The delicate melody of “Over the Raindbow” that filled the Goldtown Theater wasn’t coming from Judy Garland.<\/p>\n
Juneau musician Dan Hopson was playing the tune on a nylon-stringed guitar as part of the Joy of Strings event, which brought five different musicians with varied playing styles to the stage.<\/p>\n
Guitarists shredded, picked and strummed their way through a handful of tunes each.<\/p>\n
Every set included different genres, types of guitars and even different tunings, but they were all united by a love of the guitar.<\/p>\n
“There’s something in the guitar for everybody,” said Ward F. Ward, the show’s lone electric guitarist. “Everyone is a little different, and that’s OK.”<\/p>\n
Here are the guitarists who played, what set them apart, and their style in their own words.<\/p>\n
The guitarist: <\/strong>Dan Hopson<\/p>\n The instrument:<\/strong> A takamine classical guitar<\/p>\n Their style: <\/strong>“I play classical style.”<\/p>\n Their influences:<\/strong> Christopher Parkening and Alex de Grassi<\/p>\n What set their set apart:<\/strong> Hopson exclusively played songs from movies. “This is a movie house,” Hopson said.<\/p>\n The guitarist:<\/strong> Ward F. Ward<\/p>\n The instrument: <\/strong>A 1987 gem floral print Ibanez<\/p>\n Their style:<\/strong> “A lot of guitar players have a very diverse kind of background. I tend to focus on learning something from a classical school and applying it in a progressive way.”<\/p>\n Their influences:<\/strong> Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Sabicas, Steve Vai and Jimi Hendrix among others<\/p>\n What set their set apart:<\/strong> Ward was the lone electric guitar player and mostly played songs off “Surfing with the Alien” by Joe Satriani<\/p>\n The guitarist: <\/strong>Laura Zahasky<\/p>\n The instrument: <\/strong>A Santa Cruz guitar, a custom-built guitar, a mandolin and a banjo<\/p>\n Their style:<\/strong> “I started playing bluegrass guitar, and I love that style, but discovered it was a little bit abrasive, so I tried to smooth it out.”<\/p>\n Their influences: <\/strong>Julian Lage and Sean Watkins<\/p>\n What set their set apart: <\/strong>She was joined on stage by her sister, Abigail Zahasky, who provided accompaniment on the banjo.<\/p>\n The guitarist: <\/strong>Mark Herd <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n The instrument: <\/strong>a Rob Goldberg guitar<\/p>\n Their style:<\/strong> “Finger style I guess is probably the best way to describe it.”<\/p>\n Their influences: <\/strong>Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page and James Taylor<\/p>\n What set their set apart: <\/strong>Herd made use of finger picking and alternate tunings specifically to provide a different texture. “I was just looking for a theme,” Herd said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The delicate melody of “Over the Raindbow” that filled the Goldtown Theater wasn’t coming from Judy Garland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":474,"featured_media":36447,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":9,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,4],"tags":[73,175],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-36446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home","category-news","tag-ccw","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/474"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36446\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36446"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=36446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}