Mel Bay presents Art of Dropped D Guitar (Book/CD)
Mel Bay Publications | March 14, 2007 | English | PDF/MP3 | 184 pages | 119 MB
Instead of approaching Dropped D tuning via the route of "Standard" tuning, El went directly from CGDGAD tuning, and has succeeded in finding in Dropped D tuning musical qualities that are very unusual and compelling. The tunes range from Celtic, to spiritual, to Americana, to pop music, with a classical piece also included. The accompanying CD contains performances of certain tunes by Warren S. Haskell, an acclaimed player, teacher and recording artist based in Northern California. Warren's precise playing makes it easy for the student to hear and understand the music.
About the Author
El McMeen began playing the acoustic guitar while attending Harvard in the mid-1960's. At the time he took up guitar, he was an accomplished clarinet player and singer, and had studied piano. At first, McMeen didn't approach the guitar primarily as a solo instrument, but used it as accompaniment for his singing. Upon reapplying himself in the early 1980's to the instrument, he encountered what he saw as an incredible breadth of music that one could try to render on guitar. He found himself attracted to Irish and Scottish music, alternative tunings, and different approaches to rendering and arranging music. After listening to Dave Evans on Irish Jigs, Reels, Hornpipes, and Airs (1979, Kicking Mule, reissued on Shanachie 97011), McMeen became attracted to the richness of the CGDGAD tuning and found it accessible, evocative, and versatile, and extremely stimulating to his own creativity on the guitar. After two decades of arranging pieces in that tuning, El has become the leading student of the tuning, and he has written extensively on it, including collaborating on the ground-breaking Mel Bay book The Complete Celtic Fingerstyle Guitar Book, co-written with Stefan Grossman and Duck Baker. El's music is characterized by lyrical beauty and a sensitivity to melodic phrases enhanced with tasteful arpeggios, cross-picking, and walking bass lines, and his uptempo pieces evidence energy and pulse. His artistry has been praised by numerous publications, including Acoustic Guitar Magazine, Fingerstyle Guitar Magazine and Guitar Player Magazine. El's music has been hailed by critics as "stirring ... unbridled acoustic beauty" and "drop-dead gorgeous" (Guitar Player Magazine) and as a "treasure" (Dirty Linen Magazine). The International Acoustic Music Awards organization ("IAMA") announced, in December 2010, that McMeen has been included in its list of IAMA s "Top 10 Best Acoustic Music Artists of the Decade".McMeen's composition "Le Mans" won First Prize (Instrumental) in the 6th annual IAMA international competition. Visit El's web site for more information, including concert dates, a discography, concert reviews, and more. View El's Guitar Sessions Interview CrossRhythms featuring El El has recently begun to present his arrangements and compositions in different guitar tunings that are more familiar to other guitarists, particularly dropped-D tuning (DADGBE). He has painstakingly revoiced and selected fingerings for the tunes that both preserve his signature harplike sound on the guitar and exploit the attributes of the various tunings, resulting in music of unusual power and beauty.
About the Author
El McMeen began playing the acoustic guitar while attending Harvard in the mid-1960's. At the time he took up guitar, he was an accomplished clarinet player and singer, and had studied piano. At first, McMeen didn't approach the guitar primarily as a solo instrument, but used it as accompaniment for his singing. Upon reapplying himself in the early 1980's to the instrument, he encountered what he saw as an incredible breadth of music that one could try to render on guitar. He found himself attracted to Irish and Scottish music, alternative tunings, and different approaches to rendering and arranging music. After listening to Dave Evans on Irish Jigs, Reels, Hornpipes, and Airs (1979, Kicking Mule, reissued on Shanachie 97011), McMeen became attracted to the richness of the CGDGAD tuning and found it accessible, evocative, and versatile, and extremely stimulating to his own creativity on the guitar. After two decades of arranging pieces in that tuning, El has become the leading student of the tuning, and he has written extensively on it, including collaborating on the ground-breaking Mel Bay book The Complete Celtic Fingerstyle Guitar Book, co-written with Stefan Grossman and Duck Baker. El's music is characterized by lyrical beauty and a sensitivity to melodic phrases enhanced with tasteful arpeggios, cross-picking, and walking bass lines, and his uptempo pieces evidence energy and pulse. His artistry has been praised by numerous publications, including Acoustic Guitar Magazine, Fingerstyle Guitar Magazine and Guitar Player Magazine. El's music has been hailed by critics as "stirring ... unbridled acoustic beauty" and "drop-dead gorgeous" (Guitar Player Magazine) and as a "treasure" (Dirty Linen Magazine). The International Acoustic Music Awards organization ("IAMA") announced, in December 2010, that McMeen has been included in its list of IAMA s "Top 10 Best Acoustic Music Artists of the Decade".McMeen's composition "Le Mans" won First Prize (Instrumental) in the 6th annual IAMA international competition. Visit El's web site for more information, including concert dates, a discography, concert reviews, and more. View El's Guitar Sessions Interview CrossRhythms featuring El El has recently begun to present his arrangements and compositions in different guitar tunings that are more familiar to other guitarists, particularly dropped-D tuning (DADGBE). He has painstakingly revoiced and selected fingerings for the tunes that both preserve his signature harplike sound on the guitar and exploit the attributes of the various tunings, resulting in music of unusual power and beauty.
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