Steve Pappas is a distinctive, committed six-stringer from Boardman, Ohio (USA) who reveals his style as acoustic/fingerstyle/world, as one can clearly experience on his latest album, "Refuge". His favorite guitars consist of a Takamine EC132 and an Asturias JM15. Pappas has played guitar since 1974, and freely acknowledges his career aspiration, "To continue to write, and record my own compositions and arrangements for fingerstyle guitar."

When requested to reveal his ultimate effect for the guitar, Pappas answered back with, "Digital reverb," and then brought up his musical goals, "I want to express my emotions and experiences through each piece." He hopes to one day study historical instruments such as the lute, and is at this time listening to Stevan Pasero, David Qualey and Gene Bertoncini. His primary fulfillment? "When a listener tells me that they wish my music would never stop playing," he affirms conclusively.

Pappas concludes by mentioning continuing and future undertakings succinctly, by saying, "During the day I teach music in the public school.

Pappas's discography (available at Guitar Nine Records) includes one solo album "Refuge".

Christmas Tunes

Easier Tunes for New Fingerstyle Players

If you're new to guitar in general or if you can play a mean guitar with a pick and want to explore fingerstyle guitar, the tunes in this section are selected to help you reach your goals.  If you're a fingerstyle guitar instructor, you may want to consider this material for your students, since many of these arrangements were specifically used for this purpose.  

These tunes are ideal for those just getting started in fingerstyle guitar and provide simpler material that will allow you to develop the requisite skill of playing bass and melody together.   They'll also allow you to get comfortable with playing the very common 'Travis style' alternating bass.   You can also use this material to get comfortable with some of the syncopation techniques between the bass and melody lines common in fingerstyle guitar.  These songs don't extend much, if at all, beyond the first 4 - 5 frets of the guitar so that you don't have to have a strong knowledge of the entire fretboard to be able to play them.  If you are very new to guitar, the easiest are "Andy Pandy", "I Saw Three Ships", and "Go Tell Aunt Rhody".  Once you have those down, try some of the others. 

NOTE: Don't let the "Easy" designation dissuade you, these are some great tunes and you'll find some will be challenging.  So give them a try and have fun with them.  They're all a pleasure to play.

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