E-Tap report 1999

Reports and archives of the E-Tap

Contains:

E-Tap 99, July 2-10

A report by participant happy tapper Jerry Balard

It's been a month since the 1999 European Tap Guitar Seminar in Neufchateau Belgium, and its time to test my theory that waiting a bit to write about it would allow me some perspective on the experience.
The E-Tap seminars occurs within the larger context of the Académie d'été, a week-long folk music/dance festival and seminar that takes place each year in the Ardennes Forrest region of southern Belgium in the village of
Neufchateau. Trying to describe E-Tap without describing its larger context would be to miss the whole point of the week.
The Académie brings together hundreds of participants from all over Europe and the world to study everything from North African percussion to Tango to Flamingo and (obviously) the odd practice of tapping your instrument instead of plucking it. The week consists of full days of study followed by long nights of performance and uniquely European revelry. It's the opportunity for musical cross-pollination as much as the tap-specific activities that
makes the week such an amazing experience.
Here's a run-down of the events of a typical day at the seminar...
The staff assembled by organizers Daniel and Claudia Schell this year consisted of sound sculptor Kuno Wagner teaching physical technique,Wolfgang Daiss (with his 14 string instrument, affectionally known as the
'surfboard') holding down the jazz chair, Daniel exposing everyone to ensemble playing (Western and Indian classical music) and Thierry Carpentier breaking free from his enviable Stick gig at Euro Disney for a mid-week
seminar on jazz and popular song accompaniement. The participants came from Hawaii, California (moi), Spain, France, Belgium, Britain, Finland and Germany about 15 in all.
7:30 AM finds the more ambitious (and lighter-weight party-ers from the previous night) joining Kuno for a half hour of warm-ups before breakfast.
Hannon for Stick. (And how often do your really do that half hour+ of warm up you're always telling yourself you should do?)
After breakfast at the dorm cafeteria (all meals a nice change from American cafeteria food, btw) classes ran in the Tap building from 9 'til noon.
        Hour 1, Jazz mit Wolfgang. Our particular sub-group worked a bossa the whole week, exploring lush 2-5-1's, and separating improvisation from comping, with and without bass. Great exposure to the art of comping in a 2-bass situation.
        Hour 2 was the agony we all know as sight-reading, but done in a way by Daniel that emphasized the art of interacting with and listening to your fellow players. Incredibly worthwhile, and since Daniel gears the level to
the class, the difficulty level was actually pretty low.
        Hour 3 was rigorous finger calisthenics with Kuno. Scales, all two-handed finger permutations, poly-rhythms and atonal ear stretching. I never appreciated sound sculpture until working with Kuno... an experience
in itself, his patience and his mad grin driving you on through the inevitable crashes.
After lunch, the afternoon consisted of 2-3 hours of special interest break-outs, many of which were led by the 'students' themselves. I qualify 'students' because the level of talent exhibited by the participants was
staggering.
        Joe Conti from Hawaii shared his 10 years of lounge gig experience, showing how he organizes his drum and midi patches (driven by his GK-2A intervace on his semi-fretless Grand Stick) to allow nearly stream of
consiousness movement from song to song.
        Jesus Auñon demonstrated his use of his fluid tapping technique on a fairly stock 6-string electric to achieve incredible cascades of sound.
        Kuno ran through his performance rig that included 3 looping samplers, extensive modeling effects, and Roland VG-8 and MC-505 Groovebox.
One of Kuno's newer venues is playing post-rave gigs and the un-musician-like hours of 6 AM. Phillip Glass meets Tapping.
        And the phenomenal Andre Pelat astounded everyone with his classical repertoire ranging from Mozart to Bach, making unheard of use of every fret on his Stick...Dazzling technique.
After dinner, each night featured a concert at the main event center, a transformed boy's school. I was astounded by a sound system was as good as any I've seen. The main concert from 9:00 to about 10:30 might be the
stellar Flamingo troup, an amazing Iranian percussionist, a night of renegade tappers, or the Friday night student concert.
Then the fun starts...
A large lounge area serves as a makeshift cabaret each night, serving that devastating Belgian beer, and the festivities go on until 4:00 AM, with 100+ dancers tearing up the floors. One nights music was provided by the
inexhaustable Joe Conti plus drummer, who played a 4-hour, NONSTOP set of dance tunes. Olympic calibre performance that rocked like no one's business.
(You haven't lived until you've seen a dance floor rocking to Metheny's Phase Dance.) Yet another night found the music provided by a group of the folkies, playing concertina, fiddle, and Irish pipes, and a packed house of
dancers circling the dancefloor in Bouree's until the wee hours. You'd have though you'd just walked into a 16th century public house.
Semi-outside in a covered adjacent area was where the Tango folks set up shop, and the feeling was that you'd just walked into some Left Bank alleyway, with sultry and slinky dancers draped across their partners to the
tune of romantic accordian orchestras.
And in the parking lot might be a congregation of the Spanish Flamingo musicians and dancers, or African percussionists playing Morocan folk songs in groups of 20 or 30.
E-Tap 99 "Bach and the tap-guitar"
:
Jesus Aunion presents his magistral work. The 15 two-voices inventions arranged for tapping on the classical electric guitar. Wolfgang Daiss admires the work and presents the argument that it is much easier to play Bach on the 2-regions fourths-fourths tuning. Daniel Schell presents his transcriptions which are written mainly under the form : melody loco (untransposed), bass loco or 8a bassa (transposed an octave lower). According to Daniel, this uses the extended sound possibilities of the two-regions t-g. Daiss criticises this approach. If played untansposed, the Bach inventions are usually to high for the t-g. If played 8a bassa, they sound 'sad'? He advances the argument that they should be played a fifth (or a fourth) lower. There are historical evidences that Bach did himself transpose some of his works like this for special instruments like the lute or new forms of keyboards. Daniel agrees. It is the best solution, however with the inconvenient that the Inventio in C, sounds now in G. What if you like to play the inventio in C with your daughter playing piano?

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