...the thing that 'makes' the classical guitar is the complexity of it's response. 'Variety of tone' is high on everybody's list, and the guitar achieves that by being able to put out sound in a lot of different ways. Since the sound doesn't all come from one place, and isn't all produced in the same way, you can't capture it all with one pickup, no matter how good it is. Even with two, complimentary pickups, such as a mic and a saddle transducer, it's not easy, and the better the guitar and player, the less satisfactory it's likely to be...

I particuarly liked this one,
from Bob Hansmann bobbyb@cloud9.net

I remember a story relayed in a book "No Bull Selling") by Hank Trisler. He recounted how at one of his first presentations, before speaking he went to the men's room to clean his glasses. As he did so, the glasses "scooped" the water from the faucet and shed it over the front of his clothing (any man who's experienced this knows which article of clothing got the most exposure to the water, and what it must've looked like). When he told his friend how upset he was over it, and how he was now afraid to go in front of the crowd, his friend replied, "What difference does it make. Half of them won't see it, and the other half will be glad it happened!".

It's unfortunately true that many people in any given audience want to see you make a mistake (especially the "frustrated guitarists" out there, and there are lots of them). Don't waste energy focusing on those who want to see you fail, which could otherwise be spent on pleasing those who are there to really enjoy your music and to be supportive.

BTW, I always admired Segovia's "old school" approach of always wearing a tux when he performed. Old school or not, he realized the importance of giving his audience something to respect and to look up to; a "little larger than life", if you will.

So many performers today miss that point. It seems it took them way too long to get the point of the casual look of the '60s, and even longer to dismiss it. Even Eric Clapton (blues guitarist) could teach us something in this respect. He always plays his concerts in a custom tailored suit, and he looks great!

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Related items:

Eric Clapton
www.GuitarSite.com/clapton.htm

Andrés Segovia
www.GuitarSite.com/bands4.htm#segovia

Classical Guitar
www.GuitarSite.com/bands4.htm#classical
includes Artists such as:
Fernando Sor | Jose Feliciano | Christopher Parkening | John Williams | Julian Bream

More Classical Guitar Artists
www.GuitarSite.com/bands4a.htm#classical
Sharon Wayne | Andrew York | Sharon Isbin | David Tanenbaum | Eliot Fisk | Nigel North | Pepe Romero

Further Classical Guitar Resources links, tabs
www.GuitarSite.com/classical.htm

Classical Guitar TABS
www.GuitarSite.com/tab/Classical
download 150+ tabs for FREE Bach / Beethoven / Brahms / Chopin / Grieg / Pachelbel / Sor / Tarrega / Tchaikovsky

Or get them all in one ZIP file - 265K
www.GuitarSite.com/tab/Classical/Classical_TABs.zip