Erik Mongrain, the lap-tapping guitarist

Featured performers, Salmon Arm Roots and Blues Festival –

Roots and Blues fans will be treated to an exceptional adventure into the world of authentically original music when Canadian composer and guitarist Erik Mongrain shares his unique acoustic style and almost endless variety of techniques, approaches and textures onstage at the festival.

Erik discovered a love for the guitar when he received a classical guitar at the age of 14. He taught himself to play by ear, all his favorite songs by artists Metallica, Jimi Hendrix and Kurt Cobain. A year later he bought his first electric guitar and learned to play Nirvana songs, to his immense delight.

Over the next few years Erik discovered Johann Sebastian Bach’s classical guitar concertos, which he learned by heart and he also began composing his own music.

When he was in his late teens the young musician discovered Canadian finger-style guitarist Don Ross and decided that the acoustic guitar was the instrument he would use to share his music with others. Later he heard the music of the late Michael Hedges, whose unusual techniques on the steel-string acoustic guitar were a revelation to Erik. At that point he knew he had found his niche in the world of music.

When he discovered ‘lap tapping’, which was a technique involving tapping the chords like piano keys while the guitar was laid on the lap, Erik was on his way. He made his first fans of passers-by on the streets and subway stations of Montreal, the US and Europe. His lap tapping has made him famous around the world and even though he is often credited with originating the technique, Erik modestly claims only the name he gave it, a name by which the method is now known around the world.

Erik continually works to find new and challenging ways to convey his compositions to his audiences. “It depends upon the song,” he says. “I am a composer who is always looking for new ways to create sounds. I am looking for textures and approaches that are new to me… I constantly stretch myself musically and compose material which I find hard to play. And then I enjoy the challenge of mastering it.”

Erik goes on to say, “I am not a specialist; if I had maybe specialized in lap-tapping or fingerpicking, I would be an expert by now but I am not interested in being an expert. I don’t want to be the fastest or the best … I just want people to feel emotion when they listen to my albums or come to see my shows.”