Tommy Emmanuel - Musical Style

Musical Style

Emmanuel has said that even at a young age he was fascinated by Atkins’ musical style – sometimes referred to as Travis picking – of playing bass with the thumb and melody parts with the first two or three fingers at the same time. This technique became the basis of Tommy's guitar style.

While Emmanuel has never had formal music training, his playing ability has won him fans from all over the world. He is known to play percussion parts on the body of his guitar. As a solo performer he never plays to a set list and uses a minimum of effects. He usually completes recordings in one take.

Emmanuel frequently uses his left thumb to fret bass notes on the 5th and 6th strings as well as playing chords such as Am and E with just two fingers. He uses a thumb pick mostly, a flat pick or just fingers. He also integrates amongst his trademark blazing runs and kaleidoscopic chord progressions a quick note / chord "dive," imitating a tremolo system effect on his fixed-bridge acoustic guitars, by pressing the palm of his right hand against the body of the guitar directly above the fret board close to the neck joint while maintaining forward pressure with his left (fretting) hand.

His main guitar is a small-bodied custom Maton EBG808 made in 2003, that is fitted with Maton's APMic pickup system (a piezo pickup and an internal microphone blend). He has given this guitar the nickname "Mouse" due to its quieter volume unplugged but massive sound when plugged into an amp or PA system. Two of his main stage guitars, notably his signature TE1 Maton dreadnought, are battered and worn due to his excessive playing and percussive techniques.

Due to a personal meeting in Johor Bahru in October 2012 all three of his famous guitars (Mouse, Yellow Mouse and Bertha) are in retirement now in Maton Museum in Australia since summer 2012(see also ). The successors of Mouse and Yellow Mouse have been built from the wood of the same tree.

Emmanuel usually keeps the EBG808 in standard guitar tuning (E-A-D-G-B-E), while he tunes his second EBG808 to D-G-D-G-B-E and his TE1 to C♯-F♯-B-E-G♯-C♯. He usually uses 0.12 gauge (light) strings on his EBG808s and 0.13 gauge (medium) strings on his TE1.