"Michael, Michael, Michael" by Don Ross

Friends:

I'm very sorry for the duplicate post. In my rush to get everything finalized I mistakenly sent it out yesterday without attaching my performance video to the header, and I worry many people ignored the post since there was no video attached. Lets try this again.

A recent conversation with a friend of mine had me thinking about how important Don Ross was in inspiring a new generation of guitar players during a period of renewed interest in fingerstyle in the early 2000s.

Back in 2003, a social media site called Myspace was launched. It was mostly a way to make new friends and meet people in your area. At the time I was just starting college, my interest in guitar was growing, and I used the website to reach out to people who were playing fingerstyle but weren't well known at the time. Keep in mind, YouTube wouldn't launch until 2005. Around 2003 or 2004 I started writing back and forth with Andy McKee because of our shared interest in the music of Michael Hedges, and he introduced me to a lot of other artists with whom I wasn't very familiar, one of them being Don Ross.

In my opinion, Don Ross is incredibly important because he sort of carries the torch after Michael Hedges' passing in 1997. For those interested in solo acoustic fingerstyle guitar of the late 90s similar to that of Hedges, Don Ross was probably your guy. With the rise of social media from about 2003-2006, Don Ross was primed to make a statement and would go on to influence an entire new generation of players. I would probably go so far as to say that the Candyrat label may not have existed if it weren't for Don Ross' influence in the late 90s and early 2000s.

I thought it would be nice to take a small break from the typical folk/blues here and do something a little more contemporary. "Michael, Michael, Michael" is a piece that Ross wrote as a tribute to Michael Hedges. It's hard for me to hear the two artists as resembling each other, but there are techniques used in this composition that are directly derivative of Hedges' technical style.

This is transcribed from Don Ross' performance on YouTube released through Candyrat records and not the original recorded version on Passion Session. You can view the performance here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkidVP0AcQ8

The piece is made up of three main sections. If you refer to the score, measures 1-16 are introductory, 17-48 comprise the main theme, and 89-120 make up a more delicate fingerpicked section. All of the rest of the material is repeated from those main bits.

I feel measures 1-16 are the most challenging because of the extended techniques used to accomplish the characteristic sound. More specifically, measures 3 and 4 are the crux of the composition. I go over how to capture the nuanced detail of this passage (and hopefully all passages!) in the lesson video. If you can't quite get it from the score I'd recommend checking out the lesson video.

This is a tricky piece, but overall I don't think of it as being too hard to play. The tempo poses the greatest challenge at around 200 bpm. I find it very comfortable to settle into a groove around 160 bpm, and about 175bpm is where I start to feel my swing losing its stability and my technique breaking apart. That said, I only had about 20 days to practice this and get it record ready so I think it would be possible to get a little closer to the original tempo with a bit more time.

I hope everyone enjoys this one, and thank you again for continuing to support this project where we focus on these historically important pieces and try to ultimately honor the original artists by going into excruciating detail in regard to preserving their art and showing others how it was accomplished.

You can access the lesson video here: https://youtu.be/LOgR-J05Wbo

The score is attached below. As always, if you have questions about the piece please include them below. We'll be back on May 1!