My Life As A One-Man Band | Tommy Emmanuel | TEDxMelbourne

 

 Denise RQ Thank you. Hello. Hello there, thank you very much. I'm going to start by telling you that I'm a musician, and I travel the world playing concerts, I play about 300 concerts a year that's how I make a living. It's also my calling in life, I'm one of the luckiest people on the planet. I get to make a living doing what I love, and people say,"Are you in the music business?" I call it "the happiness business." I play music and you get happy.That's what matters to me. So I was on a long flight in business class, I was hobnobbing at up in business class. A gentleman beside me starts talking to me, and he says, "So what do you do for a living?" And I said, "I'm a guitar player." And he looked at me like I was in the wrong place, I should have been downstairs. And he said, "You make a living playing the guitar? Wow! What band do you play with?" And I said, "I don't. I don't play with a band, I play solo." And he said, "Oh, then you're a singer." I said, "No. No, I'm a guitar player." But then I started thinking about it; I do have a band, and the band is me. And I think as a band, and that what's different about what I do. I think as a band when I play, and when I write, and when I perform. And that's how I hear music. I hear it is if it is a band, and I write as if I'm writing for a band. So I'd like you to meet my band, just to get started, and that is my bass player (Bass guitar music) drummer (Drum-like music) I've got a rhythm guy as well.

 Think at the money I'm saving up here. (Laughter) (Guitar music) And then finally the melody guy (Music) (humming a song) I'll play the bridge, I think. (Guitar music) Good. (Applause) Thank you! That's my one-man-band. (Applause) Thank you. And I wouldn't be standing uphere tonight and playing this way if it wasn't for a great man by the name of Chet Atkins. I was about seven years oldwhen I heard him, I was on the road with my family. I'm one of six children,and four of us played music, but we were driving along in the car, I tuned in the radio,and I heard this song by this American guitar player by the name of Chet Atkins. And what he was doing is somethingI'm just going to quickly explain to you. With his thumb, he was playing the left hand, on the piano would play,the accompaniment, and then with his fingers he wasplaying the melody and the harmonies. So this is what it sounds like,here is the accompaniment. (Music) And then here is the melodies. (Music) Tommy Emmanuel: Is that enough?(Audience) No! TE: I'll play with you. (Music) (Humming a song) So that moment wasa galvanizing moment in my life. I heard that sound, and I knewhe was playing everything at once. Everybody told me,"Oh don't take any notice to that. It's a recording trick,you can't really do that." But I somehow I could hear it,and I wanted to work it out.

 I just kept at it, and at it, and at it,listening to Chet Atkins. I eventually got it. Of course, many years later, I wrote him a fan letter,and we became pen pals. Then, by the timewhen I was in my early 20s, I had learned so much of his material and taught myself to play in a waythat was different from everybody else. And I knew it,and I was enjoying it so much it; it was so much of a challenge,and so creative in its own way. When I eventually got to meet himI played for him, and he confirmedthat I was doing everything right, even though I had no training,and I still haven't had any training. I still don't read or write music, but I can write you a song,I just can't write it out on paper. So anyway, this styleI developed has helped me to keep my one-man show interestingand to try to come up with new ideas. So in my late teens, I started listening to a lot of pop music and trying to come up with arrangementsusing these techniques; the technique of playingeverything at once. 

So some tunes by the Beatlesmake really interesting pieces, and they have becomea big part of my repertoire. People love it where you get that. (Playing "Day Tripper") Something like this! (playing and humming "Lady Madonna") So you get the idea, right? (Applause) Thank you. (Applause) Another thing I started doingwhen I was young was banging on my guitar like a drummer because I am a drummer. I've always played the drums and loved it. So when we were fortunate enoughto have electronics where there's a microphoneinside the guitar, I started experimenting by playingthe guitar like a drum. So I found these patterns, and I found a wayof making it sound really interesting. (Drum-like sounds) (Applause) Whoa, look at it! Then I started trying to usemy imagination and try new things so I got myself a brush,and I started doing this. (Music) And then I started doing this with my brush so I could get Whoa! (Applause) Thank you. Thank you very much. This stuff isall in the name of entertainment and making my one-man bandinteresting for my audience. There's another sound and anothertechnique that I use on the guitar, that I first heard Chet Atkins doing. And then a little bit later on,a great guitar player who died young; his name is Lenny Breau. This technique is called cascading harmonics. It's not easy to do,but it is a beautiful sound.

 And the reason it's called "cascading" is because people describe it like a waterfall. So like this. (Cascading harmonics) I use this technique to make my arrangements interesting and create parts of my show that to become very intimate with the crowd. Some songs like "Somewhere over the rainbow," or the Beatles' "Michelle," where I used this technique. (Playing "Michelle") (Applause) Thank you. I use those techniques to make a sound that I never heard anybody else doing, especially here in Australia. But when I started traveling overseas, I noticed that most people over there hadn't heard it before, and it was a new sound for them. These are all things that I got from Chet Atkins. One of the things that I think I learned the most from him would be the quality of songs that you choose to play. And the other thing was I quickly learned that if I wanted to stand out as a musician, I should play my own songs. So I started writing songs at a very young age, and I spent a lot of time learning the craft of songwriting. Well, it's one of the parts of my life that I really love the most. I want to play you a little bit of a song that I wrote. I read a book called,"The journals of Lewis and Clark." Lewis and Clark were these explorers who discovered the American West, and they were led by a young native girl. After I read this book,it challenged me to write a song to describe the American West, the great unknown, and constant travel. Let me play you a little bit of this song.

 If you want to close your eyes and imagine you're out in the American West that's what you can do, that's what songs do, they transport us and take us. (Music) (Humming) Yeah. (Applause) Thank you. (Applause) Every now and again come up with an arrangement that involves quite a lot of my techniques all involved in one song. One of those songs this song, "Classical gas." (Playing "Classical Gas") All right! Yeah! (Applause) Thank you. (Applause) Alright. I'm going to read a little bit because my wife helped me put all this together, and she writes in such a wonderful way that I decided that I wanted to read a little. This is what she wrote for me, this I say to you. "A lot of these things that I could be seen as show pony tricks, but for me the real criticsare my fans and my audience. When they laugh at my bad jokes,or when they cry at my ballads, and when they share storiesthat involve my music, it touches my heart so deeply.

 And I know that I'm doing the right thing. My music has been playedat weddings, at funerals, others have learned my songs and make their living playing like I do. My music has brought life to Alzheimer's patients, will power to cancer survivors,and escape for grieving families, joy to people's daily drive to work. I hear these stories, and I know that music goes beyond what we see, hear, and feel. There's some innate sensethat gets triggered by it, no matter how turned offif you think you are. That's why we tap our foot when we hear a groove like this." (Playing) Yeah! There's another point that I wanted to make here, it was one of the things that has enabled me to live the dream life- in other words, do what I really love - and achieve my goals.

 "Chet Atkins once told me that I am the most fearless player he'd ever met. And I think that being fearless is a huge part of breaking molds and raising self-belief. I have had many times in my life where people told me that my plans were rubbish, that we're crazy, that I would fail. But I ignore the critics,and I keep working to make my show and my lifebetter and better. Music brings people together, and I love being a catalyst for it. So I play my shows, I meetmy fans as often as I can, I answer their questions on my forum,I read their Facebook comments, I upload videos to YouTubefor them to enjoy. I continue to tour around the worldand take my one-man band with me." And just remember folksthat life is not a rehearsal. So you better get on with it. (Cheers) (Applause) Thank you. (Applause) Thank you. (Applause)