Here is a video played on the tracks featuring students Maia, Alex and me playing Echoing Gilewitz by Leo Kottke. In playing this sweet lullaby-esque piece the players pass each measure clockwise to their fellow musicians. IE, everyone gets to play every third part of the music.

Leo Kottke was one of the first fingerstyle guitar players I ever heard play guitar. I can remember the sense of wonderment that I felt trying to figure out how he could play so many notes at the same time. It gives me great pleasure as a teacher to be able to introduce the player (Kottke), and his ideas to a younger generation at such a young age.

If you listen closely you can hear the tone of the individual guitars change. This piece is in 6/8 time so you can basically count to 6 and listen for changes as the song progresses. Kottke modeled this arrangement after a long form created by Minnesota guitarist Richard Gilewitz.

Join the discussion 2 Comments

  • Hi there! Richard Gilewitz here😉
    Many thanks for playing my tune, honored for sure. By the way, I live in Florida… Minnesota is way too cold for me. In fact once I moved from Tampa FL to Miami because it got too cold for me in Tampa 😁

    • admin says:

      Richard! I’m really honored that you found this. I’ll have to admit to being a bit sheepish about my faults in research as to your place of residence, etc. I’ve played this tune for years and love teaching it when I’m working with students in open D, it’s always been a really popular piece with everyone I’ve introduced it to.

      I’m presently getting more acquainted with you as a player, and performing some diligence that should have preceded this post. Great stuff! Thanks for stopping by, and thanks for the sweet tunes I’m discovering when I should be headed to sleep.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.