Hello Stick friends, FHF returns (on a Monday?!) with a kickass conversation with Chilean phenomenon - Francisco Rafart. After a 3 week hiatus, here is Free Hands Friday #61.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FC5evcPcJOU[/youtube]

Francisco has been playing Stick for just about 10 years now and has been actively playing and studying music for easily twice that. He's got a few albums out if you are interested, some of which can be see and heard on youtube or soundcloud.

I had the opportunity to meet Francisco last August in Los Angeles at FHA 2014. It was a real treat to hear him play after Larry Tuttle / Novi Novog's performance - Bob Culbertson and Larry just happened to be in the room when he was riffing and it was easy to see their appreciation for his approach and technique.

Francisco is currently studying in Spain at the Berklee School of Music. If you are friends with him on FB, you can see all the amazing work he is doing. His most recent EP was a nice mixture of EDM and elements of Prog. My fav last track was Union which focused mostly on the Stick.

FUTURE FREE HANDS FRIDAY
There will be one more session featuring a conversation with Guillermo Cides and friends. I expect that will be ready by Friday, July 24.

I anticipate that FHF will take on a monthly format - this will allow more people to participate that want to. It would also allow everyone to chime in on what they want to see/hear. I recently received some excellent suggestions from jmdacruz, one of which was "recovering guitarists" which brought a smile to my face. He also mentioned software, specifically guitarpro with Sticktab.

Perhaps we can all dig in on this and see how we can help each other to adapt this universal Stick language for our software of choice.

For me, he was one of the highlights of the FHA. great player, humble cat , very open and engaging. Really enjoy his recordings and music. Bravo

Agreed Randy, he was a class act.

This is a very informative session - all in English. I think you will enjoy it if you can free up a little time.

Hope you are well Randy!

When I get home in a week I think I need to lock myself in a room for a day to catch up on multiple FHF episodes

Count me in for the Guillermo session !!