Pierre Bensusan Master Class (1)

picture courtesy of the Music Emporium

This week I was privileged to attend a master class with world-class guitarist Pierre Bensusan, one of my guitar heros.  One of the masters of the DADGAD alternate guitar tuning, Pierre is a student of the instrument and a prolific composer and recording artist.  Thirty of us brought our guitars for an interactive workshop with Pierre at the Music Emporium outside of Boston, not knowing what to expect, but only that it was a unique opportunity to spend time with a wonderful musician.

Before playing a single note on his beautiful signature Lowden guitar, Pierre started by sharing his philosophy on music, musicianship, and instruments.  Here is some of what I heard: (1) Music is not something we create, but it already exists autonomously as energy.  It is our role as musicians to allow the music to take place by working on ourselves as the first instrument and learning the vocabulary of the guitar as our second instrument so that this energy can be transmitted.  Thus, as musicians, we must pay as much attention to our posture, lack of tension, and approach to the guitar as much as to the discipline of learning how to manipulate the instrument itself and its vocabulary.  (2) On a related note, the quality of the music is determined by the quality of the composer/performer's listening.  The player needs to listen to be able to self correct errors and to become a conduit for the music that needs to be.  Pierre noted that it takes humility to get to the point where you can in fact disappear in service of the music.  I was very much reminded of hearing the late great song-writer John Denver in concert explain how his songs were independent entities that would come along and he just had to be ready to listen for them.

The rest of the session was spent addressing individual exercises for the right and then the left hand that challenged beginners and advanced players alike on articulation, syncopation, dexterity, and position.  After two hours together, we would not let him finish without performing one of his pieces and he generously obliged.  For a short primer on Pierre's techniques, check out the video below. Also, stay tuned for a follow up post wherein Pierre regales me and a couple lucky friends with tall tales from the road over a beer after the workshop...