Eliot Fisk: The FIRST tonebase Artist

tonebase
tonebase
Aug 23, 2017 · 3 min read

Chris shares the story of the first instructional videos ever filmed for tonebase with Eliot Fisk. Watch Maestro Fisk’s masterclasses on works by Scarlatti, de Falla, and Villa-Lobos, exclusively on tonebase.


It was the party after my final concert as a student at Yale, and the last thing I felt like doing was waking up the next day and driving three hours north to Boston… However, despite our early morning exhaustion, Igor and I pulled up outside New England Conservatory around ten, just in time for an important meeting with a luminary of the classical guitar: Eliot Fisk.

I was quite nervous for several reasons. One, this was going to be the first piece of content for tonebase, so we really had no idea what would make for a good instructional video. Two, we had borrowed all of our camera gear from the library and were quite unfamiliar with it, hoping to at the very least capture a decent selfie. And three, it was ELIOT FISK we were “testing” this whole idea on, a name I have known for as long as I can remember! As we entered the building, all I could think was, “we better not screw this up...”

However, as soon as we set up and turned the camera on Maestro Fisk, my nerves quickly turned to awe. From the moment we hit record, he became a fountain of knowledge, pouring out incredible details about the guitar. One story flowed seamlessly into the next, all supported by facts and precise dates as if he were reading from a textbook. Every excerpt he played on guitar was filled with passion and style, as if every moment was a performance.

Needless to say, the three hours of filming flew by, and once we had maxed out our memory cards with three lessons on Homenaje, Sonata K.322, and Warming Up, as well as an extensive interview, we finally said “farewell.”

Igor and I walked out of NEC feeling quite differently than when we arrived. In that moment, I didn’t feel like we were clueless music students working on a project, but rather ethnomusicologists, recording and preserving the genius of Maestro Fisk for centuries to come.

— Chris, from tonebase

For access to all of Eliot Fisk’s videos on tonebase, go to https://tonebase.co/artists/EliotFisk.


tonebase gives you instant access to knowledge from the world’s greatest guitarists, performers and educators. Now FREE for a limited time: https://tonebase.co

About Chris Garwood, Co-Founder tonebase

Christopher Garwood began his classical guitar studies at the age of 5 under the tutelage of Alan Johnston at the MacPhail Center for Music in Minnesota. Highlights in Chris’s early career include first place finishes in competitions such as the Pacific Guitar Festival, Thursday Musical, and Schubert Club Scholarship Competitions, as well as participation in the Guitar Foundation of America International Youth Competition. Chris has a Bachelor of Music from the University of Southern California where he studied with William Kanengiser as a Trustee Scholarship recipient, a full merit scholarship. Chris studied with Benjamin Verdery at the Yale School of Music in New Haven, CT, and graduated with a Masters of Musical Arts degree in May, 2017.

tonebase Guitar

The tonebase Guitar blog — home for all things tonebase and Classical Guitar. Featuring advice from world-class performers, weekly updates & more. Supercharge your playing with the tonebase blog!

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tonebase.co

tonebase Guitar

The tonebase Guitar blog — home for all things tonebase and Classical Guitar. Featuring advice from world-class performers, weekly updates & more. Supercharge your playing with the tonebase blog!

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