Guitar expert Ravi to give clinic in Florence
Andy Cole
Morning News
Wednesday, March 1, 2006

FLORENCE - Pee Dee guitarists will have the chance to get a lesson from an artist known as one of the foremost experts on the instrument.
Ravi, a clinician for Samick's Greg Bennett line of guitars, will give his "Instant Guitarification" clinic at 7 p.m. today at Cornerstone Music Co. in Florence.

Ravi, whose many television appearances include "The Late Show with David Letterman," "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" and "Saturday Night Live," has created an entire industry dedicated to educating guitarists, delivering about 50 clinics a year across the country.

"When I decided to set up these clinics, I wanted it to be something different," Ravi said of the clinic he'll bring to Florence. "I didn't want it to be the kind of thing where a guy comes in, talks about the guitar, then shows off what he can do."

To that end, the clinic will include plenty of hands-on experience for those who attend, Ravi said.

"The end part of the clinic, for as long as the guys want to keep the store open, I'll hang out with people and answer questions they have, and let them try out some of the things I teach," he said.

He is a bit unique by music industry standards. Ravi has made a career out of speaking out about artistic integrity, lecturing at such prestigious music programs as Berklee College of Music and Pepperdine University. In fact, Ravi's web site, www.heyravi.com, has links to three of his other sites, two of which are dedicated to artistic integrity.

"We live in a world of diminishing integrity," writes Ravi on his site, www.ArtisticIntegrity.org. "Capitalism has spun out of control and is turning us into a lowest common denominator society. The artistic community is caught in the tide with not enough of us swimming upstream."

To combat what he sees as over commercialization of the music industry, Ravi has turned to the Web and his series of guitar clinics. Samick, the world's largest maker of guitars, hired him as a clinician a couple of years ago to push their new line of Greg Bennett guitars. He said he took on the job because the Greg Bennett line fills a need in the guitar market.

"It's not an overly expensive guitar, but it delivers the quality of some of the more expensive guitars out there," Ravi said.

While Thursday's clinic will focus on Greg Bennett guitars, Ravi said the whole point of the clinic is to teach.

"It's generally about two hours long, but it can go a lot longer," he said. "I'll create a full-blown sonic performance, demonstrating the different aspects of the guitars, and the techniques used to create those sounds. Then we'll talk about what to look for in a guitar."

For Cornerstone Music, the clinic is the first in what management hopes to be a long line of clinics and live music performances at their store that opened a few weeks ago.

"We're expecting about 50 to 75 people at the clinic," said D.L. Holland, general manager at Cornerstone Music. "This is really a big deal for us, but where Ravi's been—I mean playing with BB King and Bonnie Raitt—this guy's known by every guitarist who plays seriously."

Holland agreed that the clinic won't be limited in length.

"We're going to keep the doors open as long as we need to, so that everyone who wants to ask questions and talk to Ravi can," he said.