Who is GPA?

Have you ever entered a music store? If so, you will have noticed that there are three or four forms of piano, one or two forms of violin, a single form of flute but hundreds of types of guitar: classical, folk, electric, resonator, electroacoustic, hollow body jazz, full-body, semi-hollow, cutaway, sound hole, f-holes, archtop, jumbo, deep/medium/small bowl, etc. And dozens of playing styles: pick, finger picking, tapping, sweeping, bottleneck, etc... In short, an infinitely varied, colorful, fascinating world.

It is to respond to this diversity, to the love of music in general and guitar in particular that GPA was created in December 1999. This young association has set itself the goal of promoting guitar in all its forms: organizing concerts at preferential prices, guitar workshops, information about the instrument (a wealth of information awaits exploration on this site), newsletter (News).

Press Articles

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The great inventor of Nashville picking was Merle Travis who accompanied his songs with a syncopated melody at the border of blues and ragtime. But the undisputed master remains the immense Chet Atkins (sadly deceased on June 30, 2001) who took up Merle Travis's thumb-index technique but using all the fingers of the right hand: he was the "Nashville sound" (THE sound of Nashville). A rich, complex and driving style that draws its roots from Louisiana blues: the famous thumb swing that gives this percussive and regular rhythm. Let us also mention the exuberant Jerry Reed (Elvis Presley's favorite composer, himself launched by Chet Atkins) adapter of the banjo's sweeping style to guitar, Doc Watson, master of flat picking and so many others...