Portfolio
Piece 1
​This piece was inspired by Led Zeppelin’s Going to California after learning the acoustic part of the song and watching a live performance. I took the finger picking pattern from the song and applied it to a standard pop I-IV-vi-V progression in the key of E Major tuned from E standard to C# standard to give the piece a more droning quality. I changed picking pattern a lot during this piece in order to get the sound of each chord and to be able to add in Dominant 7ths and 9ths to the chords. I was unable to properly mic the acoustic guitar and ended up recording it on my phone. I also recorded this freehand to allow for slight tempo changes during the piece.
C# Major - Free Time
Piece 2
This piece was inspired by many blues songs but particularly Wham! by Lonnie Mack and Rude Mood by Stevie Ray Vaughan and follows the same blues format. I chose the key of E Major as this is the same key as both Wham! and Rude Mood. The main riff came about from messing around with Jimi Hendrix style chords and applying similar chord embellishments to the different chords in the progression. For the guitar sound I used a Boss TR-2 in order to attempt to recreate the modulating sound of a Leslie Organ Speaker and blended the pickups in order to attempt to get the sound I heard in a live version of Stevie Ray Vaughan covering Wham! I also recorded Bass on this piece.
E Major - 118 BPM
Piece 3
This piece was created for my Higher Music Composition. It was heavily inspired by several Ragtime pieces by Scott Joplin, particularly the Maple Leaf Rag, The Entertainer, the Pineapple Rag and The Easy Winners. I used a lot of Dominant 7th chords as they are very common in Ragtime and are one of the chords you need to know for the course and also spent ages playing around with a Piano in order to come up with all the parts. I recorded several guitar parts and layered them in order to get the signature Ragtime chord vamp and the melody playing at the same time. Towards the end of the piece I change key to C# Minor and use the Harmonic Minor scale and harmonics as they are Higher concepts.
A Major - 150 BPM
Piece 4
This piece came about from the idea of having bass note harmonics sustained under a chord progression after hearing the main riff to Dire Straight’s Money For Nothing. Due to only having the Low E and A strings I used a Emaj7 to A progression inspired by the song Lenny by Stevie Ray Vaughan and led to me arpeggiating them similarly. I really wanted the harmonics to sustain under the chords so I ended up using artificial harmonics from my picking hand in order to achieve this. I also switched from using a pick to fingerpicking in order to allow to me too play the artificial harmonics easier. This was very much inspired by Mateus Asato and Nathaniel Murphy. I also recorded Bass on this piece.