Jeff LeBlanc: The PhD & The Guitarist

I started playing guitar when I was 13.  I was really bad at it for a long time but that was okay for an aspiring punk rocker in south Louisiana.  I stuck with it mainly because I enjoyed writing my own music.  Writing a song on guitar is not a planned out thing for me.  Usually I fumble around with my acoustic guitar.  Once in awhile, it goes well and I find a groove.  I usually start to think of a specific person or scenery or emotion.  Then, in a natural way, 4 or 5 riffs or so become strung together.  Then I call it a song.  And those songs usually only mean something to me….and probably I am the only one who ever likes them.

In the past few years, I developed an appreciation of fingerpicking on the acoustic and specifically, polyphonic styles.  Essentially, this means (what the name says) making a single instrument sound like multiple instruments.  I am not that good at it but, I am learning.  This piece that I shared for my Encounter is my first polyphonic composition.  It sounds a bit like bluegrass.  It is about a familiar scene from back home of grass covered in dew in the morning (I hope at least some people know the image I am talking about…I know it is weird…oh, and maybe a caterpillar will be there)