How long have you been playing guitar?
I got my first guitar - just a cheap beginning guitar - for my eight birthday  and I’m now in my mid-forties so over 36 years.  I still feel like a beginner in a lot of ways because it’s true, the more you know, the more you know you don’t know.

Why do you play, what’s your motivation?
Money. Lots and lots of money. It used to be girls - lots and lots of girls... but now I’m married. So it’s money. Lots and lots of money.

No seriously, it’s what I love, I seem to have a gift for it, and I truly believe God wants me to play. Guitar has always just clicked for me, it makes sense to me. I hear stories all the time about people who got started playing so they; could be famous or to meet girls or to feel significant.. and that’s; fine, but for me in the beginning it was just about the music. In fact, for; the first five years I just played in my basement bedroom and didn’t tell anyone about it. It was my own thing. My family is very athletically oriented, and I certainly did a bunch of sports (still do) but guitar was kind of my own thing, my escape. Even to this day when I’m traveling and making connections and doing all the business junk, my favorite moment is when I open that guitar case.

How often do you practice?
Practice? You think I practice? I practice when my parents make me. Jeez, I wish they’d get off my case.

I’d love to say I’m a 6-hour a day every day guy but I’m really not. I’m practicing more these days than in the past but my practice habits are still haphazard (same reason I hated math... regular homework every night? Jeez!). I practice while I’m waiting for shows, in sound check (which is also my favorite writing time), in hotels and at home sometimes in the mornings or late evenings. The problem is that once I start playing I don’t want to do anything else... if I have other things to do I can’t pick up the guitar or I’ll be late or not complete something. And through the day I have to put it in the case because if I see it out in the stand when I walk by I have to pick it up... and there goes another hour.

Did you ever take lessons? What’s your music educational background?
Lessons... yeah right. Ha!!!

I have a Bachelor of Music degree in Classical Guitar and Music Business from James Madison University. Part of your study in a music degree program is private lessons every semester. Other than that, with the exception of 10 lessons that tried to teach me to read music when I was about 14 and just wanted to rock, I’ve never taken lessons. Ironically, I’m now thinking about taking lessons to learn jazz a little better. And even though I’m self-taught I do advocate taking lessons because they can speed up your learning process.

Who are your guitar influences and/or your favorite guitarists?
Don Ho. Duh? Also Tiny Tim, Morris Albert, that guy who played the “star guitar” for ABBA, and Honestly, I have two answers to that question. As far as famous players are concerned I listen to everything so I have a number of favorites. Stevie Ray Vaughn probably tops the list but I’d also have to mention Doc Watson, Tony Rice, Michael Hedges, Phil Keaggy, Stanley Jordan, Larry Carlton, Chet Atkins, Leo Kotke, and early on the guys from Lynyrd Skynyrd (still my favorite band).

However, the most influential guitarists in my life have been the friends I grew up with, the guys I learned with that few have heard of. They would be people like Noah Herschman, Pat Redmiles, and Robin Crow. Their influence has meant everything to shaping my growth as a player.

My approach to learning is to watch and then try. I’ll watch other players to see how something's done, or where on the fretboard they’re playing something, and then go home and attempt what I saw them do. It works for me.

What do you call the style of playing where you play with both hands on the fret board?
I call it “tapping,” though as far as I know there’s no formal name for it. Though it’s been done in one way or another since the guitar was invented the players I know of who made it famous in a rock setting are Jeff Beck and Eddie Van Halen, followed by a host of others. In more of a jazz setting it’s been Stanley Jordan on electric and Michael Hedges on acoustic.

How did you learn to “tap?”
I heard Eddie Van Halen’s “Eruption” in 1977 and was baffled as to how he played that fast. A few weeks later I was in a music store and saw a guy playing that fast by tapping, using two fingers from his left hand and the index finger of his right to tap one note, pull it off to the next fingered note, and then pull that finger off to the next note. Just seeing how it was done from a distance gave me the key so I went home and started teaching myself how to do it.

Then in 1986 I listened to the one of the sound pages in Guitar Player magazine when this new acoustic player named Michael Hedges was featured. I heard him and insisted to my friends, “There is no way that’s one guitar.” But sure enough it was. A few months later I saw my friend Robin Crow working on his version of that style and went home and started working on it. That’s when I started writing my piece, “Quicksilver.”

Is your guitar specially made or set up to allow you to tap on the fretboard?
No, you can tap on any decent guitar which has low action, meaning the strings are set reasonably close to the fret board. On acoustic guitar it works with or without amplification.

Is there a difference in your approach to tapping as opposed to playing in the traditional manner?
The hardest part is that you have to think differently. You have to think like a piano player because you’re now doing two different parts at the same time. Normally what a guitar player does with his right hand is integral to making the sound for what the left hand is fretting, either strumming or picking the notes. When you tap, however, you produce the sound with just one hand which frees your hands to do two or more different parts simultaneously. Your hands must then act independently of each other but in a complimentary way in the context of the piece, which is why I say you have to think differently.

When you play live what effects do you use?
None. Zero. I guess I’m a purist at heart. I used to use some reverb and for a while I tried chorusing, flanging and overdrive but I’m all about seeing what I can make the guitar itself do, so I got rid of all of that stuff. If you hear it from my guitar, I’m playing it. The only effect I’m considering now is some kind of basic compression, though that occurs naturally a lot of times, depending on the sound system. Untrained ears can’t hear compression anyway, so it’s not really an effect, per se.

On electric I still prefer to just plug into a tube amp and turn it up loud and avoid all those effects pedals. If I do use them it’s just to have control of the overdrive and compression and volume. Don’t get me wrong, I love some of those great big effects sounds some players get and I’m not saying I’ll never use effects. But I’ve just heard too many guitarists who use effects to cover for limited ability. Listen to Stevie Ray... there’s nothing better than the sound of a great guitar played through a great amp (preferably loud)!

What is that thing taped to the stage that you tap with your foot?
That’s a Shure SM-58 mic with rags taped around it. I tape it to the floor and tap on it with my foot to put a beat under the guitar. I kill all the high’s and mid’s on the channel and leave the low’s flat. It’s amazing how it fills out the sound without being a god-forsaken drum machine. I learned it from Mike Cross, a fantastic entertainer/folk singer from North Carolina. He did it so that the audience could find the beat when he played solo fiddle. It’s really a cool way of augmenting of my sound and allowing me some room to play without needing a back-up guitarist.

Given that you play solo most of the time do you miss having a band?
Do you get to jam with others very often?
I don’t really miss having a band because what I do has evolved around doing the show alone and I absolutely love what I do. If I’d had a band all this time I would never have developed the comedy side of my show, the pacing and sense of working an audience, nor probably the Hedges-style tapping.

On the other hand, yeah, I miss playing with a band like you wouldn’t believe. I’ve missed certain things by not having a band. I do get to jam a couple of times a year with some friends - Dan Burrus, John Dolan, Keith Krauseman, David Glickman, and others - and we turn up the amps and play classic rock and blues tunes. So I do get my band fix.

Do you play any other instruments?
Through high school and college I was mainly a bass player. To this day my feel for real jazz is better on bass than guitar, though it would take me a month to get my bass chops up right now because it’s been so long.

I can also convince people who can’t play piano that I can... but I’m no one’s bargain as a piano player. Guitar is my instrument.

Do you have any advice for young guitarists and artists?
First, take all advice you get with a grain of salt because no two success stories are the same. Go out and write your own story.

That said, I suggest listening to anything and everything because you can learn from all of it. Always make it fun... if you’re not enjoying it, it’s not worth it. Finally - and this falls into the category of “hokey but true” - follow your heart. God didn’t give you a passion and an ability for music if he didn’t expect you to use it. Don’t listen to the naysayers. Each time I’ve followed what I knew inside was right I’ve been glad for it, regardless of the outcome. And each time I’ve ditched my gut feelings and followed someone else’s idea of direction for me I’ve been sorry for it. Take and learn from constructive criticism by trusted sources. Find what works and keep building on it night after night, year after year. One day you’ll look back at the volume of work you’ve created and the success that can only come from honing the same thing for years and you’ll be proud, regardless of where you land on the world’s yard stick.

I wish you the very best!

Do you sell any sheet music for your instrumentals?

Currently the only sheet music and tabs available for Mike’s music is his arrangement of Pachelbel’s Canon in D (Mike plays it in C but who’s counting?). Click on “the store” to order it. As more of Mike’s pieces and arrangements become available we will post them on the this site.