Grammy Award Winners

In September 2010 I shot sixty-four lessons for the Creative Guitar Ensemble DVD project, Grammy Award Winners. The idea for the DVD was to create multi-guitar arrangements for eight classic songs for Beginner to Semi-professional guitarists to play together in a group. Each song has on average eight different guitar parts.

Shooting Creative Guitar Ensemble DVD

Bob Bader, Geoff Bowie, and Vish Patel were the cameramen, and Vish doubled as audio technician. Since the shoot Vish, who was working in television as an editor, started shaping the video into rough cuts. He worked feverishly, trying to finish before he moved to Japan. Alas, he was unable to complete it. And I was concerned that this would take the wind out of the DVD sails. But from just outside of Tokyo Vish has completed the editing, and is currently doing color correction.

While this is going on I am editing/mixing/mastering the audio, in between three other large projects, and programmer Sean Alphonse has been creating the creativeguitarensemble.com website in Memphis. So, things are coming together and I am excited. I can see the completion of the DVD, and the growth of the site. Just have to stick with it.

Demo lesson, pre-mix

Here is an example of what a lesson is like before it is mixed. See video below to hear what the music sounds like when it’s mixed.

Promo video, mixed sound

Here’s what Where Did You Sleep Last Night sounds like after it has been mixed.

Music History

Before I started playing guitar I had heard a lot of music. It was mostly from my dad’s record collection, the radio and television. I was intrigued by the overall sound of records and became fascinated with how music was created. When I got my first guitar I learned a few riffs and chords but was disappointed with how they sounded on my $25 Winston steel string. What I was playing sounded nothing like the record. It wasn’t only that my playing was inexperienced. It was the absence of all the other instruments of the song I was trying to play. So I tried to figure out as many parts of a song as I could. At first it was the chords and lyrics, then tunes sung or played as accompaniment. Doing this helped my playing a lot and it gave me a greater understanding how a song works. Gradually I was able to figure out easy guitar solos, bass lines, drum grooves and percussion parts.

Playing in a Band

Most guitarists start with learning the guitar part of a song. This makes sense. However, alone the guitar part can sound okay but it lacks the other parts to give it a context. Ask a guitarist who doesn’t sing to play a song and they’ll rifle off a riff or a chord progression. To a listener this is not impressive. For a guitarist, it’s not satisfying. Unless you’re playing solo classical or jazz guitar, you need to play in a band. And to most guitarists this is the best part of playing, making music with other musicians. Whether it’s a duo with a singer, or a metal band, or a group of guitarists being a part of a group is fantastic.

Composing & Arranging

I was naturally drawn to write music. My motivation on guitar was to create the illusion that what I was playing was all you needed to hear, that it was a complete piece. This was next to impossible, but it got me searching for solutions. I had a lousy voice but I used it to hum, screech, whine, warble, or to do whatever I could to add to the sound I was making on my guitar, because it wasn’t enough.

I wrote down every idea that came to me, as a composer will do. I would trim out parts of famous songs to make it more doable with one guitar and my crappy voice. I bought a two-track tape recorder and this was a major break through. I could hear two parts at the same time while I played a third.

My very first band I played percussion in. This was a great position because I developed a deeper sense of rhythm, the function of drums and percussion, and the concept of groove. After that I joined a cover band as a guitarist and ended up arranging the music. This lead to a couple of singer/guitarist duos and a group that played original music influenced by Brazilian music.

Gradually I started my own group, Mosaic. I began thinking of myself as a musician, instead of a guitarist, and one of my dreams was to write a string quartet (2 violins, viola, and cello). I figured that if I knew how to compose a string quartet I would officially become a composer.

I went on to write two string quartets, one that includes voice. I have composed and arranged numerous large and small ensemble pieces, many that feature guitar.

When I started teaching guitar at the Royal Conservatory here in Toronto I put together a mixed ensemble program called Fusio. And from this I got the idea to put together guitar ensemble arrangements for my students so they could play together.