One is called Harp Guitar Basics and in it I present 5 tunes to get new harp guitarists going with these wonderful instruments. I teach in great detail The Water Is Wide, a beautiful old Stephen Foster tune called Gentle Annie, a medley of 2 tunes by the famous Irish harpist (I know in his heart he was really a harp guitarist!) called Bridget and Elanor, Going Home – from Dvorak’s New World Symphony – and one of my tunes – Perestroika.

The other project is entitled Harp Guitar Repertoire and is designed for harp guitarists with slightly more advanced standard guitar chops. It contains 7 of my tunes – Oregon, Elephant’s Dance, Issoudun, Tenochtitlan, Sea Rose Beach, The Eye Of God and November. These new instructional materials will be available within a few months both from the store page on this website and also from TrueFire.com

My best to all,
sb

I had a great time playing in South Norwalk a few weeks ago at the SoNo festival – and another great time on the 28th at the Milford Fine Arts Center. It’s nice to be playing some live music in the state I now live in! More shows in Connecticut are percolating as well…

October 29 I’ll be playing a concert in Guilford. It will be quite intimate – and the seating is VERY limited. Please click here for info

And November 6 I’ll be playing at the Roaring Brook Nature Center in Canton (near Hartford). My friends Pat Donohue and Pete Huttlinger have played this series and tell me it’s a wonderful room to play in! It’s not posted yet, but eventually will be: Click here for info.

The latest news, hmm, let’s see:

- The next cd project is rapidly nearing completion.  This is the collection of rock tunes for harp guitar that I recorded a few months ago.  It’s nearly ready to go to duplication.  I’m very happy with how this has turned out and think you will be too.  Tunes included are: Incense and Peppermints, Born To Be Wild, Light My Fire, White Room, A Whiter Shade Of Pale, The Court of the Crimson King, Soon, Teacher, Honky Tonk Women, Breathe/Time, Behind Blue Eyes, Can’t Find My Way Home, The Wind Cries Mary, and Theme For An Imaginary Western.  This will be released on the Harp Guitar Music label run by my friend Gregg Miner of harpguitars.net fame.

- The recording phase of another cd project of my own material will be completed the first week of August.  This will contain some tunes written and recorded before my surgeries of 2008 as well as some tunes written subsequently.  I’ll be working with my friend and recording engineer par excellence, Kim Person once again.

- I’ve taught at a couple of summer guitar camps again this year.  Was at Kaufman Kamp in Maryville, TN for the 6th time in June and taught for the first time at the Augusta Heritage Camps that are held in Elkins, WV a few weeks ago.  I love teaching and had a great time at both of these camps!

- Was at the NAMM (National Association Of Music Merchants) convention in Nashville last month representing Holloway Harp Guitars.  I think we made a real splash!  And we’ll do it again at the January NAMM show in Los Angeles.

- While I was in Nashville, I also played at All-Star Guitar Night.  This great evening of music has been put on by my friend Muriel Anderson for some years now and it was nice to be back! Here are some photos:  http://truefire.com/galleries/all-star-guitar-night-summer-2010/

- I’ll be  heading down to St. Petersburg next month to record a couple of dvds for harp guitar with my friends at TrueFire.com.  It’s about time!

- There are a number of youtube videos of me that are out there.  So far I have not actually put anything up myself.  I have now.  Nothing fancy, just me playing in front of my computer once in a while.  The channel is sbharpguitar.  I am already behind with that too – big surprise there!

- Other than that, I’ve just been writing and practicing and enjoying life.

Best wishes to all!

sb

For those of you interested, I’m in a couple of guitar magazines currently out on newsstands. There’s an article on harp guitars in Spring Issue of The Fretboard Journal in which my name appears not unfavorably. And for those of you who speak or read French, there is an article on me in the new issue of Guitarist Acoustic (Issue #25).

sb

I’m back home after a couple of weeks away. I spent the bulk of last week in the studio with my friend and intrepid recording engineer, Kim Person. Together we recorded the next cd. It’s my arrangements of an assortment of rock tunes from 1967-74. I picked tunes that made me want to play guitar. Most are classic tunes that everyone will recognize. This project will be released on the Harp Guitar Music label owned and operated by my friend Gregg Miner. And as that name suggests, this cd is nearly all harp guitar. Aside from re-recording my nearly 20 year old (really?) arrangement of You Really Got Me on a baritone guitar, I laid down tracks of a collection of my arrangements for harp guitar. Music from Strawberry Alarm Clock, Steppenwolf, Cream, The Doors, Blind Faith, The Rolling Stones, Mountain, Jethro Tull, Hendrix, The Who, Procul Harum, King Crimson, Pink Floyd and Yes are all on here. This was a lot of fun to record and it should be available sometime in the summer.

As fun as this was to do, it’s past time for me to get back to my own composing however, and that will be a focus for the immediate future.

I enjoyed my shows in NC and VA. My brother Jim’s piano playing is better than ever and it was fun to do another show with him. Thanks to all who came out!

Best to everyone,
sb

And to read a recent interview with my most illustrious partner in harp guitar misadventures, the owner and operator of harpguitars.net, the most prolific scholar of the harp guitar and a wonderful musician to boot, the one and only Gregg Miner: click here The interview is by Robert Silverstein with Music Web Express 3000

Acoustic Guitar Book only comes out twice a year and has prominently featured me several times in the past, but I’ve never been on the cover, so this is quite an honor! Tommy and I were in Japan this last October and played several shows together.

Acoustic Guitar Book cover – December 2009 Issue

More from the article

The cover photo was taken by the editor, Mr. Suwa, in a wonderful guitar store in Tokyo. The shop is Blue-G and the proprietor is my friend Mr. Shimasue. Thanks to both of these men. And special thanks to Takeshi Hayakawa for helping to arrange this, as well as writing the article! “Acoustic Guitar Book 30, December 2009, Shinko Music”.

And, perhaps coolest of all is the fact that I was able to use actual recordings of Gonky (my great-grandfather’s nickname) made on a home reel to reel tape recorded in the early 1960’s on this new cd.

The amazing Kim Person did her usual outstanding job engineering this project – it sounds great!

Good Wood is available at the store page.

International Guitar Night

Modern Guitarist article

Itamar Erez

Lulo Reinhardt

Brian Gore