The archive of Tiny Desk Concerts is exactly how the Internet can serve as a profound resource for musicians today.
It’s a chilly January night in Nashville, and I was looking for something to chew on musically–something to inspire me and remind me of why I spend so much time striving forward on the guitar.
If you’re engaged in your own climactic battle with an instrument out there somewhere, remember how important it is to drink deep from the well of musical inspiration every now and again.
After enjoying an evening of several different Tiny Desk Concerts, I feel prepared to return to my practice regimen with renewed enthusiasm.
So, first off, just go search around the archives of the Tiny Desk Concerts. There’s plenty there to tickle your musical tastes.
Here are some of the shows I’ve been enjoying this evening:
It’s hard to be from Nashville and not be aware of Chet Atkins as a concept, an idea, this guy who played guitar.
But only recently have I really begun to appreciate this man that played such an instrumental role in Nashville’s growth as a music center, not to mention his contributions to the guitar.
It’s been ten years since I first fell hard for the fingerstyle playing of Doc Watson and Merle Travis.
And, before that, I’d already encountered amazing players like Leo Kottke, Jeff Fahey and Mississippi John Hurt.
But—Chet Atkins!!
My eyes are opening to the extraordinary legacy of Chet Atkins. And this feels like one of the most pivotal discoveries in my life’s journey with the guitar.
The Fuzzy Feeling That Comes When You Find Something New and Amazing
If you’re at all into music, then surely you’ve experienced the sudden influx of inspiration that comes with a brand new sonic discovery. Maybe the new band or composer you’ve discovered was staring at you all along and you never had the patience to stop and give them a chance. Or maybe you literally had never even heard of this new talent, and all of a sudden you’ve encountered your new favorite song.
Right now, Chet Atkins is my new musical revelation.
First off, Chet Atkins wasn’t called Mr. Guitar for no reason. His playing is unbelievably rich, tasteful and technically powerful.
Additionally, his musical curiosity led him across all sorts of genres and approaches to the guitar across his illustrious and long-lived career in music. From his early country roots to his eventual incorporation of blues, folk, ragtime, popular music and classical guitar into his playing, he wasn’t afraid to reinvent himself and follow his current musical interests.
And on top of all of that, by all accounts he was genuinely a kind-hearted and warm man who left Nashville a better place than it was before he arrived for not just the music industry but everyone with whom he connected while he was alive.
Recommended Chet Atkins Resources
Since this is a site about learning to play the guitar, I’m going to focus on a few of the Chet Atkins resources that I’m currently loving.
His recording career resulted in an immense output of different records, and I can’t pretend to have devoured and digested all of his music at this point, so I’ll hold off on recommending specific recordings.
But if you’re looking to bring some Chet Atkins into your guitar playing, here are some fantastic places to start:
I am so grateful for whoever coordinated everything it took to get Chet to sit down and produce this DVD.
Pop this puppy in and watch Chet guide you through eight of his arrangements on the guitar.
I’ve watched A LOT of guitar DVDs, and this is easily one of the best I’ve seen. There’s something about the quality of the music and the ease with which Chet teaches his arrangements that creates a magical guitar learning experience.
These books present a ton of interviews with old friends and colleagues of Chet alongside notation and TAB of a variety of Chet’s arrangements from across his playing career.
Highly recommended for the songs, but the glimpses into the memories of people who knew Chet are also really sweet ways to appreciate the legacy (musical and otherwise) of Chet Atkins.
Standing on the Shoulders of Musical Giants
By all accounts, Chet never took a guitar lesson and pieced together his playing style from recordings and chance exposure to different music.
For those of us with internet access, we are awash in an embarrassment of guitar riches. With oodles more resources appearing every day.
For example, right now, from the comfort of your own internet browser, have a look at this incredible performance of The Entertainer by Chet:
(If you want to learn that arrangement, it’s in Volume Two of Chet Atkins in Three Dimensions, mentioned above.)
So, here in this week of Thanksgiving, I wanted to take a moment to give thanks for the body of work Chet left behind when he died in 2001.
As a Nashville-based fingerstyle nylon string guitarist (and teacher of Nashville guitar lessons), I’ve often wondered which musical legacy from this Music City was my own.
With this recent sudden realization of just how deep Chet Atkins’ playing and approach to the guitar really were, I feel like I’ve finally found my Nashville musical lineage. And it feels very, very good to be apprenticing from this great master through the resources he left behind before he passed.
So, if you haven’t yet made a deep acquaintance with the music of Chet Atkins, I highly recommend you do so. From YouTube to Amazon, you’ll find plenty to gawk and stare at and lots of good humbling pants-kicking motivation to keep moving forward in your own guitar playing.
Back when I was living in Brooklyn, I learned about a band that has now gained a lot of global acclaim called The National.
My online investigations turned up a pair of intimate, bare videos filmed for La Blogotheque’s brilliant video series “Take-Away Shows.”
There are now over 110 Take-Away Shows, and each of the shows involves the camera following a musical act through the real world as they make music in one or another context.
If you are looking for some musical inspiration to keep you going, then I highly suggest you check out The National’s Take-Away Show.
The entire Take-Away Show archive is well worth exploring. If you’re hip to more indie-style music, you’ll definitely recognize some of the artists chronicled. And if you’re looking for a unique and powerful way to be exposed to music you haven’t heard of before, watching your way through the entire Take-Away Show catalog would definitely bring you into contact with some fantastic new sounds.
Here at StringLove Guitar, I’m primarily focused on three things: a) helping as many people learn to play guitar superbeautifully as possible; b) creating beautiful music with a powerful Love Guitar message to share with the world; and c) more generally incubating and hatching the Love Guitar ethos. More to come on that last one, but when it comes to the first two purposes I’m driving at here, discovering new sources of musical inspiration is vitally important.
I’ve heard the reports, and I suspect you have as well, in which authorities note that as people age, they tend to investigate new music less and less. That sounds like a dangerous road to head down.
The alternative, which I wish for everyone, is to remain open. To walk in the world with a heart that is available for newness and inspiration. To remember how great it feels to connect with brand new beauty at the deepest possible level.
The Take-Away Shows bring me to that profound place where beauty silences my mind and opens my heart. If you haven’t encountered them before, then I hope this post helps you bring them into your life.
Meanwhile, if you want to learn how to make The National’s music, or any other music you encounter, I’m happily plying my Nashville Guitar Lessons. Check out my online guitar lessons to learn something right here, right now, for free. And, if you’re open to taking in some new music unlike most that you’ve yet heard, then why not check out my album Spirited?
Whoever you are, wherever you are, remember how precious inspiration is. It is all too easy to lose the bubbly creative fountain that flows through the heart when inspiration has been cultivated, encouraged, courted.
My vision is that humans all over the planet awaken to their native joy and spread it all around through beauty in every possible form. Love Guitar is the forward phalanx of guitar players at the leading edge of the beauty way. If you are looking for an approach to the guitar that puts Love front and center with intensive technique and expansive repertoire on either side, then StringLove’s your place.
Amazing, the musical inspiration we can discover when we look around the interwebs for it, no?
