A Fingerpick You NEED To Know About (AT44)

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Acri Fingerpicks
Fingerpicks are little bent pieces of metal that sit atop your fingers so that you can dig in, pull some extra volume out of your instrument, maintain clarity, and absolutely destroy your cuticles. It's true, for all of the good that fingerpicks do, it comes at a cost of damaging the cuticles of your picking fingers, but it doesn't have to be that way anymore... First off, Acri fingerpicks look like little spaceships that you put on the end of your fingers and that's exactly what first caught my attention. I saw the fingerpicks and my immediate thought was, "why on earth would anyone use those goofy things?" Whatever my thoughts through my curiosity was being fueled and I just had to try them even though it went against my gear mantra of "if it ain't broke don't fix it."
RockyGrass Festival
Down in Lyons, Colorado from July 27-29 festivarians from all over descend into a wonderful little nook of red rocked beauty and transform it into a temporary town dedicated to bluegrass. The name of this magical place... the Rocky Grass Bluegrass Festival. This festival has everything that you would want from a festival and more. The contests are also an awesome attraction to this festival. If you want to see players at the top of their game showing their skills this is a wonderful place to do it. They have contests in nearly every category: Flatpicking guitar, banjo, mandolin, fiddle, banjo, dobro, and even band contests. Talk about a one-stop shop to get inspired and see some of today's top players.
Mary Flower
Each guitarist has their own tone stamp... it's like a fingerprint but for tone, and if I was to describe this player's tone I would use the words gritty, raw, thumpy, and purposeful. She plays with such command of the guitar, and such confidence in the notes that it is impossible to stop listening. She plays the blues the way the blues were meant to be played, raw and in your face. She is a true blues connoisseur from her playing to her vast knowledge of the genre's catalog. Mary Flower is a nationally renown and celebrated fingerstyle guitar player currently located in Portland, OR. Mary was a National Finger Picking Guitar Championship finalist in 2000 and 2002, a Blues Foundation Blues Music Award nominee in 2008, 2012 and 2016, and many times a Cascade Blues Assn. Muddy Award winner. Mary Flower is just as comfortable on the lap style guitar as she is on a standard six string... and on each, she can play the blues, but it's not all blues... with Mary she is very much at home in the swing genre as she is ragtime, folk, and even jazz.
Guitars For Vets Donation
As a guitar geek it is important to spread the word and unite as many guitar geeks as possible. Being a guitar geek is an important designation and with it comes the understanding that you will help others realize and reach their full guitar geek potential.
For any guitar geek, it is very likely that you have encountered the healing power of music at some point or another along your guitar journey. Whether music has helped you through a tough personal time, or you know of someone that has leaned on music during tough times in their life it is no doubt that music and playing guitar hold a magical healing power.
One such organization that is harnessing this healing power of guitar is Guitars For Vets. Guitars For Vets is a nonprofit organization helping our past, present, and future service men and women by providing guitar lessons as a means of therapy.
Whether you realize it or not, you have actually helped further the Guitars For Vets mission this month. Just by visiting the acousticlife.tv site and using any of the purchase links from it you are contributing to the Guitars For Vets program since 100% of the proceeds will go directly to that non-profit.
For the month of May 2018, all of you guitar geeks helped contribute $364.47 to Guitars For Vets. That's right all of you, just by using acousticlife.tv, contributed to a program that is really helping guitar geeks unite. The awesome thing is that this is only the beginning. The Acoustic Life Festival just happened and that total will be included in next months report... and I cannot wait to share those numbers with you.