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Michael Hedges (1953-1997) was an American acoustic guitarist.
Hedges' combined many innovative techniques on the acoustic guitar with wide musical tastes, maturity as a composer, and a strong experimental streak to create guitar music that was very different to any that had gone before.
In terms of guitar technique, he explored alternative tunings more widely than any other guitarist before or since (some tunings include, from bass to treble: CcDGAD on "Aerial Boundaries", BADEAB, CGDGBC on "Rickover's Dream", FADGBE on "Lenono", DADGCE, DACGCE); he used the fingers of his right (picking) hand to slap harmonic "chords" at the 12th or 7th fret; he made use of right hand hammer-ons, particularly on bass notes; he also damped strings with his picking hand to control the length of notes, a method more often used by classical guitarists, but particularly applicable to acoustic guitar. Other facets to his playing were percussive slapping on the guitar body and extensive use of artificial harmonics. He also played guitar-variants like the Harp-Guitar, and the TransTrem Guitar
His first albums, "Breakfast in the field" and "Aerial Boundaries" were milestones for the acoustic guitar, although other instrumentalists already featured, particularly bassist Michael Manring. He then branched out into song-writing and performing. Occasionally, with the albums "Taproot" and "Oracle" he would make a return to more guitar-centred music. Hedges was in fact quite a multi-instrumentalist, also playing piano, percussion, tin whistle, harmonica, and flute among others, on his albums.
Many acoustic guitarists claim a very broad range of influences and will not fit into any genre, but this was truer of Hedges than of any other. His musical education was largely in modern 20th century composition. He listened to Leo Kottke, Martin Carthy, John Martyn, and the Beatles, but his approach to composition owed much to Stravinsky, Varèse, Webern, and experimental composers such as Morton Feldman. He was often categorized as new age (partly due to his association with the Windham Hill record label). He is widely regarded to be the finest acoustic guitar player of the modern era.
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