What we’re about
The Association of Fingerstyle Guitarists (AFG - website AFG.org) is a club dedicated to the teaching and performance of fingerstyle guitar. This organization was started in 1997 by a group of Southern California-based guitar players who had previously met in Nashville at various annual Chet Atkins Appreciation Society conventions. Collectively, they decided to form a Southern California guitar club among themselves based on the concept of finger-picking while playing guitar.
Sixteen years since forming the club with an initial emphasis on country fingerstyle guitar music, AFG has members who play various genres of fingerstyle guitar including country, blues, jazz, rock, folk, and Latin music. Our group meets 3 to 4 times per year at various different locations, often within music store performance rooms.
AFG meetings frequently are headlined by an accomplished guest guitarist who performs for the group and teaches the attendees various guitar playing techniques. Past guest performers have included a Who's-Who list of great guitarists including Tommy Emmanuel, Laurence Juber, Doyle Dykes, Muriel Anderson, Jeff Linsky, Bob Saxton, Del Casher, Michael O'Dorn, Steve Trovato, David Oakes and many other equally talented guitarists. Unlike bar room live performances that often have too much background chatter, AFG presents concert-type performances with everybody quietly listening and watching the magic on stage.
During the meetings, our club breaks-down into several 3-5 person song circles and we share guitar playing ideas. Everybody generally brings their acoustic-electric guitars to the meetings. Lastly, during our events, we offer an instrumental open-mic session to those who wish to demonstrate what they have been working on.
Though there have been numerous exceptions, AFG is more or less based on instrumental music rather than vocally-dominant music. Often, AFG members perform instrumental versions of well-known vocal songs. The musicianship skills of our members ranges from pro-level to beginner level. The long-time organization president is Greg Atkin. Freddie House is the long-time VP and Jeff Findl is the Meetup organizer.
AFG is brand-new to Meetup.com and is attempting to reach out to like-minded guitarists within the Southern California musician community that might consider attending our future events, participating with the group, and augmenting our club with the unique contributions that everybody potentially brings to the table. Our performance events are also open to non-guitar players who simply wish to listen to the musical performances. (AFG.org).
