Techniques for Contemporary 12-String Guitar
HOMESPUN
Taught By Chris Proctor.
Level 3
90-minute DVD or VHS, includes music and tab

This DVD lesson provides new insights into the sonic possibilities and boundless opportunities for innovation on the 12-string guitar. Chris Proctor tackles a wide range of ideas and techniques, taking this richly toned instrument into new and undiscovered territory.

This course is jam-packed with invaluable information, including important tips on tuning, stringing and setting up the 12-string for maximum output and intonation. You’ll learn the open G and C tunings pioneered and widely used by Leo Kottke and other leading 12-string stylists, and the way Chris tunes down a step to get more resonance and depth from his instrument.

Most 12-string players strike the octave and unison pairs of strings simultaneously. Chris shows you a revolutionary way of picking the twelve strings individually, using alternate thumb and finger picking within the pairs of strings. Fiddle tunes such as "Sailor’s Hornpipe" and "Fisher’s Hornpipe" can be played with flowing melodies and resonant, ringing tones using a minimum of left hand movement.

Chris covers many other important skills, including use of the bottleneck slide, fingerpicks, string mute, harmonics (especially lush on the 12-string guitar), and other techniques that will help you to play powerful and evocative instrumentals. You’ll learn, in detail, "Halfway," "Bells of the Harbor," "War Games" and "Over the Pass." The session ends with Chris’ beautiful performance of his arrangement of "Merrily Kiss the Quaker’s Wife."

About Chris Proctor
National Fingerpicking Champion Chris Proctor has earned a solid reputation as a master of 6- and 12-string acoustic guitar. His acclaimed CDs on Flying Fish, Windham Hill, Rounder and Sugarhouse Records embrace classical, blues, jazz, folk, Celtic and pop traditions. He has toured the United States, Canada, and Mexico, and has taught his techniques through hundreds of guitar clinics for Taylor Guitars, workshop columns for Fingerstyle Guitar and Acoustic Guitar magazines, several books of transcriptions, and videos and DVDs for Homespun Tapes. All of these testify to his standing as one of today’s leading fingerstyle composers, arrangers, and performers.
“There has been an explosion of fingerstylists over the last few years, but Proctor’s compositions and rich palette of textures and timbres set him off from most of the pack.” (Guitar Player)