I was lucky that my father took me up on wanting to learn guitar as a young boy. But at first it didn't quite pan out the way I had hoped. I thought I'd be learning Bob Dylan and blues songs. Instead my Dad found me a classical guitar teacher and I thew myself into learning the most amazing music, mapping out the history of my chosen instrument from the early vihuelists, notably Luis de Milán, to Dowland and the lutenists, to the classicists Aguado, Carcassi, Carulli, Giuliani and Sor whose studies I still play to this day. Then the Spaniards, Francisco de Asís Tárrega Eixea, Ponce, Torroba and finally Bach and Villa-Lobos whose music taught me the virtues of patience and attention to detail. Pieces like Bach's Chaconne and the Preludes of Villa-Lobos have been enormous landmarks in my musical career. And all realised under he watchful eye of Andrés Segovia Torres, 1st Marquis of Salobreña, who, pipe in mouth, smiles down at me benignly from the framed picture in my studio. 

For a long time all I wanted to do was live in Paraguay and play concerts in small venues around Latin America. All on this guitar, an Oscar Teller which I bought a long long time ago from a shop in London and which I've taken all over the world on my travels. The rosewood back and sides are probably unobtainable nowadays. It never goes out of tune. I once wept when I took it out of its case after a few years, such is the emotional imprint that instruments can leave on a player. Now I play it as much as I can. I believe that if you can play whatever it is you do on a guitar like this you can play on any guitar because it has a wide fingerboard which you have to work upon, like a large canvas.