…and late 19th century guitar music, Americana, Bluegrass, Russian guitar music, lute music, classical repertoire and pretty much any style he wants…as guitar & lute multi-instrument and multi-string virtuoso John Schneiderman made the rounds of some of the Miner Museum’s harp guitars last Sunday. Had we had time for the banjo case, he would’ve explored those as well (he was a child prodigy on 5-string).
(Right: his favorite was the nylon-string Harmony “orchestral harp guitar,” even unrestored and not quite playable)
John continues to expand his growing collection of performance guitars to include more with extra basses (harp guitars). CD projects and a constant stream of new videos incorporate some of these instruments, as John focuses more and more on the historical music written for them. Along with the Russian harp guitar repertoire he has been exploring both solo and with Oleg Timofeyev (our guest at the 10th Harp Guitar Gathering), he continues to seek out rare and undiscovered music from guitarists who wrote for extra basses.
Checking out the Russian Zimmerman 4+7 11-string
After our visit, he sent me a list of “the late 19th-century composers writing for guitars with additional basses that I am exploring.” They include Adam Darr (he recently released a Darr CD), Josef Franz, Dubez, Decker-Schenk, Brandt, Hammerer, Andreas, Oberleitner & Klinger. Quite a list…some of these aren’t yet in my Encyclopedia of Harp Guitar Players of the Past!
His nylon-string chops aside, I sure enjoyed listening to John get down on the Dyer and some of the other steel-string harp guitars (I think he needs one!).
C’mon, he’s one of my heroes — I had to take a selfie!
As a student of this master, I will make sure that at some point we will hand deliver a harp guitar to him.
He is an amazing player!