uploading to Twitter and Face book during my week with photos and such. Should be a fun week. If you are there also stop by the stage for Fingerstyle contest and look me up!!

I wanted to have my Hymns CD completed by this Sept for this event but not going to happen. Not enough time!  But should be just a very fun event. 

I am thinking about taking my A&M Guitar also for the event.

I still want to get my Hymns CD and song book done. It is turning out to take years to do. Thanks for your emails of interest on this!

It will be fun to see the Mandolin and Banjo and other great contests as well. What  time!!

Check out my new YouTube video also I just completed.

Thanks for stopping by and see ya at Winfield this year!!

Steve

I am very slow at creating my Hymns Tab for Hymns for Guitar DADGAD Tab so I am in the process of getting a Godin midi guitar and Midi unit so that it will greatly speed up the Tab creating process. Putting the songs in one note at a time is taking me years to do!! I will keep everyone posted on how this new process will work. I hope to have Tabs out much quicker.

It has been fun to add some Alex De Grassi techniques that I have learned like playing in DADGAD 4 against 3 and tapping and so on. Makes the guitar arragements work well.

Once I have the song book PDFs available for sale on this site and the MP3 files ready I will start work on a video that will also help with learning these songs. Most songs I think are pretty easy to learn but a few might be a bit more of a challange like "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God" for example.

DADGAD is a wonderful tuning for Hymns arragements I have to say. Just addes alot with cross strings and all.

Steve

This website will plan on selling the entire DADGAD Hymns arrangements CD or individual Hymns and MP3 and downloadable PDFs so you can learn the songs and play them at your churches or other settings.

I have been playing my DADGAD Hymns arrangements now for a few years at our church during the offering and people do seem to like them allot.

Contact me if any questions and I will work hard to get the DADGAD Hymns guitar arrangements CD, MP3 and Tab here as soon as I can.

All Guitar Hymns Arrangements will be in DADGAD tuning and will have both MP3 and WAV and PDF downloads.  Thanks to Peter Huttlinger for his first two Guitar Hymns CD's and song books. They have been a real inspiration to me in my years of working on this project.

Thanks also to Alex De Grassi for such a great guitar camp in California! - So helpful in working our my own arrangements.

Here are the DADGAD Hymns for Guitar Arrangements that I have completed now and am in the studio recording and finishing TAB PDF's for. 

Amazing Grace

It Is Well With My Soul

A Mighty Fortress Is Our God

Come Thou Fount Of Every Blessing

Joyful Joyful We Adore Thee

Holy Holy Holy

Solid Rock (My Hope Is Built)

This Is My Father's World

(two more being worked now!)

Thanks!

Steve Massey

I have been trying different guitar strings, I tried mediums on my Collings OM1A from Martin but did not really like them. I am trying light gauge again from Elixer nanos. Hopefully they will last longer.

The Web Cam has been very helpful in arranging also because it helps me remember things I wrote rather then have to write out a note at a time which takes forever.

Recording of new Hymns CD coming along great. Using my Collings OM1A and am going to use Medium strings for more bass and depth. Using a KM184 mic and Rode mic which is working. Wish I had a better preamp but am using Mackie 1604 which is pretty good and clean but a bit cold sounding, not bad though.

We ran out of NorthWest and Wood CDs at Amazon but I am going to send a bunch more to Amazon shortly. So thanks for emails on that and the interest out there on those 2 CDs

Got to take tour of Gibson Guitar Factory.  Heard some great Blues guitar including some great fingerstyle blues

and Delta Blues. Great stuff.

Got a few requests for tab on my Hymns including " A Mighty Fortress Is Our God" I am working on the tab and a song book that will be for sale on my web site later this year along with CD.

Steve Massey

Holy Holy Holy which will also be in my song book (that I have been working on for 6 years but will get it done

one of these days)

Our church is Westminster Presbyterian Church 
2000 Oakwood Drive
Medford, Oregon 97504
Tel:  541-773-8274  

The service is at 10:00 AM in the smaller informal room. Come up and say hi if you happen to come!

Steve Massey

One of my great guitar heros for DADGAD is Pierre Bensusan at http://www.pierrebensusan.com/  I had a chance to see Pierre here in Ashland Oregon this year 2007 and it was just amazing. I got to talk with him which was just great. Also I am using Pierre's DADGAD guitar strings all the time now and just love them.

Speaking of guitar heros - Alex De Grassi!  He is just great and a very nice person too. I hope to take another 3 day guitar seminar with him maybe even this year! Alex is just great with DADGAD.

Anyway I am finding that putting the standard notation in first and then creating tab is working much better in G7 because I can put multiple voices in like a dotted quarter note and eight note for bass string D as voice 1 and then triads and such on top of that as voice 2. Then G7 creates the TAB from the standard notation and thus you have both voices. G7 will allow up to 4 voices which is very helpful.

I was trying to input tab first and then create standard notation but that is hard to do because TAB does not really "understand" note rhythms. So starting with standard notation first works much better.

Takes some time to do but should be pretty nice for guitar players that want to learn the arrangements for Hymns in DADGAD to perhaps play at churches and such.

Thanks for the emails from a few of you that requested TAB for my DADGAD Hymn arrangements. I will put one of my Hymn arrangements as PDF as free download once completed to give an example of what song book will look like.

I wish everyone a great Christmas and Happy new year.

By the way I got my Collings OM1A back from Eugene this week - had the neck worked on and is just great!

I recommend Charlie at McKenzie River Music in Eugene for Guitar repair. He is great.

Steve