Guitar Emporium

Renaissance lutenist and composer Francis Cutting begins the week with a Galliard arranged for the guitar. Support the show

Marimba and Guitar. Jean Bosco Mwenda or Mwenda we Bayeke was the starting point for this piece and two other pieces  - "Bosco " and "Your Time will Come".  Toumani Diabete's first recording Kaira ( recorded in one afternoon in 1988, apparently) with his amazing kora playing also influenced this composition . Other musicians which impacted on my attempts to write African i...

Before Ed Sheeran there was Jack Johnson - and I used to teach young enthusiasts a lot of the laid back relaxed style of playing epitomised by Jack Johnson. Heavily influenced by Johnson's approach Bedtime Story was written for the boys when they were young but I didn't record it until they were long past their Bedtime Story age. All Jill Murphys books or Olive Postgates tales were great...

The Fiesta - El Velorio from a set of 6 Cuban Dances by the late 19th century Cuban composer Ignacio Cervantes. The original is a piano piece I think - arranged for guitar by Jesus Ortega. A Friday piece !  Support the show

Unlike the song Stop - this is not a "Stop the world I'm happy where I am song ". The tune Bring it On is about just how much crap you need to take to work in the way that you think is right. Like many of the worlds less successful musicians there are things you have to do to keep going sometimes - literally keep money coming in. I've had the support of the family in keeping it...

I arranged this for guitar and bass in about 2006. A lovely contrasting slow section in the middle of the piece has a very expressive bass part. With Clive on the huge sounding double bass as before.  Support the show

From the new recording collection the Setting Sun ( which should be finished in September ) . Suppers Ready was influenced by the Genesis guitarist Steve Hacketts guitar piece Horizons. The piece is found on the Genesis album  Foxtrot and precedes their longest track Suppers Ready. Clive Batkin added a top line to my piece in 2016 . Here's the link https://youtu.be/CjDeBC42tyA My tune bears l...

The second of three Spyro Gyra tunes - for saxophone and guitar. Recorded in about 2006 I think. I had access to a Martin Taylor Yamaha Jazz Guitar which had a nice sound. An upbeat Monday morning tune. Support the show

Like the piece Minors Strike from a few days ago , Sambinha is an arrangement of a piece for two guitars I made so that I could play it on my own. Its by the Brazilian Celso Machado and its seems quite OK for a lazy hot Sunday Support the show

A tune, intended to be positive, but actually sounds quite negative. There are times when you want time to stop - because you're happy where you are and you'd like it to stay that way. There are also times when something awful is going happen and you'd rather not ... This was actually the first a positive " stop the world I want to get off song" . Written about 2015 - fini...

John Etheridge seems to have played for everyone - from incarnations of Deep Purple to Soft Machine and with Andy Summers amongst many others. He contributed to a series of books called Guitar Styles edited by Michael Stimpson with this piece for the Jazz book - Minors Strike for 2 guitars. I arranged the piece for me to play on my own. Recorded, once again , on Rob's hybrid guitar in 2013. I...

Terpsichore, or Terpsichore, Musarum Aoniarum, is a compendium of more than 300 instrumental dances published in 1612 by the German composer Michael Praetorius. My arrangement of Ballet for guitar and bass has that huge twangy sound Clive produced on his double bass for this recording. It used John Williams and Kevin Peeks arrangement of Ballet for two guitars in the crossover band "Sky"...

Harpsichord music has been a rich source of material for guitarists. Julian Bream's transcription of this Sonata brings out the joy of the piece really well. Recorded on Rob's Hybrid Guitar in 2013 - the excellent intonation on the guitar is really clear on the high bits ! Support the show

Taken from a collection of recordings called Parables in 2014 this is a take on the allocation of "talents" and how they are dealt with. Finished in 2020 and re-mixed during the first covid lockdown. The vaguely religious overtones must hark back to my Junior School education in a C of E school. Support the show

This is a recent recording from a collection of compositions completed in the last two years. It pairs with a piece called Daybreak taken from the CD St. Aidans Dance.  Support the show

Amid all the discussions about who should tax what - this ones gone strangely quiet. So many organisations that could well afford it are tax exempt in the UK because they are a  charity. Taxing the poorest just doesn't make sense - but you won't hear the leaders talking about this. This song is based on experience of working for a charity - almost more business like than your normal busi...

Two saxophones, strings, bass  and a guitar - the midi guitar. A laid back tune - for what looks like a very hot day. From the CD Phases - about 2002 Support the show

From the sublime to ... Take it Easy . Title taken from the old Eagles song - sentiment from the contented Ralph McTell album Easy . Light hearted - don't let the world get you down - song from the CD Can't Stop in 2008/09. Recorded in 2013 with Rob on Cajon . The weekend's here !  Support the show

28th July 1750 - J.S Bach died. A date he shares with Antonio Vivaldi who departed 9 years earlier in 1741. A multi tracked arrangement I did in late 2015 for guitar and double bass. Support the show

Taken from a suite of 4 pieces for 2 guitars this is an early experiment with multi tracking. Recorded in two sessions at the Abbey Robe Studios in Shaftesbury with Jon on the desk, me and a metronome. The recording dates from 1997 but the idea from 1986 when I bought an old second hand Revox A77 reel to reel tape recorder, took a week off my rather unpleasant office job and tried to compose some...

From the world of the Tango - Buenos Aires, Argentina and Astor Piazzolla. I had the chance to play Histoire du Tango by Piazzola with two wonderful flautists- but never recorded it unfortunately. This  tune is based around two Milongas- one by Jorge Cardoso, which was very popular in the late 1990's, and a second by Abel Fleury. I'll put both of those tunes up at some point. Clive Batki...

The Bert Jansch album A Rare Conundrum is the musical starting point for St Aidans Song. In particular the song Daybreak and its lovely gentle introduction - bass harmonics combining with guitar. Its a return to the 2013 recordings with Rob on Cajon and the song is about enjoying the simple things - to dance , to sing, to love and to care . The song developed from the guitar piece St Aidans Dance...

I composed most of the 5 Preludes in the 1980's and early 1990's but I didn't really made half decent recordings of them all until about 2013. Prelude No.1 - in A . To J.S.Bach - and in particular  influenced by his Prelude from the solo cello suite No1, Prelude No.2 - in Dminor. To Fernando Sor - the idea from his study No.13 from the Segovia selection of 20 Sor studies. Subtitled...

From a collection of songs recorded in 2014, Let your spirit shine through is an unusually positive song ( or meant to be ) for the 20 somethings - "what happens now". Confronted by the need to earn a living the world can appear a very disappointing place. The album was called Lights in the Mist. As we go through this week I'll mention each day how you can buy tracks, even albums. ...

The Paraguayan guitarist Agustin Barrios Mangore's La Catedral was composed in 3 movements and is a beautiful piece to play. The first movement is the Prelude Saudade and was recorded on Robert's Hybrid guitar in 2013.  This is the last of the second cycle of podcasts I'm allowed free. In the next cycle I'm going to try seeing if anyone out there wants to buy some of the music...