**(scroll down for recordings)**
The Open Strings Festival is an annual event organised by German fingerstyle guitarist Peter Finger. The event takes place over two days at the Stadthalle in Osnabrück, Germany with concerts and workshops going on over the weekend. Many builders attend the event and it is the closest I've come to guitar heaven since I got serious. The focus of this year's concert was British guitarists and on the Saturday evening we were treated to a wonderful concert by Neil Stacey, Tony McManus, Martin Taylor and Laurence Juber. It was fantastic!
The following morning saw individual workshops with Tony, Laurence and Neil (Martin Taylor had to fly out) although I think seminar would have been a better description as the audience didn't get to play their guitars as I expected. It was more of a Q&A type affair interspersed with some great tunes, close up and personal .
The highlights for me were of course the concert itself, but also getting to meet Tony McManus, a personal favourite and inspiration of mine, and one of my favourite luthiers, Mr Lakewood himself, Martin Seeliger.
I would just like to point out how well the Germans seem to be building at the moment. Internet forums seem to be fairly North-America heavy and, understandably, the majority of luthiers discussed are from that area. Of course European names such as Brook, Lakewood and McIlroy are gaining wider recognition, but two names I'd not heard of that stood out for me are the German companies Heiner Dreizehnter and Stevens Custom Guitars.These Germans know what they are doing and are building some phenomenal guitars that can hold their own with any builders out there.
The guitar of the festival for me was a Heiner Dreizehnter Model A in Tasmanian blackwood throughout. Never before have I played a guitar of that size with such bass presence and if I'd had the funds available, that baby would've been coming home with me for sure! [update: I did eventually succumb and bought it] It's pictured below. The Stevens Custom Guitars stand had several 12-fretters in various sizes including a dreadnought and a couple of their guitars featured the pyramid bridge. They were simply astounding.
And getting my hands on so many Lakewoods was a real treat for me since I'm a huge Lakewood fan. If you've never tried a Lakewood guitar, I seriously urge you to do so if you get the chance. The blue M-50 (spruce/maple) was built by a couple of the Lakewood team as a project and was hidden from Martin until its completion. It plays as good as it looks.
Hope you enjoy the photos.
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I recorded the concert on the Saturday night and the workshops on the following morning, although I was dismayed to find out that the MD ran out during Laurence Juber's workshop. The important one for me was Tony McManus' so thankfully I got that one okay. The mics I used are the gooseneck wearable mics with standard cardiods from soundprofessionals.com and they worked pretty well. If I were buying them again, I'd pay the extra for the deluxe cardiods.
I'll get round to editing the concert wav files sometime soon, but in the meantime, enjoy Tony's workshop!
Below are links to my recording of Tony McManus' workshop on the Sunday morning. I guess Tony must have picked the short straw as he was on first at 10am and was looking a bit worse for wear. The workshop was a rare treat for me and a good test for my discreet cardiods to MD recorder -- Tony did give his permission for the recording by the way.
I've split the files up into downloadable chunks.
Tony McManus' Workshop - File 1 (10.7MB)
Nails, altered tunings and those pesky triplets.
Tony McManus' Workshop - File 2 (8MB)
Bagpipe tuning and Islay Ranters Reel
Tony McManus' Workshop - File 3 (6.6MB)
Thumbslapping, time signatures, possible workshops and books on Celtic music.
Tony McManus' Workshop - File 4 (6.2MB)
Jigs, reels; working with vocalists
Tony McManus' Workshop - File 5 (6MB)
Tony's Melville guitar and pickup system.