Name: Ian Melrose
Age: 47
Town: Berlin, Germany
Hometown: Ayr, Scotland.
At what age did you start playing guitar and why?
At age 11. Requested guitar for my birthday. Had clarinet at school and felt the need to have an instrument which could play more than one note at the same time.
First guitar:
Yasuma steel-string
Early Influences:
John Renbourn, Bert Jansch, Davey Graham, John Martyn .....
First gig:
A floor spot at Ayr folk club.
Acoustic Guitars you own:
Lowden S5 steel-string, Morgan steel-string,continental resonator guitar, Epiphone resonator squareneck. Avalon guitars are currentlybuilding me an L25C (steelstring with cutaway and fingerstyle fretboard = breadth gets wider towards bridge = more room for right hand )
Favourite Guitar:
At the moment still my trusty Lowden S5
Your Style, and how you developed it:
Celtic and contemporary. Listening to appropriate instrumentsand doing a lot of arranging, learning how things work musically, then trying to apply it to the guitar.
Practice Regimen:
If possible a few hours every day. Warm up with a few scales and right hand exercises (Ralph Towner book), then work on new pieces, Getting things up to performance standard usually means working slow with metronome, gradually increasing tempo.
Favourite Artist(s):
John Renbourn, Kerstin Blodig, Pierre Bensusan, Peter Finger, Don Ross, Vicki Genfan ....
Is there anything else you want people to know about you, your playing style or your views on today's music in general?
A lot of students can play fairly complicated pieces, but the main problem, 90% of the time, is an underdeveloped sense of groove and timing. A feeling for the pulse of a piece, and an appreciation of pauses can make all the difference.My website lists a lot of the stuff i do. People can gladly get in touch with me via MelroseAcousticGuitar.com about guitar stuff, but also producing and arranging things.
To experience a little bit of Ian's music please visit MelroseAcousticGuitar.com.
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