My Musical Journey - Part 3 - Open Strings Guitar Festival

camuel (67)in #guitar • 6 years ago

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In October 2003, Mrs Camuel and I took a drive from Luxembourg to Osnabrück in Germany to attend the Open Strings Guitar Gestival, run by German fingerstyle guitarist Peter Finger.

The event took place over two days at the Stadthalle. Many guitar companies and retailers had booths around the hall showcasing their guitars. For me, as a guitar obsessive of only a year or so, it was like guitar heaven. A lot of the retailers there had vintage instruments on display, including some old Gibsons and Martins, and the luthiers were showing some of their finest guitars. Pro musicians were booked to play evening concerts and some of them also gave workshops through the day. The focus of the concert in 2003 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!

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You may remember my mentioning Tony McManus is Part 2 of my musical journey? This was my first time meeting him - we've since become friends over the years. More on that to come. He plays fingerstyle guitar and his thing was to take traditional Scots and Irish dance music and arrange it for the guitar. Tony's well known as the best on the circuit at what he does, and he's still doing it, along with other projects and styles too.

Tony did a workshop on the Sunday morning and it was great listening to his banter and hearing his music up close. I recorded the workshop and have uploaded the audio files to DSound, so fire in and have a listen. Links at the bottom of this post.

I also got meet Martin Seeliger, the founder of Lakewood guitars, and try the various models they had on display, including a rather spectacular M-50 model, with blue stained maple back and sides and sea-shell inlay. I also bumped into LJ while I was perusing the Lakewoods and stole a photo op!

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The guitar of the festival for me was a Heiner Dreizehnter Model A in Tasmanian blackwood. Never before had I played a guitar of that size with such bass presence and such lovely tone. They say that sometimes a guitar will speak to you. I'd experienced that with the-one-that-got-away a few months before the festival.

I spent two full days wandering round the hall and must've played around 100 different guitars that weekend. I kept going back to Heiner's booth and trying the Model A again, just to see if it would still speak to me. Even though my ears and brain had reached saturation point, the Model A still stood out as being my favourite guitar of the festival.

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It was rather an unusual guitar, for the main reason that its top was Tasmanian blackwood, a tone wood generally reserved for backs and sides. According to the wisdom of the Internet forum residents, it's not a good choice for a soundboard, although it's a similar species as koa (acacia) and koa is used a fair bit for guitar tops.

I didn't buy the guitar there and then, but it haunted me. With trepidation I got in touch with Heiner a couple of months later to find out whether he still had it. He did!

That guitar is now my main gigging guitar. It's currently fitted with an L.R. Baggs Anthem and I use it for all my solo gigs. I think of all my guitars, that's the one I'd grab in a fire.

Stay tuned for part 4, when I make my first of many trips to the USA!