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Billy McLaughlin
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Author:  MichNS [ Fri Mar 31, 2017 3:18 am ]
Post subject:  Billy McLaughlin
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Last weekend I attended a guitar festival on the west side of Michigan in Whitehall. Billy was the last instructor who also performed a few of his songs. I got a chance to speak with him during lunch when he arrived. Myself and Glenn Poorman had met Billy up at Interlochen about five years ago, he still remembered us as we had each brought Chapman Sticks with us and showed them to him.

We all had a fairly in depth discussion during his presentation about two handed tapping on acoustic guitars. Most of the younger guys had never seen it before and learned about Michael Hedges and a few others for the first time. Billy also talked about Emmett Chapman and the first time he had ever seen Emmett play. He spoke pretty highly of Emmett's playing, was pretty blown away seeing the Stick for the first time and what Emmett could do with it.

For those of you reading this and never heard of Billy, he was a very famous tapping acoustic player back in the 199o's, but developed focal dystonia, a neuroliical disorder that ended his career, until he taught himself to play tapping style with the opposite hand. Nowadays he does a lot of live performances and raising awareness of focal distonia, which is something that can affect musicians who spend many hours practicing every day.
Author:  paigan0 [ Fri Mar 31, 2017 7:16 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Billy McLaughlin
Sounds like an awesome seminar, Steve. Do you have or recommend any video of Billy, either from this event or somewhere else? I've not seen or heard of him before. Thanks!
Author:  gpoorman [ Fri Mar 31, 2017 9:17 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Billy McLaughlin
He's all over YouTube. You can probably check out anything that comes up.

Billy's a great guy and has an incredibly positive outlook on damn near everything especially considering everything he's been through. He's been up to Interlochen twice.

He was the guy that really pushed me into playing with a lot of alternate tunings on guitar when I used to try and avoid them out of fear of string breakage.
Author:  Kris [ Fri Mar 31, 2017 10:08 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Billy McLaughlin
Billy was amazing, I have a couple of his cd's that still get played often. I remember reading that he had been battling something but didn't realize how debilitating it actually was. Such a talent!

Kris
Author:  WerkSpace [ Fri Mar 31, 2017 10:53 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Billy McLaughlin
http://www.youtube.com/user/BillyMacFan/videos
Author:  JRJ [ Fri Mar 31, 2017 11:27 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Billy McLaughlin
Very interesting that his condition brought him to using the guitar in the almost vertical
position, almost "free hands". I play a lot of guitar and have tried this but find that you
lose a lot of possibilities (on guitar) without strumming and plucking but more power
to Billy for making this work. His stuff with a small orchestra is pretty amazing.

Once Frank Zappa was being interviewed by David Letterman when Frank was
promoting a new album with the London Symphony Orchestra and David asked
him "just how do you get the London Symphony Orchestra to play your work Frank?".
Frank said, "you pay them" :|.

jRj
*j*
.~
Author:  MichNS [ Fri Mar 31, 2017 2:15 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Billy McLaughlin
One thing I noticed at this seminar that I don't recall before was one guitar that he plays right handed. He found an alternate tuning that works with his condition that he can play "piano chords" to accompany other soloists. He only uses one or two fingers per hand. Of course, that involves more altered timings with one oddball string gage.

Side note, some of these acoustic guitar seminars have a similar vibe to Stick seminars, and they are not to hard to find. One of the other highlights at this one was a songwriting class, where we composed a whole song lyrics and all in about a half an hour. First time I've ever been exposed to creating lyrics. Makes me think of creating melodies from a different viewpoint now.
Author:  piratebruce [ Sat Apr 01, 2017 5:05 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Billy McLaughlin
Good memories there, I still have Billy's CD's which made it all the way down here to Australia.
Cant recall how I first heard about him, might have flowed on from my Hedges obsession at the time.
I ordered some transcriptions from John Stropes in the US and spent many hours on one piece.
Good Stuff!
Author:  MichNS [ Sat Apr 01, 2017 7:35 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Billy McLaughlin
piratebruce wrote:
Good memories there, I still have Billy's CD's which made it all the way down here to Australia.
Cant recall how I first heard about him, might have flowed on from my Hedges obsession at the time.
I ordered some transcriptions from John Stropes in the US and spent many hours on one piece.
Good Stuff!


I found out about Billy via a TV interview I caught one Saturday morning. Bought "Out of Hand" when it was released a few months later. No internet back then for me. I already knew about Michael Hedges via Manring as I bought a Zon bass in 1991. The store owner told me about Manring, and via bass magazines I learned who Hedges was because of his work with Manring. So seeing Billy featured on TV I knew there was more good music to be found incorporating tapping on an acoustic. I bought a few other of his CDs afterwards. Never found a recording of one song he played on TV, and never wanted to ask him about it, as I'm not sure if he can still play it. Was finger tapping mixed with finger style.
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