my VinYard

My Vinyard

Welcome to my VinYard - the place where you can find out what I'm working on to continually improve my own skills and musicianship. But like any successful vineyard, I need lots of sunshine- and so, for my studies to be effective, they must be balanced with lots of breaks outdoors.

Recently Planted

These are the bits I'm working on right now, aside from lesson prep and all the other routine guitar stuffs.

The Principles of Chord Harmony for Guitarists

This is a book I've been working on which is almost finished now. It's aimed at guitarists of all levels who struggle to make practical sense of improvisation and how chord theory can improve all aspects of guitar playing and song writing.

Billie Eilish - James Bond Theme

2 Brand new original arrangements of the new Billie Eilish James Bond theme song.

One arrangement for Grade 1 solo guitar, the other for Grade 3 (or possibly Grade 2)

Guitar Lick Factory

I am a natural born improviser in life and in music. Rarely does a free day pass by when I don't come up with new guitar licks and riffs - it's usually the first thing I do when I pick up the guitar. After more than 30 years doing this I have begun recording and transcribing my favourites of these licks -it's about time I think. I'll share on the usual social media with TAB of course.

Classical Studies-

Ferndando Sor - Opus 31 - 24 Etudes

Handle (Giuliani transcription) -6 Variations on a theme Op. 107.

Bach - Fugue in Am (BVW 1000) - memorising - so much to gain from this piece musically and technically. I have 2 versions of this music - the one I like most is from 'Johan Sebastian Bach - The Solo Lute Works' .

The Prelude to this Fugue (BVW 1000) is also a great technical challenge which I now use a as a warm up.

Villa Lobos - Gavotta Choro

Rock/Metal

New licks and riffs mostly for Lick Factory

Tuition/Development

Alternate Picking Exercises - Writing new exercises for developing right hand alternate picking fluency - graded for beginner/Intermediate progression as well as new coordination exercises for legato picking.

guitar Practice Session

In order to make sure I improve constantly in all aspects of my musicianship, I organise my practise into 7 basic categories. This helps me avoid only playing things that are easy and things I like. So this is really my daily practice agenda.

1. Something totally new - a new piece of music usually

2. Something technically challenging - must be quite hard and need a lot of concentration

3. Sight-reading practise - easy pieces usually

4. Technical callisthenics - keeping my hands exercised and coordination tight

5. Repertoire Memorisation

6. Refinement - once I can play something, then the work begins to make it sound as good as I can get it.

7. Performance (metronome) - making sure I can play accurately at performance tempos and get from start to finish, with or without mistakes.

Guitar callisthenics

As always, writing new exercises for maintaining and developing left and right hand techniques. Particularly speedy coordination between right and left hands. Check out the Guitar Resources page if you want to see them.

I make a point of incorporating Rhythm Divisions as a tool to help develop musicianship as well as increase the listening challenge for students I share these with.

Sight Reading

Reading guitar notation is difficult if you didn't learn to do it as a child. Not many guitarists can sight read fluently - I didn't start learning to read music until my late teens - so no matter how much I improve, I always feel like there is plently of work to do to improve.

guitar Transcriptions

I always find it useful and interesting to transcribe great guitar licks and riffs, as well as write my own guitar arrangements for songs I like. This helps me keep up my notation and tab skills but particularly great for keeping my ears sharp.

Listening is as important as playing, they need each other so listening to how riffs and licks sit over chord progressions is always useful.

new guitar Licks

As always, writing new licks for Rock, Jazz and Blues - it's a great way to keep me thinking about combining scales and using different chord harmony to create tension over common chord progressions.

I've already written thousands of Jazz lines over 2-5 and 1-6-2-5 so it's fun to bring some of that knowledge to the rock and metal stuff.

Guitar Techniques

The more skills you pick up over the years, the more time you need to maintain and improve them.

I spend most of my time writing new exercises that challenge every level of player - including myself.

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