Geoff Stockton

I'm a guitar player, singer and songwriter. I also play some bass, drums, mandolin, and keyboards to a degree but I'd still consider myself primarily a student of those instruments. I've studied music independently since age 11, starting with guitar. I've learned and played almost all styles to some extent and I try to incorporate my favorite elements from the variety of stuff that I like to listen to.

I can play along readily with about 95% of music that I hear. I do get stumped sometimes but usually I can do some detective work from there and figure it out. It's not a special magical talent anymore than recognizing colors is magical. The difference is that hardly anyone gets taught how to do it. So that's my contribution. I teach anywhere between 40 to 50 students a week at Marshall School Of Music in Portage MI and I'm working on a book for guitar players dealing with a complete understanding of theory, composition, improvisation and ear training.

I wrote and recorded these songs at home. I'm using a Mac G4 desktop with a Fast-Track Pro audio interface and an AT 2020 condenser mic. I'm recording with Garageband upgraded with the original Jampack along with the Remix Tools, Rhythm Section and Orchestral Jampacks. Thanks to Brad, Brian, Jeff and Ben for the help. I program the bass, drums, keyboards and orchestral parts from scratch in edit mode and then I lay electric and/or acoustic guitar parts, some vocal parts and the occasional mandolin part.

I'm building a pretty big catalogue of original recordings but it's so different from one track to the next that I've been forced to divide it all into albums in progress. I've begun consolidating some of it in to one diverse sound by mixing and matching different arrangement and production aspects. I like where it's going. I'll be releasing a complete album in 2008. It shall be epic.

I improvise all my guitar solos. I have themes that I use in certain solos but I play them different every time. Improvising is the most magical aspect of making music (as long as you have some idea what your doing and how it musically relates to what the rest of the musicians are doing). It's also the real test of a musician. If you don't know something really well, you can't use it when you improvise.That's why some improvisers can captivate a crowd for hours (John Coltrane) and some start repeating themselves after 15 minutes. (Carlos Santana, no offence I love his music but a limited vocabulary just comes with the territory his whole "it can't be taught" mystery school of guitar philosophy.) I'm somewhere in between the two extremes. I'm a very serious student but I'm also a bit of a slacker. My real mindset when I'm playing, writing or recording is getting my feelings and ideas across to any random listener. Everything I've learned about music comes across in the process but I'm not very conscious of it in the moments of inspiration. Anyway, I've rambled enough. Geoff Stockton composer, performer, producer, instructor(s) .. ..