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My Partner Mo and I have worked as Glass for quite a few years. We've been a full band and a duo. This is one of the songs we wrote, recorded and produced a video for recently. You can see and hear more in the about me page.

Welcome to Creative guitar lounge. The intention of this site is to inspire new guitarists to develop their own unique style. I’ll be sharing tips, tricks, reviews, ideas and anything I’ve picked up in my 40 years of playing. 

Of course, like all artists, we are going to be inspired and influenced by our musical heroes past and present. Like musical magpies we will inevitably lift riffs, phrases, tricks, chops and other gold nuggets from them. That’s completely OK. That’s what they did. But along the way every guitar “hero” has stirred some ingredient of their own into that stew. 

One of things I used to hate when I started learning was the snobbery and elitism that often surrounded guitar playing. It would be most obvious in music shops during the 80’s and 90’s when shredding was in vogue. You’d ask a young shop guy with the standard issue big hair if you could try a guitar or amp you were interested in. He’d happily oblige but not before demonstrating his mastery of the latest Joe Satriani or Steve Vai tour de force. He’d then hand you the guitar and watch briefly with a smirk on his face as you fumbled through Smoke on the Water. 

To be honest that never phased me much but I saw other kids visibly belittled by it. I hope they kept practicing. We all start from nothing after all. Fortunately not all skilled guitarists are as up themselves and are happy to mentor rather than discourage.

And great as these shredding guys are I’ve always far preferred a different sort of feel. While Eddie  Van Halen made my jaw drop and had me finger tapping and dive bombing, players like Richard Thompson, Dave Gilmour and Peter Buck hit me in a deeper way. Not only did their music talk me on a deeper level, what they were doing on the guitar seemed attainable. 

I did spend a lot of time learning scales and modes and practising speed picking, which I think of as upwards development. But I also started experimenting with different tunings, odd guitars, amps and effects. I think of that as sideways development: You change the landscape of the guitar and the sounds it makes.

A big part of establishing your own style is to broaden your musical intake and feed those ears.   

Ok so nothing under the sun is truly unique in the twenty first century. In music there are no notes that haven’t been played. There are no guitar techniques that haven’t been tried But there are still ways we can mix things up. Lets Do it!