Tom took his Taylor 714ce 6-string to the August 1st episode of the show and talked about fingerpicking and contrafacts. You can copyright lyrics and melody, but not chord changes. Contrafacts are tunes based on the un-copyrighted chord progressions from popular songs, like Hotel California, which was requested (we think) by pint-size caller Maggie. He also had a synesthesia-type moment: every time he plays a piece of his called Little Black Cat his nose itches. His students have a similar synethesiatic response when they play a certain passage of Tarrega’s Adelita: they salivate. Tom has seen it happen many times: music affects the body. He also had calls from Amanda, niece of the drummer for Little Feat, and Country Time Bob who requested Buck Owens. And in the last two minutes of the show a viewer requested Dueling Banjos from the movie Deliverance which Tom played as the credits rolled.
Tom took his Taylor 12-string to the June 27th episode of the show and demonstrated the backstrokes and scissors strums he uses. He also talked a bit about the history of 12-string (an American invention) and some its cousins such as vihuelas and bajo sextos. For those flying for the July 4th holiday he talked about putting your hard shell guitar cases inside bicycle boxes with lots of padding for added protection. Roving cam footage was caught by PATV Intern, Brianne Boysen.
No Tom’s Guitar Show on July 4th: PATV will be closed the week of July 4th. Aside from observing the holiday, several members of the PATV staff and board will be in Boston for the Alliance for Community Media (ACM) conference.
