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Well welcome once again to Guitar Practice Perfectly TV
and here we are in the studio. Guitarists
ancient and modern and today we have in the studio my very good friend
Tristan Seume, Tris, welcome, it's a joy to have you here. Good to see you. Tris, along with most of my
dear friends is a great great guitar player, we only have great guitar players here at GPP
and Tris and I go back quite a few years. Tris came to my house many
years ago with another young guitar player. And
Tris being the kind of person you are was very quiet and shy and quite self - effacing
and I said well do you play the guitar a bit then
Tris? He said yeah I play a bit. I said well can you play me
something? And you got out your Simon and Patrick and totally blew me
away. I thought this guy is
incredible. And I was just drawn to you as a
person, I was drawn to your playing and I thought I've got to
try and help this guy as much as I can and I think I was responsible for your earlier recording
at my house of your first album. That's right, yes
yes. And of course bless your heart you've
gone from strength to strength since then and you are currently
working with Jackie Oates aren't you? Yes
that's right.Tell me about Jackie, I've never had the
pleasure of seeing her perform but I know she's a very highly regarded
artiste? Yeah, she's erm, at the forefront really of the current UK folk
scene, she's one of the new young generation of singers
erm, and she err, I was, it was a bit of a
dream gig for me because I was already a fan of hers, I
brought one of her albums on having seen her perform in a duo
Erm, a few months previous and erm, she had
really, I thought she was
fantastic, beautiful voice and
everything and then randomly out of the blue she'd send me an
email to say that her guitar player was
emigrating and she, and there was a
vacancy, would I be interested and she just found..It's fantastic isn't it?
..she got my name through a
mutual erm, a mutual
friend err because you know what the folk scene is
like, everyone knows someone who knows
someone..It is a very small world, it's like a large family.
Which is a good thing and a bad thing.
It doesn't mean we all get on but it's like a large
family yeah. Erm so she invited
me to try out really for her band so I went to meet her in
London and she'd asked me to prepare a couple of songs from the
record so I sort of prepared the entire record just to make sure, and
erm.. Well you know it is nice to be, I think you should be
prepared. And yes so she hired me which was
nice and that was 3 ½ years ago
now I think.Did she
know of your work through your columns, the
Techniques in Guitarists magazine?
I believe her brother did because her brother is also a well known folk artist called Jim Moray
and erm, err, and he's a bit of a guitar nerd like I am so I think he was aware of my name but.. Viewers, we are all guitar nerds, you never
grow out of being a guitar nerd. I think the day you stop is the day you should start
worrying whether you should carry on playing the guitar because we are all
fanatical about the instrument and we just love it.
I want to go back a few years Tris,
you know with that first album because you've like many
people have worked very hard at your career and apart
from being a great player you are a very schooled musician
Tell me about your early studies, it was in Dartington wasn't it?
Yes well I had erm, I went to
Dartington College of Arts in Devon to do my music
degree but I'd gone really as a rock
guitar player, that was my main thing at the time, I was into Steve Via and Satriani and all of those, you
technical wizards and everything
and erm, it was really at
university that I have found the steel string
acoustic guitar, partly through a record I had of yours actually as it happens
You had done a demo for a guitarist
magazine on the cover CD I think there was a
demonstration of a product you were
promoting at the time and it was that that captured it actually. so I found the
steel string acoustic guitar
err as my thing and I found my, it was
weird, at university
you know they actively encourage
collaboration and cross-disciplinary
studying and all the rest of it but my creative
output became increasingly insular,
I kind of went the other way really and came out a soloist.
You see I didn't know this, because
the first time I heard you play, you are such a great acoustic player
I thought that was what you started out on.
Well that's sweet of you
but I had taken
classical lessons for a few years and I'd done a few grades.
Not to any high standard particularly but just enough to kind of give you the
discipline start point and then I kind of took it my own
direction I suppose, erm.. I don't know, yeah my
musical study was quite diverse, erm, I didn't
really focus really heavily on one thing. You know
I play electric guitar, play classical guitar, found my
voice really on steel string acoustic guitar which is, I
don't know in some respects a happy medium
perhaps. So since then it has been my thing and
erm, well not only my thing.
I think that what people should be aware of if they
don't now already is your reputation as a, via
your columns, via Guitar Techniques and Guitar Magazine,
or guitarist magazine and the fact that
you have a very broad taste, because you've
had to because you've been doing Style File
section, focusing on different players' styles, you
even did me bless your heart. I know you've done
Nick Drake, you did Bert Janche, and that must
broaden your err taste in music because it means
you've got to delve into those styles.
That's always been a good thing for me to have
to.. Writing a monthly article on something on a
player or a technique say was, is good for me
because it forces me to do something creative at
least once a month. I know that doesn't sound like
doing a lot of work but it just, some you know
artists are very good at making excuses for not
writing something new or didn't have a flash of
inspiration or I didn't you know, I was busy or
whatever but if you have to work to a deadline..
That is a very good thing, that's the inspiration, the
impetus..
One of my, sorry I was going to say, one of my
mentors at university was a erm, a composer called
Edward Carrie who erm, I want to pick his brains
at any given opportunity and I'd go to his office
and there'd be a sign on the door saying do not
disturb, composing. And at the time I felt really
disappointed by that because I could not go and
ask him a question about something I had been
writing or whatever but in another sense, no he
was perfectly entitled to that time to be working
creatively himself and I sort of, you know
respected that and it kind of made me think yeah
you do have to force yourself sometimes to sit
and study and practice.
You do, you do, you have to have a routine. I
personally haven't written anything for quite a
while, you know being focusing on performance
and doing my gigs with Oliver Wakeman but my
take, my view of you Tris is as a very fine guitar
player but your composition has just blown me
away, I think to me they have got it all, they have
got great technique, got great melodic content.
Erm, and err, I always kind of viewed you at the
time as a young John Renbourne and that's a
great compliment.
That is a compliment.
You know because your very sound technique,
your finger style technique. Can we just look
today at the guitar you are going to be playing for
us? Sure yes.
Tell us about this guitar? This is
a custom Fylde Falstaff As you will know and many
other people know Fylde guitars made by a fine
gentleman called Roger Bucknell up in Penrith..
Yes, I am asking this question because I know what the
guitar is but the viewers won't know and it never
ceases to amaze me the number of people that say to me what guitars do you use? I say well I play a
Fylde. Fylde, never heard of them. And Roger has been
making the greatest guitars on the planet for
years now. And it always astonishes me that
people haven't heard of him but he.. Yes,
well it's you know, it's.. When you are making
guitars of that quality you can't turn out that many of
them so I suppose that's part of the..
And it's not a factory, it's a workshop. It's a
workshop, this is erm, err, this is the first.. I've got a
little set of them actually, I am very lucky but this is the
first one he made and this would be my err,
house burning down which guitar do you rescue
guitar. That's the one.Sorry Roger,
I don't mean I wouldn't try and get the others out as well.
Yes but that would be your first choice. This would be my first choice.
Before you play for us today I want to just ask you what you've got
planned for the future, what's your current
activities? Erm well I've got, I have just released a new
album of guitar instrumentals, erm, which is called
Middle Child, err and you can err go to my
website Tristan Seume.co.uk if you are interested
you can download it from there. Erm and it's a mixture of erm,
Celtic pieces, err, original
compositions and a couple of err, couple of
covers. Erm, and so I've been busy with that. Erm, still
working for Guitar Techniques magazine and..
And doing gigs with Jackie of course.
Yes doing gigs with Jackie and a smattering of
my own solo gigs along the way, erm, Ullapool
Guitar Festival, everyone wants to go to Ullapool
Guitar Festival, that's an annual..
Yes I went there a couple of years ago, it was a great experience. A long way though. It's a long way but it's a jewel in the crown.
It is yes, Tristan it's a joy to get you here
today, I've been trying to get you up to GPP for ages now and I am glad you found the time in your
busy schedule and err I know we are all looking forward to hearing you play later.
Thank you very much.