All about the Guitarist

The story about the Guitarist around the world.
 

 Tommy Emmanuel
Emmanuel was born in Australia in 1955. He received his first guitar in 1959 at age four, being taught by his mother to accompany her playing lap steel guitar. At the age of 7 he heard Chet Atkins on the radio. He vividly remembers this moment and says it greatly inspired him.in 1961, he was a working professional musician. Recognizing the musical talents of Tommy and his brother Phil, their father created a family band, sold the family home and took his family on the road. With the family living in two station wagons, much of Emmanuel’s childhood was spent touring Australia with his family, playing rhythm guitar, and rarely going to school. The family found it difficult living on the road; they were poor but never hungry, never settling in one place. His father would often drive ahead, organize interviews, advertising and finding the local music shop where they'd have an impromptu concert the next day. Eventually the New South Wales Department of Education insisted that the Emmanuel children needed to go to school regularly.Emmanuel and his brother Phil performed live in Sydney at the closing ceremony of the Summer Olympics in 2000. The event was televised worldwide with an estimated 2.85 billion viewers.When performing together the pair will sometimes share and play just one guitar with each having one hand free.
In October 2002 he was invited to perform the Australian folk song Waltzing Matilda at a service at the Washington National Cathedral held for the victims of the Bali bombings.
In December 2007 he was diagnosed with heart issues and was forced to take a break from his hectic touring schedule due to exhaustion, but returned to full-time touring in early 2008.
In late January 2010, having been deeply touched by the tragic 2010 Haiti earthquake earlier in the same month, Emmanuel announced that he would be auctioning off three guitars, that he personally played and owned, on eBay, in order to raise money to donate to UNICEF in Haiti.
In June 2010 Emmanuel was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM)

Musical style
Emmanuel has said that even at a young age he was fascinated by Atkins’ musical style – sometimes referred to as Travis picking – of playing bass with the thumb and melody parts with the first two or three fingers at the same time. This technique became the basis of Tommy's guitar style.
While Emmanuel has never had formal music training, his playing ability has won him fans from all over the world. He is known to play percussion parts on the body of his guitar. As a solo performer he never plays to a set list and uses a minimum of effects.He usually completes recordings in one take.
Emmanuel frequently uses his left thumb to fret bass notes on the 5th and 6th strings as well as playing chords such as Am and E with just two fingers. He uses a thumb pick mostly, a flat pick or just fingers. He also integrates amongst his trademark blazing runs and kaleidoscopic chord progressions a quick note / chord "dive," imitating a tremolo system effect on his fixed-bridge acoustic guitars, by pressing the palm of his right hand against the body of the guitar directly above the fret board close to the neck joint while maintaining forward pressure with his left (fretting) hand.
His main guitar is a small-bodied custom Maton EBG808, that is fitted with a pickup and an internal condenser microphone, to which he has given the nickname "Mouse" due to its quieter volume unplugged but massive sound when plugged into an amp. Two of his three main stage guitars, notably his signature TE1 Maton dreadnought, are battered and worn from his excessive playing and percussive techniques on them. He recently stated at a workshop during his annual festival, Tommyfest UK (2008), that all three of his stage guitars have been broken and repaired numerous times over the years.

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