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Category Archives: Culture
A big year
My own personal 2016 was such an enormous year that I feel the need to write it down. It was amazing not only for the vast traveling I did, but for all the experiences and challenges I had along the … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Guitar, Touring, Travel, Uncategorized
3 Comments
John Fahey: A Tribute
I first heard John Fahey‘s solo acoustic guitar playing on an album when I was a teenager. I liked his strange, minimalist, visually and emotionally evocative instrumental compositions, performed in open tunings in an alternating-bass fingerpicking style. I found his … Continue reading
Posted in Art, Creativity, Culture, Guitar, History, Music, Music business, Recording and producing, Uncategorized
Tagged Acoustic, fingerstyle, Guitar, Music
3 Comments
Three days in Odessa, Ukraine
I had always wanted to see Odessa, ever since watching the 1925 Sergei Eisenstein film The Battleship Potemkim in high school. The brilliantly-conceived scene of horror and tragedy distilled into an ironic symbol — a baby in a buggy rolling … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Literature, Music, TheArts, Touring, Travel, Uncategorized
4 Comments
Let’s get bored
When I was in China last fall I watched a teenage girl on a Beijing subway say goodbye to a friend getting off at a stop. As soon as they had waved goodbye and the doors closed, the girl pulled … Continue reading
Posted in Creativity, Culture, Health and Well-Being, Neuro-science, Psychology, Technology, Thoughts, Uncategorized
Tagged boredom, Creativity, Culture, neuroscience, psychology, Technology, thoughts
209 Comments
China on my mind
I went to China for the first time last month. I spent ten days playing concerts and workshops, sightseeing, exploring, eating, drinking and shooting photos in the three biggest cities — Guangjhou, Beijing and Shanghai. Food, the heat and humidity, … Continue reading
A unique festival
I recently participated in a unique music festival in Rochefort, France, called Rochefort en Accords. The slogan of this small festival in the south of France — the brainchild of French Canadian organiser Pascale Graham and her partner, American cellist … Continue reading
Posted in Art, Composing, Creativity, Culture, Learning, Music, Performing, Travel, Uncategorized
Tagged festivals, france, international, Music, musicians, rochefort
2 Comments
Thoughts on the campaign
My forty-six-day campaign to crowd-fund my new album and a global tour ended a few days ago. Although the campaign didn’t reach the “goal” amount which would have helped pay for me to tour with the album, it did reach … Continue reading
Thoughts on openness
I gave a talk at TEDGlobal 2012 in Edinburgh recently, alongside a young guitarist from Pakistan named Usman Riaz. It was an instrumental guitar performance, but still a TEDTalk with a great (and true) story behind it. The video of … Continue reading
Posted in Creativity, Culture, Guitar, Learning, Music, Teaching, Technology, Thoughts, Uncategorized
Tagged Guitar, Music, teaching, TEDGlobal
2 Comments
A memorable gig
At the end of November 2011, I played a concert in a synagogue in Wrocław, Poland, as part of the Wrocław Guitar Festival. What made this gig stand out was a convergence of things I love: travel, international culture, language, … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Food and Wine, Music, Performing, Photography, Touring, Travel
Tagged Culture, gigs, Music, performing, Touring, Wroclaw
6 Comments
The romance of commercial air travel
Remembering the distant sound of a single engine airplane passing overhead when I was a little boy growing up in a small town in upstate New York. It was the sound of possibility, travel, adventure and the wider world. I … Continue reading
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