Debra Devi at Crown of the Continent Guitar Festival Day 1

By: Debra Devi
Photo Credit: Will Feffer

Preface

Here’s a fresh twist on the guitar workshop concept—hold one at a luxury dude ranch in northwestern Montana, and donate proceeds to benefit the environment and music education. And get Pat Metheny to come, would ya?

The first annual Crown of the Continent Guitar Festival Aug. 28-Sept 4 did just that, buoyed by the can-do spirit of Bigfork, Montana, which has no mayor or city government and is run by volunteer citizens. Partnering with National Guitar Workshop, The COC Guitar Festival provided workshops, jam sessions and intimate concerts with some of the world’s finest guitarists.

Not only did Pat Metheny arrive in this town of 1,515 people, so did guitarists Lee Ritenour, Alex DeGrassi, Doug Smith, Jody Fisher, Scott Tennant, Andrew Leonard, Matt Smith and Mark Dziuba.

Debra Devi, lead guitarist for the rock band Devi, was initially invited to the festival as a writer but wound up teaching some workshops and private lessons, and performing, as well, Guitar International asked her to blog about her experience.

COC Guitar Festival and Workshop Participants

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Montana Here I Come – Friday August 28, 2010

A few years back, before I started my rock band Devi, I did some writing for Guitar magazine, with then-editor-in-chief Rich Maloof. I reviewed new gear and CDs and wrote a few back page columns. My personal favorite was “Who’s the Slut in the Band?” regarding the charming things people sometimes say about female guitar players.

Rich and I have stayed in touch, so I wasn’t surprised to hear from him. I was surprised when he asked if I’d like to go to Montana to write about a guitar festival. David Feffer, a retired health-care exec, had started a brand-new guitar festival and workshop in a remote corner of northwestern Montana and had somehow convinced the National Guitar Workshop—which has never partnered with anyone in thirty years—to partner with him.

As a result, some astounding guitarists had agreed to teach and perform, including jazz guitarists Pat Metheny, Lee Ritenour and Jody Fisher; acoustic stylists Alex DeGrassi and Doug Smith, classical guitarists Scott Tennant and Andrew Leonard, and rock/blues guitarists Matt Smith and Mark Dziuba.

David wanted to bring a few journalists to Bigfork, MT to experience the festival and write about it. He’d reached out to Rich but Rich had a family vacation coming up, so he recommended me. There was just one problem. I’d stopped writing about music because writing about music fed my inner critic…the same inner critic I needed to shut up when I was making music. But this was Montana. Montana! I’d always wanted to see it.

Every musician comes to this crossroads. Do you announce that you are “an artist,” and risk having old friends and bosses laugh in your face? Or do you keep defining yourself by your various day jobs? And feel your spirit shrink?

I told Rich I’m a musician now, not a music journalist. Mercifully, he didn’t laugh. I said I’d love to go, and I’d be happy to write about the festival, but that I would also like to talk to David Feffer, to see if he might want me to participate as an artist in some way.

It took some nerve, honestly, given that he already had Pat Metheny in the bag. But he was very nice and asked me to pitch him a couple workshop ideas, although he said he couldn’t promise anything. I pitched one on alternate tunings and another on building vibrato.

A few days he called back: The festival board had dug my ideas and I would teach two afternoon workshops. Sometimes it pays to be nervy. It always pays to believe in yourself.

Pat Metheny and Judy Feffer

Holy Crap, I’m on the Faculty – Saturday August 29, 2010

So yesterday, as I was packing to leave for Bigfork, I get a call from David. He wants to know if I would be wiling to help teach a 9 am to noon class for some Beginner students at the workshop.

Each of the fifty-odd students attending the festival have been required to choose a “track”– Jazz with Pat Metheny and Jody Fisher, Modern Acoustic with Alex De Grassi, Classical with Scott Tennant and Andrew Leonard, Classic Rock with Matt Smith, Blues with Mark Dziuba, or Beginner with Doug Smith.

David is concerned that a few of the students who signed up for Beginner may be such beginners that they won’t be able to hang with Doug Smith’s class. He wants me to teach them.

This is as good a time as any to admit that the Circle of Fifths and other music theory building blocks Doug Smith no doubt teaches in his sleep make my head spin. I’m a self-taught, put-the-needle-on-the-record, play-by-ear guitarist. Sure, I came up with a couple workshops, and I know a few useful scales, but if some hapless beginner wants me to explain the Circle of Fifths, I’ll choke.

I fess up to David but he isn’t fazed. Instead, he calls back with a very reassuring Andrew Leonard to tell me that I’ll be fine. Andrew will stop in and help teach my class after he’s done with his Classical workshop. He will explain the Circle of Fifths to my poor students and answer any other questions they may have that I can’t answer because I’m musically illiterate.

OK, I say, I’ll do it. Great!! David says, with the tremendous warmth and enthusiasm he’s already deployed to get Pat Metheny and Lee Ritenour to take time out from world tours and whatnot to spend a week at a brand-new guitar festival in Bigfork, Montana, started by a retired health-care executive. I’m a piece of cake.

So now I’m shoving underwear into my pedal board and my pedal board into my suitcase, to avoid a separate luggage charge for it. I take off from Newark, make a quick flight change in Minneapolis and land in Bigfork around 11:30 pm with that drunk and disoriented feeling you get from flying all day. The airport is small and clean and includes some fine examples of local taxidermy. I’ve never seen mounted animal heads in an airport before.

For some reason I had pictured David as a pudgy guy with a blond mullet, so I stare blankly at first when he and his wife Judy come over to gather me. They are tall and lean, a bit preppie, and very kind. No mullets. We also gather up a travel-exhausted Dave Overthrow, the National Guitar Workshop bassist who, with Pete Sweeney on drums, will be the festival house band for the week.

The Feffers drive us through the deep dark Montana night and drop us at Red Willow Inn. The air smells like fresh rain. My big comfortable room is decorated with pictures of rodeo cowboys and loops of rope glued to the walls. I fall into one of two huge beds and crash out.

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Debra is the singer/guitarist for the rock band Devi. Download Devi’s debut album, Get Free for free.

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