|
|
Joined:
April 2004
Posts: 13303
Location: Latitude 39.56819, Longitude -105.080066 | Pete Huttlinger was here for two days at one of the local huge but high end guitar shops....Guitar's, Etc....think Guitar Center size but owned and operated by adults who actually give a shit about the music and the type of instruments they carry.
Their acoustic room carries a pretty good selection of Ovations, Takamines, Taylors, etc and their high end section carries Collings, Martins, Bourgeois, and a nice selection of used.
They teach lessons and have about 8 individual rooms (approx 8x8) for the students....a free wi-fi section with in house computers for the parents to wait.....overall a kick ass setup.
Anyway, the basement which is probably a good 2000 square feet is where they hold the concerts/clinics. This is where MATT SMITH played back in November and it seems that they have at least 2 a month.
This weekend was Pete Huttlinger who is a well known session player, has multiple teaching DVDs and also played with John Denver for 4 years. |
|
| |
|
Joined:
April 2004
Posts: 13303
Location: Latitude 39.56819, Longitude -105.080066 | Anyway, Pete held a concert on Friday night and just blew everybody away with his set which included everything from John Denver to Stevie Wonder to Classical.....all his own instrumental interpretations.
His two main guitars were a Collings OM and a Collings D1A (dread).
During the 90 minutes clinic and Saturday he spent a lot of time telling really entertaining stories about playing with John Denver and experiences he had in the studio sessions.
Also talked about how he wrote his arrangements and the order in which he would lay them out and then piece them together.
Anyway, the fascinating part was when he started answering questions.
The group up front (self proclaimed Taylor and Martin fanatics) wanted to know why he played Collings instead of the aforementioned brands.
He explained he started playing Collings in '94 because all of the Taylors he played were a piece of shit that would never intonate properly and he got tired of having to bend a string to make the chord sound proper. He sent several guitars back to Taylor and they told him they were fine and sent them back. The last studio session he played, the engineer asked him if it was possible for him to play the same chord twice and have it sound the same (Pete said...I guess not!). The next session he was asked to play on the engineer told him to bring any guitar he wanted as long as it was not a Taylor. At the same time he visited a local music store that had a Collings OM that just amazed him with the quality of build and sound. He asked the owner (who he knew) if he could take it to the session with the promise that if it worked out well he would buy it. At that time, the OM was $2000 and Pete said it was the best money he ever spent.
Later, Taylor apparently corrected the build problems that they had but Pete had no interest in playing them again. |
|
| |
|
Joined:
April 2004
Posts: 13303
Location: Latitude 39.56819, Longitude -105.080066 | Then he talked about Martins and said that the problem was that one would sound good, one would sound great and one would sound like crap. Again he said that the reason he was sold on Collings was because he could count on the consistency. He knew that he could pick one up and it would either be good or great but never less.
He also said that he had played Ovations for years and left them and came back to them 3 times over his career but did not currently play them.
You could hear the Taylor and Martin fanatics up front gnashing their teeth over his comments but it was really funny how after the clinic most of them were up in the acoustic room asking to try out the Collings on display.
He also talked about practicing and practice techniques.
He said that he would typically warm up with exercises for 60 to 90 minutes before a show or clinic to make sure that his fingers were limber.
On a typical day without shows or when working on a project or CD, he will play/practice anywhere from 4-6 hours a day.....not including his warm up times. He acknowledged that since his job was playing guitar that it was much easier for him to practice for extended periods of time than the typical player.
He recently got a high end Mando (I will let you guess the brand) and he said he played it every day 4-6 hours for over 6 months before he felt worthy. |
|
| |
|
Joined:
April 2004
Posts: 13303
Location: Latitude 39.56819, Longitude -105.080066 | He also talked about playing with John Denver and how John worked and had a certain way of doing things.
Overall, it was an outstanding show and clinic and I would love to go to one of his actual teaching classes that he holds.
He was extremely personable and easy to talk to and his stories were entertaining and his teaching snippets were easy to follow and understand.
If any of you hear that he will be in your area I highly recommend that you make the effort to attend! |
|
| |
|
Joined:
March 2005
Posts: 12750
Location: Boise, Idaho | I wish we had a similar guitar store that would bring him. His Fur Peace ranch clinics look good, but it just costs too much to get most anywhere from here. I've got a few songs left to learn from his dvds. I'll have to settle for those. |
|
| |
|
Joined:
April 2004
Posts: 13303
Location: Latitude 39.56819, Longitude -105.080066 | He mentioned Fur Peace ranch. How much is tuition for the classes? |
|
| |
|
Joined:
April 2006
Posts: 972
Location: PDX | Dates and tuition
_____
gh1 |
|
| |
Pete Huttlinger's Clinic
