Thomas Leeb
Encyclopedia
Thomas Leeb is an Austrian fingerstyle
guitarist
.
, Carinthia
, as the youngest of four children of a hotel-owner's family. Over a period of thirteen years he taught himself the electric guitar
, then switched to acoustic guitar
. He was fifteen when he decided to become a musician and had his first concerts, even though his parents made him finish high school. He produced his first CD Reveller (now out of print) when he was seventeen. After high school he toured Ireland for four months as street musician. In 1997 he recorded his second CD Hope (out of print) and finished third in the 1998 Open Strings Festival in Osnabrück
, Germany
.
In 1999 Leeb published his third CD, Riddle, on the web portal
MP3.com
and studied at the California Institute of the Arts
, focusing on world music
and traditional music
from Ghana
. His teachers were percussionists Kobla and Alfred Ladzekpo, and guitarist Miroslav Tadić. Leeb graduated in 2003 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts
. He produced his fourth album, Spark, in 2004 and went completely indie
, selling the CDs from his website. In 2006 he recorded the CD Upside Down and in 2007 Desert Pirate.
Leeb tours incessantly, mainly in the US, in Europe (Austria, England, Germany, Ireland and Croatia) and in Asia (Taiwan, Korea and Japan); he has managed to build a worldwide fan community. He irregularly teaches as freelancer at two music schools in Los Angeles
. Every summer he organizes a workshop
at his Austrian hometown Turracher Höhe which is highly frequented, especially by British guitarists. Leeb taught master classes at the London Music School and the Guitar Institute of Technology in Hollywood. He was featured in several international guitar magazines, such as Guitar Player
and Acoustic Guitar
., , Leeb is an influence especially for young guitarists, for example Newton Faulkner
.
Thomas Leeb is married and lives in Val Verde, California
.
, called him "my brother in strings" and was a major support for his development. Roche held Leeb in high regard: "I was his teacher for about five minutes and then I heard him play." One of Leeb's main musical influences is Michael Hedges
.
Leeb follows his own path as guitarist and composer, displaying a very idiosyncratic and particular guitar style. Characteristic for this style are percussive elements generated by hitting the guitar body with the heel of his hand or single fingers while playing intricate fingerstyle patterns. On his Desert Pirate CD he uses a scratch
-board, glued to the surface of his guitar. With it he adds rhythmic scratch sounds to some of his pieces which are surprisingly similar to typical DJ scratching sounds, despite their "acoustic" origin. Some of his pieces possess odd-meter measures and recall Eastern and Balkan music; much of his work is rhythmically complex and meticulously worked out.
Leeb is an endorsee of Lowden
guitars and Parkwood Guitars. His guitars are amplified with a Fishman Rare Earth system (internal microphone
/magnetic pickup combination). His live sound is produced by a K&K Pure Western soundboard transducer
. His additional technical equipment encompasses L.R. Baggs Para and Highlander PAM DI boxes as well as an Alesis NanoVerb system.
Fingerstyle guitar
Fingerstyle guitar is the technique of playing the guitar by plucking the strings directly with the fingertips, fingernails, or picks attached to fingers, as opposed to flatpicking ....
guitarist
Guitarist
A guitarist is a musician who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselves on the guitar while singing.- Versatility :The guitarist controls an extremely...
.
Biography
Thomas Leeb grew up in the small Austrian mountain village Turracher HöheTurracher Höhe Pass
Turracher Höhe, also called Turracherhöhe, refers to a village, a pass across the Alps, and a countryside in the Gurktaler Alps in Austria. The village and the Turracher Lake at the pass, which both share the same name, are separated by the border of the two federal states of Styria and Carinthia...
, Carinthia
Carinthia (state)
Carinthia is the southernmost Austrian state or Land. Situated within the Eastern Alps it is chiefly noted for its mountains and lakes.The main language is German. Its regional dialects belong to the Southern Austro-Bavarian group...
, as the youngest of four children of a hotel-owner's family. Over a period of thirteen years he taught himself the electric guitar
Electric guitar
An electric guitar is a guitar that uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction to convert vibrations of its metal strings into electric audio signals. The signal generated by an electric guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is amplified before sending it to a loudspeaker...
, then switched to acoustic guitar
Acoustic guitar
An acoustic guitar is a guitar that uses only an acoustic sound board. The air in this cavity resonates with the vibrational modes of the string and at low frequencies, which depend on the size of the box, the chamber acts like a Helmholtz resonator, increasing or decreasing the volume of the sound...
. He was fifteen when he decided to become a musician and had his first concerts, even though his parents made him finish high school. He produced his first CD Reveller (now out of print) when he was seventeen. After high school he toured Ireland for four months as street musician. In 1997 he recorded his second CD Hope (out of print) and finished third in the 1998 Open Strings Festival in Osnabrück
Osnabrück
Osnabrück is a city in Lower Saxony, Germany, some 80 km NNE of Dortmund, 45 km NE of Münster, and some 100 km due west of Hanover. It lies in a valley penned between the Wiehen Hills and the northern tip of the Teutoburg Forest...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
.
In 1999 Leeb published his third CD, Riddle, on the web portal
Web portal
A web portal or links page is a web site that functions as a point of access to information in the World Wide Web. A portal presents information from diverse sources in a unified way....
MP3.com
MP3.com
MP3.com is a web site operated by CNET Networks providing information about digital music and artists, songs, services, community, and technologies. It is probably better known for its original incarnation, as a legal, free music-sharing service, popular with independent musicians for promoting...
and studied at the California Institute of the Arts
California Institute of the Arts
The California Institute of the Arts, commonly referred to as CalArts, is located in Valencia, in Los Angeles County, California. It was incorporated in 1961 as the first degree-granting institution of higher learning in the United States created specifically for students of both the visual and the...
, focusing on world music
World music
World music is a term with widely varying definitions, often encompassing music which is primarily identified as another genre. This is evidenced by world music definitions such as "all of the music in the world" or "somebody else's local music"...
and traditional music
Traditional music
Traditional music is the term increasingly used for folk music that is not contemporary folk music. More on this is at the terminology section of the World music article...
from Ghana
Ghana
Ghana , officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country located in West Africa. It is bordered by Côte d'Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, Togo to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south...
. His teachers were percussionists Kobla and Alfred Ladzekpo, and guitarist Miroslav Tadić. Leeb graduated in 2003 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts
Bachelor of Fine Arts
In the United States and Canada, the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, usually abbreviated BFA, is the standard undergraduate degree for students seeking a professional education in the visual or performing arts. In some countries such a degree is called a Bachelor of Creative Arts or BCA...
. He produced his fourth album, Spark, in 2004 and went completely indie
Independent record label
An independent record label is a record label operating without the funding of or outside the organizations of the major record labels. A great number of bands and musical acts begin on independent labels.-Overview:...
, selling the CDs from his website. In 2006 he recorded the CD Upside Down and in 2007 Desert Pirate.
Leeb tours incessantly, mainly in the US, in Europe (Austria, England, Germany, Ireland and Croatia) and in Asia (Taiwan, Korea and Japan); he has managed to build a worldwide fan community. He irregularly teaches as freelancer at two music schools in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
. Every summer he organizes a workshop
Workshop
A workshop is a room or building which provides both the area and tools that may be required for the manufacture or repair of manufactured goods...
at his Austrian hometown Turracher Höhe which is highly frequented, especially by British guitarists. Leeb taught master classes at the London Music School and the Guitar Institute of Technology in Hollywood. He was featured in several international guitar magazines, such as Guitar Player
Guitar Player
Guitar Player is a popular magazine for guitarists founded in 1967. It contains articles, interviews, reviews and lessons of an eclectic collection of artists, genres and products. It has been in print since the late 1960s and during the 1980s, under editor Tom Wheeler, the publication was...
and Acoustic Guitar
Acoustic Guitar (magazine)
Acoustic Guitar is a monthly magazine published in the United States since July/August 1990 by String Letter Publishing. The magazine offers information related to acoustic guitars for players of all levels from beginners to teachers. Each issue includes a half dozen or so songs with notation and...
., , Leeb is an influence especially for young guitarists, for example Newton Faulkner
Newton Faulkner
Sam Newton Battenberg Faulkner is an English singer-songwriter and musician from Reigate, Surrey. Known for his guitar playing, which involves rhythmically tapping and hitting his guitar's body, Faulkner came to prominence in 2007, with the release of his debut studio album, Hand Built by Robots...
.
Thomas Leeb is married and lives in Val Verde, California
Val Verde, California
Val Verde is a census-designated place in Los Angeles County, California, United States. The population was 2,468 at the 2010 census, up from 1,472 at the 2000 census. The predominant feature is the small rural valley in which this town sits, north of the San Fernando valley, isolated from...
.
Influences and technique
Thomas Leeb calls his music "the bastard child of acoustic guitar", combining unusual techniques, ideas and harmonies with a frank tongue-in-cheek attitude. His friend, Irish guitarist Eric RocheEric Roche
Eric Roche was an Irish fingerstyle guitarist.-Biography:Roche was born in New York City, but his family soon moved to Tralee, County Kerry, Ireland. He was a learnt accountant, but practised only for a short time before enlisting for classical guitar in 1992 at the London Musician's Institute...
, called him "my brother in strings" and was a major support for his development. Roche held Leeb in high regard: "I was his teacher for about five minutes and then I heard him play." One of Leeb's main musical influences is Michael Hedges
Michael Hedges
Michael Alden Hedges was an American composer, Acoustic guitarist and singer-songwriter.-Background:...
.
Leeb follows his own path as guitarist and composer, displaying a very idiosyncratic and particular guitar style. Characteristic for this style are percussive elements generated by hitting the guitar body with the heel of his hand or single fingers while playing intricate fingerstyle patterns. On his Desert Pirate CD he uses a scratch
Scratching
Scratching is a DJ or turntablist technique used to produce distinctive sounds by moving a vinyl record back and forth on a turntable while optionally manipulating the crossfader on a DJ mixer. While scratching is most commonly associated with hip hop music, since the late 1980s, it has been used...
-board, glued to the surface of his guitar. With it he adds rhythmic scratch sounds to some of his pieces which are surprisingly similar to typical DJ scratching sounds, despite their "acoustic" origin. Some of his pieces possess odd-meter measures and recall Eastern and Balkan music; much of his work is rhythmically complex and meticulously worked out.
Leeb is an endorsee of Lowden
George Lowden
George Lowden is a guitar maker, luthier, based in Downpatrick, County Down, Northern Ireland. He constructs acoustic guitars, steel and nylon strung.-Company:...
guitars and Parkwood Guitars. His guitars are amplified with a Fishman Rare Earth system (internal microphone
Microphone
A microphone is an acoustic-to-electric transducer or sensor that converts sound into an electrical signal. In 1877, Emile Berliner invented the first microphone used as a telephone voice transmitter...
/magnetic pickup combination). His live sound is produced by a K&K Pure Western soundboard transducer
Transducer
A transducer is a device that converts one type of energy to another. Energy types include electrical, mechanical, electromagnetic , chemical, acoustic or thermal energy. While the term transducer commonly implies the use of a sensor/detector, any device which converts energy can be considered a...
. His additional technical equipment encompasses L.R. Baggs Para and Highlander PAM DI boxes as well as an Alesis NanoVerb system.
Discography
- Reveller (1994)
- Hope (1997)
- riddleRiddle (Thomas Leeb album)riddle is Thomas Leeb's first available release and features nine instrumentals and one vocal song.-Track listing:# "riddle"# "springtime groove"# "the winds are changing"# "charlie hunter's"# "sled dog racing"# "almbleamal landler"...
(1999) - SparkSpark (Thomas Leeb album)Spark is Thomas Leeb's second available release and features nine instrumentals and one song with vocals.-Track listing:# "Albino"# "Oft Geht Bled"# "Spark"# "Jebuda"# "Proseta Se Jovka Kumanovka"# "Wuschel"# "Cycles"# "Jovanova Majka"...
(2004) - Upside DownUpside Down (Thomas Leeb album)-Track listing:# "Albino"# "The Hard Can 2005 remix"# "Erzherzog Johann Jodler"# "I Shot The Sheriff"# "Upside Down"# "Spark"# "While My Guitar Gently Weeps"# "The Boys of Blue Hill"# "Sweet Child O' Mine"# "Muss I Denn / Twinkle"# "Jovka"# "Sleepless"...
(2006) - Desert PirateDesert Pirate-Track listing:# "Grooveyard"# "Jebuda"# "Nai Nai"# "Oachkatzlschwoaf"# "Isobel"# "No Woman, No Cry"# "Desert Pirate"# "Ladzekpo"# "Oft Geht Bled"# "Quicksilver"All songs by Thomas Leeb, except* "Isobel"...
(2007) - No Alibis (2011)
External links
- Thomas Leeb official website
- "Desert Pirate" video at YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....