Big Guitar Weekend at RCS, Knobloch Strings Prize

Written on 29 December 2024

At the beginning of November, The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland hosts the biggest guitar event of the year, aptly named Big Guitar Weekend. There are concerts, masterclasses, and a small school-wide competition for €200 worth of strings from Knobloch Strings. This time, I was fortunate to be able to participate in a masterclass featuring Paul O'Dette, one of if not the most influential lutenists and baroque practitioners alive. I played for him the Prelude and Gigue from Bach's first keyboard partita, and it was nothing short of a stellar masterclass. Even though it was only thirty minutes, he dropped enough advice to keep me busy for a few weeks. Particularly noteworthy tidbits of information included:

1. You can get different tones from a pull-off on your left hand.
2. Think of the upper and lower voices of the Gigue as in dialogue, and keep the articulations tight.
3. In the repeated note/trill ostinato that gives the Prelude its character, articulate the first note to keep it from sounding mushy.

In another nice turn of events, I won the Knobloch Strings prize! Regretfully, I have not yet found a picture from any of the concerts or the competition. However, here is a picture of the prize, which I recently received in the mail. I previously used D'Addario strings, but have recently switched to Knobloch, as I find their high tension carbon strings to produce a sweeter sound while keeping the punch that carbon strings are known for.