2 Blue Circles

Work for classical guitar and electronics. Two Blue Circles uses a very simple melody and pentatonicism supported by jazz harmonies, a Satie-esque rhythm and electronic textures. This piece was written for our daughter Chloe before her arrival and yet seems even more apt now we’ve met her

Guitar Soloing

Survey, analysis and pedagogy of key electric guitar soloists

Asini

Work for Classical Guitar and Live Electronics. Plaka Asini is a beach in the Peloponnesian region of Greece. It overlooks the Mediterranean sea, has a little known acropolis, and is even mentioned in Homer’s Iliad. This piece is a homage to this magical place I have visited my entire life, which has the paradoxical quality of both seeming timeless and being a unique vantage point to witness the passage of time. The piece is based on the concept of cycles (of day and night, seasons, lunar phases, tides and waves) and follows the cycle of a day from twilight to dusk (the found sound is from a 24 hour recording I made in 2013). The outer movements mimic relaxed evening guitar playing while the middle section emulates the daytime waves, in particular the phenomenon of cross-winds creating transverse waves against the waves coming into shore, which is echoed in the constant 3/4 6/8 ambiguity

I(c)escape

Work for Classical Guitar and Live Electronics. Inspired by glaciers (and the rivers that run through them), this piece is built entirely on a tone row subject to conventional transformations. The electronics have the ability to stop, slow and reverse time of the guitar’s output and so can run through the tone rows independently, and can freeze and morph them into a backdrop of cluster chords. The middle section is reminiscent of a jazz walking bass (but still entirely serial), which transform into an ensemble interplay of guitar and electronics

Limnos

Work for Classical Guitar and Live Electronics. Λήμνος (Lemnos in common translation) is an island in the northern Aegean sea, which was famed for its decorative ribbons, and so lends it name to the lemniscate, the infinity symbol (see the front of the programme). Limnos employs ‘just intonation’ in that each string is in a rational frequency relationship with every other (from the lowest string up: 1/1 5/4 15/8 /2 3/1 4/1). In this way chords ring with a harmonic ‘purity’, but with the added property that different ‘dimensions’ of tuning exist along each string. For example two types of B are heard in the opening motif where the 2nd string ‘B’ is around 14 cents (≈7th of a semitone) sharper than the ‘B’ on the 3rd string. The concept of infinity is also echoed in the structure of the work, as well as the electronics which process sound in time units based on the open string relationships

Texas Blues

Survey, analysis and pedagogy of key Texas Blues guitarists

Texas Blues

Survey, analysis and pedagogy of key Texas Blues guitarists

Sound Asleep (2014)

A series of 7 electronic works derived from the translation of sleep data into music. In collaboration with Skene, Rihe & Vyazovskiy, with visual animations but Dr. Tanczos. Presented at the 2014 European Sleep Research Society 22nd Congress, Estonia