Laurindo Almeida discusses his choice to play guitar

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Laurindo Almeida on teaching

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Laurindo Almeida discusses studio work

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Q: “Why did you choose guitar rather than piano?”

A: Laurindo Almeida: “And you know, my mother and my father, my father was a terrible guitarist, you know. He played so bad. He only knew three or four chords, you know, but the sound of the instrument, you know, oh, it's so beautiful. I loved it and of course, I like to hear the piano. That's one of my favorite instruments. I'm a concert-goer. I go to concerts and the piano is one of the things that I always go to hear and guitar, of course. But I didn't like to learn it because to me it was an erisi, a percussive instrument, you know. You hit one key, that key hits another, the other hits another and then it's the string.”

Interviewer: “It's indirect.”

Laurindo Almeida: “Right, yeah, right. That's one way to put it. So I like the guitar because I would press the note and plug it and I have my own thing, you know, from my fingers directly and that was a wonderful feeling, you know, to put my index finger across the strings to get that sound, you know, and I say that's my instrument, you know. It was a natural thing I felt.”