I studied composition and guitar at The Royal College of Music, where I won the Jack Morrison guitar prize. I went on to work as a composer, arranger and session musician in music for film, TV and radio.

With massive respect to the tradition of classical guitar playing, established by  Andrés Segovia,  Julian Bream and  John  Williams, I would like to try something that speaks of my own musical journey as a guitarist as distinct to my experience as a composer.

Still, all these years on, the classical guitarist walks a tightrope. The very name classical guitar implies a connection with the great classical music tradition, when in fact none of the "big 4 ", Bach, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, ever wrote for the guitar (Bach wrote for the lute not the guitar).

The classical guitarist’s repertoire consists mostly of charmingly melodic Spanish and Latin American pieces, some of which are transcriptions from piano scores, and let us not forget  Julian Bream's energetic pursuit and commissioning of contemporary composers. There are perhaps four good guitar concertos, but these are difficult to perform, due to problems of balance, unless sound reinforcement is used. In the right hands these pieces create a unique magic much loved by a high percentage of the concert going public, but compared to the piano or violin the repertoire is very thin, particularly with pieces specifically written for guitar.

For me the charm of the instrument lies in its creative possibilities, that sense of Moorish mystery, its link to the wider church of guitar playing and the virtual blank page where repertoire is concerned. What I am trying to do here is to take the classical guitar to places where it has not been before, hence the title" White Water Guitar".

The whole thing has been a white water ride taking me out of my comfort zone. A huge amount of music has been conceived on a guitar fingerboard in the last 70 years, let's see if any of it can successfully transfer to the classical technique. And while we are at it lets see what Percy  Grainger  has to say about it.

No muti-tracking, overdubs or artificial reverbs were used in the making of this recording.

What follows is a track by track explanation for those who are curious. The ground rules were that it had to be playable on a solo guitar so there is no multi tracking.

I worked closely with Ken Wheeler who engineered and produced most of my my documentary tv music for the BBC in the eighties.

The "Gum-Suckers" March. (Percy Grainger)

We started with the traditional approach of taking a piano piece and adapting it for the guitar.

I had always thought of Percy Grainger as the man who wrote English Country Garden and who was involved with that crowd of composers who travelled around the English countryside writing out folk music tunes.  Ken is a real fan of Percy Grainger and wanted to see if it would transfer to guitar for this album. I started with this and quickly realised that the harmonies were very finely balanced and when reducing from piano (10 note harmony plus) to six strings on the guitar I had to be careful not to lose the effect. When I came to learning to play it I found I had created a monster, but that was a good thing because it pushed me into new territory. I had transcribed it with no concessions to difficulty at all and so the hard part was now learning to play it. But by dropping the odd note here and there it gradually came together.

"Gum Suckers"is a nick-name for Australians hailing from the state of Victoria, the home state of the composer. The leaves of the "gum"(Eucalyptus)trees are very refreshing to suck in the parching summer weather

We recorded it at at St Mary's Church Lower  Heyford Oxfordshire some way from Victoria Australia

Mister Sandman. (Pat Ballard)

I owe this arrangement to Chet Atkins. All I've done here is adapt it for the classical technique. It fits on the guitar really well and is nice to play.

Cry Me A River. (Arthur Hamilton)

This piece is a very early memory of the fifties. The guitarist  on the Julie London track is Barney Kessel who is a jazz legend and played in the LA session band ,"the Wrecking Crew". I wanted to bring out this fifties feel   and inject a little bit of John Barry Russian Spy theme type  mystery. I used a gadget called a jam-kat that enables me to switch from classical style to paying with a pick. It’s a spring loaded device which I've chosen to use in a  subtle way to broaden the sound palette. It is possible using this device to switch even mid phrase There are few things that you  can do with a pick that you can't do with classical technique but the chord voicing was the thing here.  I was surprised how much more authentic certain chords were sounding when played with a pick

See You in my Dreams. (Isham Jones)

Merle Travis is the man behind this one. I had been looking for an opportunity to see if I can make a slide speak properly on nylon strings because if so it would be useful to apply it to my classical compositions. I found a supplier of of slide rings in the USA called Peaceland  and the advantage of this over a normal  guitar slide is that I can play normally and just use it here and there which is how I envisaged it working. Getting the size right was the important thing. The one I was using on this recording was a size too big and was difficult to control.

Lets Dance. (David Bowie)

By the time we got to this one I had got together the techniques of jam kat and slide to the point where they I could use them all together. Nile Rodgers the producer of Lets Dance has this knack of making something which is actually quite cerebral sound really simple. I have brought out his guitar part and at the same time tried to give the slide guitar part the essence of David Bowie's voice and a little bit of Stevie Ray Vaughan thrown in for good measure

Scotch Strathspey and Reel. (Percy Grainger)

This is another Percy Grainger piece transcribed from the piano reduction . I made this transcription as full as I could with no concession to difficulty  and also pushed myself by taking it right up to the far end of the guitar fingerboard where it is really difficult to get to the notes to speak properly. I thought that as it is such a long piece it needed as much variation as possible.

Cannon Ball Rag. (Trad.)

This was recorded in the church when we recorded the Gum Suckers and I was just warming up. But it was decided to put this in. Again it’s based on a Merle Travis version of this piece.

GoodTimes. (Nile Rodgers/Bernard Edwards)

Who doesn’t know this? I've never heard anyone play it as a solo piece like this with the parts interlocking on one instrument. It's not exactly Bach but there is a counterpoint going on and the very success of the music means you can't argue it is not catchy. This was the very first time I recorded with the jam kat which comes into play towards the end. The basic design doesn’t secure the pick tightly enough and when you play hard it can fly out of the holder so subsequently I developed a way of using staples to secure it in place. On this session I had some superglue just in case it was going to be a problem and I managed to superglue a pick to my guitar by mistake. At least I didn’t get it on the strings that would have been the end of the day.

Nuages. (Django Reinhardt)

I do like this piece of music, every time I play it I can smell the gauloise! I first got into this when I played it in a concert with a well know local jazz clarinettist, Laurie Fray. We had discovered some of the history of the piece and its nationalistic connotations during the occupation. For me it is pure escapism  - tanks in the the Champs-Elyseés and Django Reinhardt playing this music like he doesn’t have a care in the world. It says a lot about the power of music. I know there is a published version of this for classical guitar but I chose to keep this closer to the 1940 version. Most versions don’t incorporate the start but my interpretation is that it is symbolic of an army on the march and the introduction of the tune takes you up above the clouds to a happy place.

All The Things You Are (Jerome Kerne/Oscar Hammerstein Jnr)

I first came across this as a teenager when my friend Stuart used to play this Peter Sellers record . We used to think it was so funny that this old bloke was singing in the bath. Now of course I'm the old bloke singing in the bath. I think that Peter Sellers record was produced by George Martin and the strings arranged by Ron Goodwin so in those days even the throw away stuff  was astonishing quality. Any way I don’t think its funny anymore and the words are actually rather beautiful as is the tune

Concertino Da Camera(mt1)  (Jacques  Ibert)

Ken loves this saxophone concerto so this was a real throwing down of the gauntlet. I created a real monster here in transcribing something intended for 12 instruments and the main part being for alto sax which can sustain a note for many seconds. This really does define the boundaries of what is possible for me on a solo guitar.

Church Rag. (Pash)

Improvised in the warm up for the Gum Sucker session. Well I say improvised it was an impromptu performance of something I used to play years ago and I never was quite sure what it was. The memory is a strange thing the way things can just spring into your mind.

Alice in Blunderland. (Don Van Vliet)

Another example of the integration of the various new techniques in a piece which tries to get essence of the original track which is loveably chaotic in concept and execution.

Entrance to St Marys. (Pash)

This was improvised on the day and was what I felt on experiencing that lovely acoustic of the church after having played in a sound proofed  studio  for a few days

Tomorrow Never Knows. (Lennon/McCartney)

I have always had a bit of a fascination with that point where classical and popular music meet and because these two things are very different animals it is sometimes a very fascinating place. There is a track on the Beatles album Revolver that is one of those places. Funny enough I was reading Alex Ross's remarkable book "The Rest is Noise" and this comes up. Paul McCartney and John Lennon had been listening to Stockhausen's "Gesang der Junglinge"and "Kontakte" ,  which use tape loops . So here was a piece influenced by a german musical  visionary conceived on guitars by the Beatles and then treated extensively by the sonic genius George Martin  and on this cd taken back to a solo guitar.