From the moment Pierre collected myself and another student from the station he was unfailingly friendly, hospitable and informative, giving us a fascinating monologue on the history of the area in excellent English all the way to his home.
The structure for each days work was as follows:
In the mornings we practiced techniques and exercises including material from the previous day’s tutorial, Pierre’s “Guitar Book” and his composition “L’Alchimist” from the “Intuite” album that we had to commit to learn before the seminar.
Each afternoon and on the mornings of the sixth and seventh days we were given tutorials by Pierre and on one occasion by his wife, Doatea, who is a registered practitioner and trainer in “Bio-Dynamiques”. That proved invaluable for correcting bad posture and any physical or energetic imbalances; her insights as a Flamenco and Contemporary dancer into tempo, rhythm, timing and energy in music would in itself make a very valuable workshop for any instrumentalist.
During Pierre’s tutorials he led us from thinking of themselves as guitarists to realising ourselves as ‘musicians’ who use the guitar as the chosen instrument for expressing our musical vision and creativity. The difference may appear subtle but for each of us it required a dramatic shift in our meta-belief structures.
To help with this shift Pierre introduced us to the singing techniques of Bobby Ferran who sings many parts of a piece of music simultaneously. Needless to say we were hopelessly far behind Pierre with this but the insights we gained by singing our composition/improvisations, and imagining all the parts we wished to include as completely as possible before ever touching our guitars, were powerfully transformative.
He has the gift of being able to communicate his panoramic vision regarding composition and he constantly encouraged us to listen more deeply, create more imaginatively and populate our music with many totally different characters who’s interactions produce the quality and intricate naturalness characteristic of all good music. To that end we were bombarded by exercises on tempo, rhythm and counter-rhythms, melody, harmony and above all the development of an artistic vision for these rather than the more common compromises dictated by our real or imagined technical limitations.
Sometimes we were subjected to hour after hour of the right and left hand exercises and stretches Pierre has developed, as well as some borrowed from such great guitarists as Paco de Lucia, all designed to increase flexibility of expression through having a phenomenal vocabulary of precise combinations of physical movements bringing the seemingly unplayable within reach. They provided an exceptional insight into the extent to which great musicians will train and discipline themselves in order to more fully serve “The Music”.
To sum up, my ten days in France’s champagne country were fascinating, inspirational and transformative. Pierre Bensusan turned out to be warm, generous host careful of the needs of his guests. He also showed his ability to shine a bright light of startling clarity on my personal musical path so I understood where I had really got to as a guitarist and a musician. Each of us were shown our strengths and weaknesses but also exactly what we needed to do to rectify and improve them, to step boldly forward in our evolution as musicians and people.
So this wasn’t a seminar for the faint-hearted or the un-grounded dreamer. Only guitarists with a hunger for real improvement and a genuine love of music should apply but, if they get there, they will reap benefits far beyond what they might reasonably expect from a mere ten days in France.
My thanks to Pierre, Doatea and Theophile, also to Gayel the craftsman-builder and Robert, Eric and Peter, my “classmates”.
Ben Edom
More information on Pierre's seminars at his website www.pierrebensusan.com
PDF - print-friendly version
>> back to guitar talk
