Thomas Leeb
Thomas Leeb ( born September 14, 1977 in Klagenfurt) is an Austrian fingerstyle guitarist.
Life
Thomas Leeb grew up as the youngest son of four children of a hotelier family in Turracherhöhe, Carinthia, on. The guitar he taught himself himself, when he was 13 years old, initially on the electric guitar, then on the acoustic. His training as a hotel management student, he was 15 in order to become a musician, and gave his first concerts - the school, he had to take on insistence of his parents yet. At 17, he self-produced his now out of print CD Reveller and was after high school four months as a street musician in Ireland go. In 1997 he took on the also obsolete CD Hope and in 1998 he was third in Osnabrück Open Strings - Festival.
In 1999, he released his third CD riddle initially via the website mp3.com, and began with a focus on world music and traditional music from Ghana in California at the California Institute of the Arts to study music. His teachers were the percussionists Kobla and Alfred Ladzekpo and Miroslav Tadic on guitar. In 2003 he completed his studies. In 2004 he released his fourth CD Spark and began sales of the CDs on his website. 2006 was followed by the CD Upside Down, 2007 and 2011 Desert Pirate No alibis. His album Juvenalia of 2014 is a compilation of pieces that had already been recorded as a teenager Leeb.
Leeb touring relentlessly, especially in the USA, Europe ( Austria, England, Germany, Ireland and Croatia) and the Far East (Taiwan, Korea and Japan). He teaches occasionally freelancing and at irregular intervals at two music schools in Los Angeles. In the summer he regularly organizes a workshop on the Turracherhöhe, which is mainly visited by British guitarist, under which he has built up a loyal fan base. His playing style is a model, such as for the British guitarist Newton Faulkner, especially for young guitarists.
Thomas Leeb lives with his family in California.
Playing style and musical influences
Thomas Leeb is not sure how his kind of music should be classified and referred to the title "the bastard child of acoustic guitar " ( the bastard child of the acoustic guitar ). Great influence had died in 2005 English guitarist Eric Roche on his understanding of himself 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. " ) A musical role model is Michael Hedges.
Leeb pursued as a guitarist and composer his own way and has been able to create a him quite peculiar and characteristic way of playing. Typical of this is the use of percussive elements he creates by hitting the guitar body with the palm of your hand or individual fingers. On his CD Desert Pirate, he uses a glued on scratch board, with which he intersperses rhythmic scratch elements in his pieces, which quite remember despite their purely " acoustic " origin of the scratch effects of DJs. Some of his pieces have an odd meter, showing Eastern influences, many are rhythmically very unusual and sophisticated.
Leeb plays guitar the company Lowden.
Discography
- Reveler (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 )