African Guitar (2003)

	Kenneth M.

1 out of  1  people found this review helpful

I would love to give this a higher rating, but the video quality is poor, which would not be so bad if the conversations/songs had subtitles. The music is 3/5 stars especially if you are an ethno-folk-musicologist.

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	Mark S.

1 out of  2  people found this review helpful

The guitar playing in this is basic - simple Atkins picking styles, mostly accompanying singing, with capo on the third or fifth frets raising the pitch of the guitar to sound more like a ukelele (the final performer uses bar forms instead), and playing mostly open G or C forms transposed by the capo (some retunings as well). As a guitar study this is pretty basic, but the film makes for an interesting cultural study. Sound quality is not the best throughout (background noise is not filtered out, and the guitarists are out of tune much of the time), but it is clear enough to make out all the details. The performers are not playing in formal concert settings and it is unclear if they are professionals or not. In all this was an interesting study.

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