Category: News

Shop page Updated

I have updated the Shop Page after a long while! I have added the Italian versions of both my blues ebooks and a couple of bundle deals. Have a look around, feel free to browse, I’m not one of those pushy shopkeepers. Tell a friend though.

New Website

It was about time to update this old thing! People seem to follow Facebook or Instagram more these days, but having a central hub served me well in the last 20 years (my first personal website was in 2001 on the now defunct Geocities) for gigs, press, teaching and selling my music and books. So I’ve updated my bio and tidied up all sections a touch…I’m hoping to keep up with a regular update on here, post some old and new tracks to keep myself amused during this pandemic. Browse around…hope you’re all keeping safe out there!

Recording acoustic guitars

Just recording some acoustic guitars from my home studio for a friend’s project. Really pleasantly surprised by using a sm57 pointed towards the body to get a bit more ‘bottom’…I had never used a dynamic mic to record acoustics before, and it seems to add  quite a bit of ‘weight’ to the sound, so I think I will do this again. These are featured guitars, in a solo piece…it might not work for ‘strumming’ where you just want the presence and the top end to add some sparkle to the track…I guess it’s all about experimenting and judging on a  song-by-song basis. For this particular project I have combined the DI sound with 2 mics, one AKG condenser mic and the usual SM57.

Working on the new blues book

Just a quick update on my work on the new blues book, this is going to be vol 2 of ‘Contemporary Blues Soloing’ and will deal with chords and comping.

Again this is going to start from very simple comping concepts to go towards more complex stuff, not only in terms of chord choice, but also rhythmically.

I might post some preview soon…still early days…

I am thinking ‘Contemporary Blues Chords and Comping’  as a title…again, it might change.

Obviously this is going to be available in English and in Italian.