{"id":1289,"date":"2007-02-18T22:04:28","date_gmt":"2007-02-19T04:04:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.conradaskland.com\/blog\/2007\/02\/tony-mcmanus-scottish-guitar\/"},"modified":"2007-02-18T22:04:28","modified_gmt":"2007-02-19T04:04:28","slug":"tony-mcmanus-scottish-guitar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/tony-mcmanus-scottish-guitar\/","title":{"rendered":"Tony McManus – Scottish Guitar"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"tony-mcmanus.jpg\"<\/a> January 2007 I had the pleasure of hearing Tony McManus play guitar at the Robert Burns concert in Mount Vernon, WA.\u00c2 I was directing the Scottish choir in between his guitar presentations.<\/p>\n

Tony McManus is not just a performer or musician, he is a divine experience. Let me tell you about it.<\/p>\n

He was very unassuming backstage. In fact I didn’t know he was the headline performer. Very quiet and focused. A little light noodling to warm up, but nothing flashy. The kind of playing you’d expect from someone who is bashful to be heard. I had spoken with the sound man before the concert, he was a bit nervous because he hadn’t done sound checks yet with McManus and wasn’t sure what setup the artist would want. (As it turns out, a master artist like McManus already knows what is going to happen and was easily prepared.)<\/p>\n

McManus was so low key before his portion that I made the incorrect assumption this was a throwaway gig for him (which it may very well have been, but you would never have known it from his performance). I got a lesson in master artist craftsmanship when he took the stage.<\/p>\n

\"tonymcmanus3.jpg\"<\/a>Tony McManus walked slowly onto the stage and started talking in a very low relaxed voice. As if he was playing in your living room. He played with a style that made you think he hadn’t REALLY started playing yet, that he was just THINKING about playing and would get around to it eventually. He introduced his pieces, gave some background on Robert Burns and Auld Lange Syne.<\/p>\n

Before you know it, the entire audience was laser-beam focused on him. His playing was so absolutely amazing, I can tell you that women backstage were literally swooning over the beauty of his music. (I am not exaggerating, they were “swooning”, as if they were on the verge of fainting from the overpowering beauty of tone.) To my ears it was like listening to the sound of diamond’s sparkle. I myself managed to restrain myself from visibly swooning.<\/p>\n

And there was the lesson. He needed no great trumpet fanfare entrance. He did not need to establish\u00c2 himself as worthy of playing for us. He had no need of ego to show us that what he was doing was difficult. He simply was.<\/p>\n

I have heard many world class acoustic guitar players (and politeness makes me withold that list for what comes next), but I have never heard a solo acoustic guitar player that touched my soul as the live playing of Tony McManus. I’d like to say the experience was mine alone, but no doubt it was shared by every single person in attendance that evening.<\/p>\n

\"tony-mcmanus2.jpg\"<\/a>TONY McMANUS GUITARS<\/strong>
\nTony McManus plays a New Melville TM Custom, <\/span>Kelday 0- 12 Fret,\u00c2 a <\/span>Kelday Terz custom, <\/span>Circa Dreadnaught by John Slobod, <\/span>Mermer Sage by Rich Mermer, <\/span> Fylde Magician Custom, <\/span>Avalon A25J (successor to the Lowden Guitar Company) and a <\/span>Larriv\u00c3\u00a9e L-10-12.<\/span><\/p>\n

From the Tony McManus website<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

To find a unique voice on so ubiquitous an instrument as the acoustic guitar is quite an achievement: to do so within a centuries old idiom where the instrument has no real history is truly remarkable. In little over ten years as a professional musician Tony McManus has come to be recognised throughout the world as the leading guitarist in Celtic Music. From early childhood his twin obsessions of traditional music and acoustic guitar have worked together to produce a startlingly original approach to this ancient art. In Tony\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hands the complex ornamentation normally associated with fiddles and pipes are accurately transferred to guitar in a way that preserves the integrity and emotional impact of the music.<\/span><\/p>\n

Visit the Tony McManus Scottish Guitar Website<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

January 2007 I had the pleasure of hearing Tony McManus play guitar at the Robert Burns concert in Mount Vernon, WA.\u00c2 I was directing the Scottish choir in between his guitar presentations. Tony McManus is not just a performer or musician, he is a divine experience. Let me tell you about it. He was very […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3C0LX-kN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1289"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1289\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}