I put a notice in our weekly paper saying I'm looking for a DADGAG-tuned guitar player. Harmonically, Celtic music is not fancy, that's the beauty of it. When you're playing tunes with a very limited tonal palette, you want open, bleak, sparse playing that doesn't color the music too much.

Do you want to really get the pot boiling, so it revs up more and more throughout the arrangement? Or start bold and have it taper off and end with a tear? Or do you make one big broad statement, painting a noble landscape? I've been known to tinker with arrangements for a year or two.

I'm not so interested in the more modern period. It's a little too English baroque, too genteel and sweet for me. I'm much more attracted to the old bagpipe tradition, going back hundreds of years. The vast majority of my material I get from pipers. They developed this sound that evokes the wide-open, lonely landscape of the Scottish highlands.

What's the difference between a classical guitar and a pizza? A pizza can feed a family of four.

The history of music is mortal, but the idiocy of the guitar is eternal.

You couldn't not like someone who liked the guitar.