My own background started with performing the music of Zeppelin, Purple, Cream etc. Over the decades since I have played just about everything but never totally lost sight of my roots and the reason I was attracted to guitar in the first place - the styles of the classic English rock/blues players.

I can demonstrate and explain the common threads running from the middle ages, through the Baroque and Classical, and 20th century musics and how the rock styles are a particular expression of folk music, but the string playing techniques they use go way back.

	Medieval	Baroque	Classical	Pop and Rock
Rhythm	Jigs and Reels	Instrumentals based on Dances e.g. Jig, Bouree, Sarabande	Simplified and stylised Dance Rhythms. European Courtly Dances e.g. Minuet	Dance Rhythms - Shuffle, very sophisticated syncopations e.g. Funk, R'n'B
Melody	Major and minor scales, flattened leading tone	Major and minor scales	Major and minor scales	Pentatonic folk scales, Vocal styles emphasising an ambiguous 3rd scale degree and a flattened leading tone.
Harmony	Triadic, Dominant Sevenths	Triadic, Dominant Sevenths with Flattened ninth (diminished 7th sounds)	Triadic and Sevenths	Triadic and Sevenths, Blues progressions with dominant 7th sounds on tonic, subominant and dominant.

The ability to apply this knowledge will broaden the scope of any player of contemporary folk and rock music, giving them a broad palette of musical devices to draw on in their playing and composition.

(Note - this table is very incomplete and only serves as an overview, a stimulus to further exploration. For example it totally neglects to mention the styles of jazz and skims over the features of the styles which are mentioned.)


This diagram is one attempt at representing the various styles of music playable on the guitar.

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Listen to Peter playing Rock and Roll - Pop - Swing - R'n'B - 1960's pop in these soundclips.

Over the course of 20 plus years he has played in and acted as musical director and arranger in ensembles including

• Heavy Metal bands
• Top 40 cover bands
• Originals pop bands
• Blues Bands
• Cabaret bands
• Country Bands

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