Classical Guitarist
Roma Expo Guitars 2023 Five minutes walk from the magnificent baroque Trevi Fountain in the heart of Rome I attended the Roma Expo Guitars 2023. I met so many amazing luthiers including Gabriele Lodi. I only wish I had longer there to try out the beautiful instruments on display and […]
Fiona Harrison will be performing Rodrigo’s Concierto D’Aranjuez on Saturday 25th June 2022 with the Redhill Sinfonia, conducted by John Beswick. St Mary’s Church, Reigate, 6pm www.redhillsinfonia.org.uk
Here’s a video on how to practise tremolo evenly, smoothly and beautifully. There are lots of ideas that will keep you busy for hours! Have you tried accenting each finger in turn in order to improve your tremolo? I’m a great fan of accenting and will show you how to […]
The aim of the new series, Fretboard Bites, is to share short videos with you, in an informal way. They will be on a wide variety of guitar related topics, such as technique, repertoire and ways to improve, plus many other ideas and topics that have inspired or influenced me […]
Placing composers within in a social and historical context. If video conferencing had been around in previous centuries, who would Villa-Lobos or Giuliani have spoken with over Zoom? Who would have been a facebook friend of Dowland or JS Bach? The August Zoom guitar workshops were amazing! The brief had […]
How to feel more secure and in control throughout your performance. One of the methods I use to improve practice and memorisation of a piece is something I call “mapping and signposting”. It’s a way of breaking a piece into sections and helps me feel more secure during a performance. […]
By the end of brief warm-up of an acapella three-part song from Central Africa, all participants had relaxed a little, sharpened up their listening skills and were ready to get their guitars out. Our large guitar ensemble session covered the beautiful “Pilgrims’ Hymn” by Stephen Paulus, the much easier yet […]
My trip to Holland and the festive pre-Christmas concerts were a whirlwind of activity. Rehearsals with Marion Schaap and Peter Constant (Z.O.O. Duo) and their two orchestras, “Guitarrissimo” and “Ponticello” barely left time to eat or sleep! (However, I did find time to devour very delicious and freshly made stroop […]
When the air gets really dry and the humidity drops, the wood of our beautifully made guitars can dry out. When this happens, the wood contracts, and in some cases, it may leave the metal frets protruding a little over the edge of the fretboard or even worse, the table […]
Learning to Learn From Fretboard to Flute Some of you will know that I took on the challenge of taking a grade one ABRSM flute exam this Spring. Not having played the flute before, I thought it would be hard, but not so incredibly difficult! The whole process of […]