Tommy Emmanuel is a well-travelled man.
Even with two Grammy nominations, two ARIA Awards, a designation as a ‘Certified Guitar Player’ from the legendary Chet Atkins and an Order of Australia membership from the Queen, the pull of home remains the strongest thing in Emmanuel’s life.
“I wish I could do what I do and still live in Australia, but it’s too far and it’s just impossible,” he says. It’s why Emmanuel is thankful to be returning to Australia in early September for a four-day guitar camp in Sydney, where he and a swag of teachers will be imparting their knowledge upon eager students.
The camp aims to inspire its attendees, while teaching them about the instrument and allowing them to spend more time playing than they perhaps ever would in such a concentrated period. “[The students] get fired up about their playing and their passion for music,” Emmanuel says. “You need to be inspired, and camp is a good way to get inspired.”
The idea for the camp was first conceived when Emmanuel was asked to hold a guitar clinic in Ohio about 15 years ago. After teaching less than 20 people, he realised he could run a similar clinic with a lot more students, which led to him hosting a camp in Upstate New York.
“I did a kind of test run. I put on my own camp in Upstate New York at a resort near Woodstock, and I got 85 students for four days, and it went so beautifully. So then I started doing more of them and hand-picking my instructors, giving them ideas on what I wanted them to teach, and away we went.”
Since the New York camp, Emmanuel has hosted a number of similar clinics internationally and here in Australia, with two taking place in Sydney in recent years. Although the style of teaching might have evolved, the basic principles remain.
“There’s nothing else for you to do except play the guitar and learn and interact and talk to each other and to talk music, to live and breathe it – it’s great,” says Emmanuel. “The instructors give them all so much information, they come away with new songs to play, with new techniques, with new ideas and with new tools to be able to work out more songs … We’re gonna teach people how to use their ears, for a start, because so many people don’t know how to listen or what to listen for. A musician’s first job is to listen, second is to play.”
For students to have the opportunity to pick the brains of such a celebrated guitarist will no doubt be invaluable to their playing, but the camp is not just about the instrument – it’s about musicianship in general. “Some of the important things are time, feel, tone, touch and all the things we like about a player,” Emmanuel says. “These are the things we will point out. The guitar is the instrument, but the music comes from you, and you have to make that connection and use the instrument to get your expression out.
“The camp is not just about music technique, it’s about how you live and how you think as well. You can make your life so much better.”
As a professional musician, you might forgive him for being out of touch with the grassroots guitarist, but Emmanuel’s teaching philosophy comes from a place far from any arrogance or elitism. “[Our teaching is] all about being honest and being real. I live in the real world: I make a living by playing guitar to put my kids through school and college,” he says. “That’s the bottom line: it’s all about making everything solid and real. There’s no smoke and mirrors.”
With 50 years of experience under his belt, the Muswellbrook-born guitarist has been pretty much everywhere and seen it all, and through touring he gets to experience music across a whole lot of different cultures. The challenge for him is to pass on as much of that worldly knowledge as possible, while keeping his teaching relevant and interesting.
“You cut to the chase, you get the important information and knowledge from your own experiences across. I can tell you why something works and why it doesn’t as far as onstage goes.”
Tommy Emmanuel Guitar Camp runsThursday September 1 – Monday September 5 atCheckers Resort And Conference Centre, Terrey Hills.
