Guitar Virtuosos
February 19, 2008When I was at UBC in 1987 my parents bought me a great Christmas gift - an acoustic guitar. I had always wanted one since I was a young child. We had visited a relative on my mom’s side whose name might have been Ken but I can’t be sure as it was a long time ago. What I do remember was this guy playing a guitar and I really really enjoyed listening to him play. I decided that I wanted to learn to play but never really pursued it until many years later a buddy of mine from Quesnel, Scott Perry, got a guitar as a gift from his parents. Scotty was my roommate in my first year and we spent many late night jam sessions with a few other guys living in our residence. Scott proved to be quite adept at it and I was not. Fast forward 20 years and I am teaching in China while Scotty is playing guitar in a pretty hot Vancouver based band called The Orchid Highway (click for their webpage).
Tonight as I looked over at my neglected guitar with a broken string I decided to surf YouTube for some videos of acoustic guitar playing and came across these gems. Each one has a different style but all are fantastic examples of a guitar played extremely well.

Darren, this is gonna be tough to believe, but tonight I’ve been spending my time between two things - playing my acoustic guitar that I had to remove about an inch of dust from, and sticking my head out the back door to keep tabs on the lunar eclipse (it’s a beautifully clear night here in Kamloops). Anyway, I haven’t played much at all for the last couple of years and tonight I went for it a bit. By the time my voice and fingertips were both raw (and no, I didn’t get to Eclipse from Dark Side of the Moon) I had a new idea - why not relax and do a little blog checking. This post is the first I came to! Something indeed is in the air.
Comment by Kev — February 21, 2008 @ 12:06 pm
You have given me the inspiration to get my guitar restrung and jam a little. So cathartic and I miss it a lot. What an eerie feeling you must have felt!
Comment by Dalong — February 21, 2008 @ 11:19 pm