Classical Guitarist
https://www.greenwichguitarfestival.com A festival not to be missed! Wed 13th – Fri 15th July 2022. There will be concerts by Graham Anthony Devine, Paul Galbraith and Carlos Bonell, a student guitar orchestra, guitar trios and quartets plus individual lessons. I shall be teaching at the festival again and look forward to […]
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
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 […]
Placing the Bourrée in a musical context. When teaching the Bourrée recently, I realised that there can be the misconception that it is a stand-alone piece rather than a movement from a larger work, so I thought that I would write a few words about the baroque suite. The baroque […]
Why do Mental Practice / Use Visualisation for Learning? It’s great for: Memorising a piece Improving technical issues – difficult leaps, stretches, left hand finger contortions Understanding/ reinforcing your structural/ harmonic understanding of a piece Working on phrasing and interpretation Practising the performance of a piece without muscle fatigue Becoming […]