Jacob McGuffie will return to the studio after being awarded the Davidson Brothers' Australian Bluegrass Scholarship.
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McGuffie is a veteran of the Bendigo music scene and along with other musicians, has seen a decline in income and performance opportunities during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The scholarship sees him receive a $1500 grant and a recording package to spend a day in the studio.
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McGuffie said the scholarship was an unexpected surprise.
"After a year of no gigs, I think most musicians had began to reassess their place in the world," he said. "(So) having someone pop up out of the blue and say that they liked what I did and that they wanted to support it was completely unexpected.
"Having the opportunity to write and record new work with financial support is invaluable as a musician, especially in a post CD industry."
The loss of gigs to coronavirus restrictions was the hardest thing to accept for McGuffie and other musicians during the last year.
"Back when CD sales died we all said 'oh well, at least we'll always have gigs', and then within a month in early 2020 I had around 150 shows cancelled for the year," he said.
"I was lucky that I teach and was not as heavily affected as a lot of my full time musician friends. I spent the year doing a bit of practice but mainly renovated a house and became a dad."
The Bendigo musician began playing guitar aged seven and started to take it more seriously as he reached his teenage years.
After mastering jazz performance, McGuffie turned to bluegrass in 2008.
"Rowan Blackmore gave me a mixed CD that had a track from the first Punch Brothers album on it," he said. "I'd been studying jazz for a long time and hearing contemporary improvised music on acoustic instruments totally blew my mind.
"From there I worked my way backwards to traditional bluegrass repertoire and tried to get as much of it into my own playing as I could along the way."
As well as writing and performing his own work, McGuffie is also a teacher to many aspiring musicians in the Bendigo region.
"I'm an all out music nerd, so making a living hanging out with young folks and playing and talking about music is a no brainer," he said.
"I also find that teaching is a great way to keep your own fundamentals sharp, and that having to find new ways to explain the same ideas constantly gives me 'light bulb' moments that I take back to my own practice.
Hamish Davidson said McGuffie was a deserving recipient of the scholarship.
"He has played in our band but we have watched him for a long time," Davidson said. "He is quite versatile. The first time saw him at the Golden Vine playing solo, you could see he's just a solid picker.
"He goes and does his own thing and is always out there and active. He puts so much time into teaching and is a person that is creating generation of music in his wake.
"We like to encourage people show those sort of leaderships."
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