Thomas Leeb

Thomas Leeb (born September 14, 1977 in Klagenfurt, Austria) is an Austrian fingerstyle guitarist.

Thomas Leeb
Background information
Born (1977-09-14) September 14, 1977
OriginKlagenfurt, Austria
GenresFingerstyle guitar
Occupation(s)Musician
InstrumentsGuitar
Years active1992–present
Websitewww.thomasleeb.com

Biography

Thomas Leeb grew up in the small Austrian mountain village Turracher Höhe, 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.[1] 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.[2] In 1997 he recorded his second CD Hope (out of print) and finished third in the 1998 Open Strings Festival in Osnabrück, Germany.[3]

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.[4] 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.[5] 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.[4] He was featured in several international guitar magazines, such as Guitar Player and Acoustic Guitar.[6], [7], [8] Leeb is an influence especially for young guitarists, for example Newton Faulkner.[9]

Thomas Leeb is married and lives in Val Verde, California.

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 Roche, called him "my brother in strings"[10] 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."[11] 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.[12]

Discography
  • Reveller (1994)
  • Hope (1997)
  • riddle (1999)
  • Spark (2004)
  • Upside Down (2006)
  • Desert Pirate (2007)
  • No Alibis (2011)
  • Trickster (2015)
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gollark: I don't know how to implement "collect like terms" without just hardcoding a rule for constants like `("a#Num*x+b#Num*x", "(a+b)*x")`, which is inelegant.
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References
  1. Der Turracher Gitarrenakrobat. Austrian "Tiebel-Kurier", October 2004 (in German) Archived 2007-01-02 at the Wayback Machine. Accessed on December 15, 2007
  2. Der 20-Finger-Gitarrist (in German). Archived 2008-05-12 at the Wayback Machine Accessed on December 15, 2007
  3. Winners of the Open-Strings-Competitions. Accessed on December 15, 2007
  4. Leeb's vita as workshop tutor Archived 2008-04-15 at the Wayback Machine. Accessed on January 4, 2008.
  5. Gitarren - Zauberer. Austrian "Kronen-Zeitung", Oktober 20, 2004 (in German) Archived 2007-01-02 at the Wayback Machine Accessed December 15, 2007
  6. "Thomas Leeb", by Jude Gold. Guitar Player, April, 2006. Accessed on December 16, 2007
  7. "Thomas Leeb, Upside Down", by Teja Gerken. Acoustic Guitar, Issue #165. Archived 2011-05-20 at the Wayback Machine Accessed on December 16, 2007
  8. Korean Guitar Music magazine, June 2007 (in Korean). Accessed on December 16, 2007.
  9. Mike Joyce: Happily Living the Surreal Life; How Did Guitarist Newton Faulkner Top the U.K. Charts? Beats Him. The Washington Post, 2. Mai 2008 Accessed on August 4, 2008
  10. Hello from LA, Eric Roche's Diary, Wednesday 19 January, 2005 entry Archived 2008-02-07 at the Wayback Machine. Accessed on December 17, 2007
  11. Reviews and Comments on Leeb's website
  12. Interview with Thomas Leeb in November 2007 Archived 2008-05-27 at the Wayback Machine. Accessed on January 5, 2008.
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