Thomas Leeb

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Thomas Leeb at the Hamburg Guitar Festival in August 2018
Thomas Leeb (2007)

Thomas Leeb (* 14. September 1977 in Klagenfurt ) is an Austrian Fingerstyle - guitar .

Life

Thomas Leeb grew up as the youngest son of four children in a hotelier family in Turracher Höhe , Carinthia . He taught himself to play the guitar when he was 13 years old, first on the electric guitar, then on the acoustic one. He gave up his training as a hotel management student at the age of 15 to become a musician and gave his first concerts - but his parents insisted that he still pass the Matura . At the age of 17 he produced his CD Reveller, which is now out of print, on his own and after graduating from high school he was a street musician in Ireland for four months. In 1997 he recorded the also no longer available CD Hope and in 1998 he came third at the Osnabrück Open Strings Festival.

In 1999 he published his third CD riddle, initially via the internet portal mp3.com, and began to study music at the California Institute of the Arts with a focus on world music and traditional music from Ghana in California . His teachers were the percussionists Kobla and Alfred Ladzekpo and Miroslav Tadić on guitar. In 2003 he finished his studies. In 2004 he released his fourth CD, Spark, and began selling the CDs through his website. The CD Upside Down followed in 2006, Desert Pirate in 2007 and No Alibis in 2011 . His 2014 album Juvenalia is a compilation of pieces Leeb recorded as a teenager.

Leeb tours tirelessly, especially in the USA, Europe (Austria, England, Germany, Ireland and Croatia) and in the Far East (Taiwan, Korea and Japan). He teaches freelance and intermittently at two music schools in Los Angeles . In summer he regularly organizes a workshop on the Turracher Höhe, which is mainly attended by British guitarists, among whom he has built a loyal fan base. His way of playing is a role model, especially for young guitarists, such as the British guitarist Newton Faulkner .

Thomas Leeb lives with his family in California .

Style of play and musical influences

Thomas Leeb is not quite sure how his kind of music should be classified and refers to the title "the bastard child of acoustic guitar". The English guitarist Eric Roche, who died in 2005, had a great influence on his self-image as an artist, he supported him as a friend and valued him highly: “I was his teacher for about five minutes and then I heard him play.” (“I was his teacher for about five minutes and then I heard him play. ” Michael Hedges is a musical role model .

As a guitarist and composer, Leeb follows his very own path and has understood how to create a very peculiar and characteristic way of playing. This is characterized by the use of percussive elements, which he creates by striking the guitar body with the ball of the hand or individual fingers. On his CD Desert Pirate he uses a glued-on scratch board with which he sprinkles rhythmic scratch elements into his pieces, which despite their purely "acoustic" origin are reminiscent of the scratch effects of the DJs . Some of his pieces have an odd meter and show Eastern influences, many are rhythmically very unusual and sophisticated.

Leeb plays Lowden guitars .

Discography

  • Reveller (1994, Thomas Leeb)
  • Hope (1997, Thomas Leeb)
  • riddle (1999, Thomas Leeb)
  • Spark (2004, Thomas Leeb)
  • Upside Down (2006, Thomas Leeb)
  • Desert Pirate (2007, Thomas Leeb)
  • No Alibis (2011, Thomas Leeb)
  • Juvenalia (2014, Thomas Leeb)
  • Live in Brazil (DVD, 2015, Thomas Leeb)

Sources used

  1. ↑ The Turracher guitar acrobat . Article in the Tiebel-Kurier (Carinthia) from October 2004 ( memento of the original from January 2, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved December 15, 2007 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.thomasleeb.com
  2. ↑ The 20-finger guitarist . Newspaper article from October 15, 2005, Kleine Zeitung , Villach ( Memento of the original from May 12, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved December 15, 2007 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.innenhofkultur.at
  3. ↑ Winners of the last years. Accessed January 15, 2009
  4. ↑ Guitars - Magician . Article in the Austrian Kronen-Zeitung from October 20, 2004 ( Memento of the original from January 2, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved December 15, 2007 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.thomasleeb.com
  5. ↑ Mike Joyce: Happily Living the Surreal Life; How Did Guitarist Newton Faulkner Top the UK Charts? Beats Him. The Washington Post, May 2, 2008. Retrieved August 4, 2008
  6. ↑ Reviews and Comments Press comments and quotes on Thomas Leeb's website. Accessed December 15, 2007

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Leeb, Thomas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian guitarist
DATE OF BIRTH September 14, 1977
PLACE OF BIRTH Klagenfurt am Wörthersee