He’s worked hard all his life to get where he is today. It’s not easy for a solo acoustic instrumentalist to make a living and that’s why he’s had to do so many shows over the years. I honestly think he deserved more recognition because in my opinion he’s the most technically and musically gifted person I’ve ever seen play the guitar. I hope he’s content with his success and I hope he realises how many peoples lives he’s touched and Influenced. Thank you tommy you’re a legend
Tommy Emmanuel is one of the few great artists that explain things exactly the way they are. There's no diva talk, no bullshit, everything he says makes 100% sense to anyone who ever tried to learn how to play the guitar. Besides being an incredible guitar player, he's also an amazing teacher and human being
He sure is a great teacher. His plain-speaking, real-world playing direction, from thump-picking to leaving out occasional notes for the listener's ear, mind, and experience fill in. Love this guy...we should all be such good mentors and role models.
I play the guitar myself, to watch Tommy play absolutely astounds me, it borders on the miraculous. He is a true guitar great, technically, I can't think of anyone who's more proficient. A truly awesome guitar player.
Great questions. The first time I saw the young Tommy Emmanuel was when he was playing with the Southern Star Band in Brisbane (1980?), and his playing was electrifying. So much so that the power failed during his solo. Some musicians would get upset, but Tommy laughed it off and soon recovered. His commitment to excellence is inspiring. Thanks for posting.
I was born in 1959 have played since I was 9 years old that’s 53 year’s of playing everybody thinks I’m a great guitar player and I am very good at it and I still don’t make a pimple on Tommy Emmanuels ass playing guitar you are the best I have ever seen bar none. You have and are truly a gift from God. I take my hat 🎩 off to you Tommy. 🎸 👍❗️😎
Makes it look so easy. Tommy has always been very generous with his knowledge and skills. His music is available on the internet as we as instructional videos of his songs on RU-vid. Love that about him, shares his knowledge.
I had the pleasure of seeing Tommy play the Sydney Entertainment Centre in about 1996 or '97. The on stage power went out about 5 minutes into his set, although the P.A system still worked. He handed off his guitar to a Tech guy, (who were frantically running around in the dark), and proceeded to entertain us by slapping the sides of his face, and making shapes with his mouth. The tech guy finally handed him his guitar back, and I'm sure he hit the exact next note after his guitar went out! Amazing talent, and a standing ovation! Can you believe he was the support act?? Headline was Michael Bolton (brilliant too).
Just like everyone else here in the comments section I love Tommy. Ive seen him live and wish I could make my guitar sound as good as sweat dripping off his fingers...he doesnt wrote songs though he writes musical compositions without lyrics. He's a master instrumentalist.
"Practice the mechanics then once downloaded focus on the feeling." You obviously understand brain mechanics Tommy. As a teacher, I use the analogy of a muscle, when trying to convey the need for my students to make an effort in learning. Work it and it will get stronger and more efficient, and also vice versa :)
He's on tour in the US soon; going to catch him Apr 19, 2020 in Des Moines, Iowa---can't wait, traveling over a thousand miles to see him with friends.
Genius. Not lying this is how I practice and my philosophy on practice before i even heard this. It is very gratifying hearing tommy emmanual confirm this. #suzukimethod
Hi Tommy Emmanuel..Hope all is well..I like this interview and your frank answers.. Quite informative and u seem to be suggestive to some musicians who could be so politely behaved with and also share ideas as to how you developed the knowledge in guitar playing and music including the song composing approaches cantabile*..Awesome.. GOD BLESS.. Warm cheers..👍😊👏🎶🎸🙏
Oh forgive me I have stolen a lot of your licks and techniques love your style you can see the hard work and time you spend on the guitar the pay is in the perfection you display while you are playing the guitar 🎸
I would like to know how he learned all of those complex chord progressions-I assume he does not read music. You Tube makes learning guitar a lot easier, I wish I had it when I was growing up and I had a lot of passion for learning. I learned quite a bit-but I see Tommy play stuff and I have almost no idea what he is doing-in standard tuning. His technique is incredible.
Easy: work. More work. Then get serious and really get to work. Then; make the commitment, forsake most other things and work even harder. The one thing all the greats have in common is the commitment.
You do have to be careful saying things like "the best"(at what exactly?) though he is clearly "World Class" at just about every aspect of music/guitar such as, writing/composing/arranging & improvising as well as Playing(in virtually ANY genre even) at the Apex of Human Ability. I would however bet my left hand that if you could take like 100+ of the worlds greatest guitar players(either self-proclaimed or voted in & otherwise) from ANY/ALL genres, they would UNANIMOUSLY agree that Tommy is the better "solo acoustic entertainer" or perhaps even "acoustic guitar player" or maybe just "solo instrumentalist" etc.(depending on precisely what the categories were).
Yes. You have it "exactly" so. How can one compare a perfect apple to a perfect orange. Can't be done in any logical way. We can only be thankful that all of the luscious fruits are available for the expansion of our palates. That said, T.E. is certainly among the most entertaining of guitarists. Saw his 2016 Christmas show in Tucson and during the intermission and after the show, every face was beaming with joy. Only other guitarist I've seen that even came close to doing that was a younger Leo Kottke more than forty years ago. I believe there must be about a thousand+ "best guitarists" in the world out there. We sure are lucky!
I Never got to see Leo Kottke live....But I had a CD of HIS(30ish yrs ago) that I liked very much, it blew me away. Although I was never able to learn how to play Any(or very very little) of it. In hind sight I now realize that was largely because you'd have to just guess at the tuning(at a time when I barely even knew alternates existed). We are really blessed nowadays with an abundance of Videos, of both performances & tutorials & 100% Digital(adjustable playback speed of both audio & video with independant tempo & pitch)etc. This Gen sure has No Excuses. There are a whole lot of kids that are already playing much better than me with my nearly 40yrs experience, thanks to the the sharing of information via the net/ez to find tabs/youtube/next-level Artists like TE/& people posting quality instructional content etc. We are Lucky, the next Gen probably even more so.
+roman14032 - *'Better' might be the wrong word, but if you are looking for some people that blow your hair back in ways that easily rival Tommy, here are some names:* *Ted Greene : **_Easily the most gifted guitarplayer when it comes to understanding music theory, chording in particular, Tommy himself acknowledges this_* *Jon Gomm : **_One of the most unorthodox guitarplayers ive ever seen, wrote a song called 'Passionflower' - imho one of the most beautiful songs ive ever heard - that is so difficult to play you need 2 banjo tuning pegs to do it_* *Andy McGee : **_A little more traditional when it comes to percussive playing, but exceptionally gifted_* *Guthrie Govan : **_Another extremely knowledgeable and intelligent player, probably one of the most gifted soloist that I have ever seen, if you think SRV could lay down the licks, Guthrie will make you rethink what playing solo's really is_*
Jack Waters i absolutley agree with you, there is no " the best guitar player".I think everybody has his own technique.If its jeff beck, who s absoloudley perfect with the whammy bar, or bbking, who just has the music in his blood, John mayer who playes very good and has a phantastic voice , or anybody other.
" I have this idea so what am I going to do with it now. Have to tell a story" then he did tell a story with guitar melody which is like you know.. So he can tell a story without words just guitar melodies and I want to do that...
I agreed with the list of artists he gave until he said Justin Timberlake … Really ?? Maybe I don’t know all his work but is he really a great songwriter ?
I read somewhere that he had seen the movie Bridge of Spies and wrote this song about a woman whose husband is trapped on the other side when the Berlin Wall goes up.
