I started playing guitar at age 7. I fooled around with it off and on for a couple of years before decided it was what I wanted to do. It was around 9 when I received my first electric guitar and started to get serious about it. I played more or less non-stop into grade 7-8 upon which I entered the 60s/70s rock faze of playing Purple Haze and Stairway repeatedly. I made my decision to go to Rosedale Heights School of the Arts for high school and got into everything: Soul, R&B, Funk, Big Band, Hip-Hop, Hardcore, Grindcore, Jazz, Latin, and of course, various acoustic guitar genres: Folk, Bluegrass, Leadbelly and Fingerstyle. Now, there is very little that I dont listen to. Being immersed in all of these different types of music, as well as being lucky enough to play most of it with the senior band at my school, gave me a lot of experience and taught me valuable lessons in terms of playing my instrument. I strongly believe that would be a different musician and person had I not attented Rosedale.You may be asking yourself "Well, what the fuck does any of this have to do with acoustic guitar playing?" When I was in grade 11, I met a fellow guitar player in the band at school who told me of an interesting style of acoustic guitar playing which was fresh and inventive as hell. She named a few guys (Don Ross, Alex DeGrassi, Bruce Cockburn) and I quested to find something or anything by one of these artists. I stumbled across the first release Don Ross ever put out and I was completely blown away. I had fallen in love with the unpredictable style. After learning a few of his tunes (along with writing a few of my own), I began grade 12 by signing up for Don's yearly guitar weekend which he holds at his house in the country. Those three days of being around so much talent helped to define me as not only a player, but one of the acoustic guitar. This part is more for the musicians and guitar geeks but a lot of people ask me if I play in altered tunings. Yes I do and love to experiment with them. I don't use very many (yet) but I to give you and idea, I use standard tuning as often as I use altered tunings. For anyone who has tried to figure out Let Me Go, the tuning is a Dmin9 chord DADFCE.When I returned to Toronto with a boatload of fresh ideas, I began composing all the time and the rest is history. Since then, I've written a handfull of tunes and I am currently working on many others. Unfortunately, I have only been allowed the opportunity to record one of them "Let Me Go" which is, coincidentally, the first tune I attempted to create in this odd acoustic style. So, anyone who knows of a good deal on studio time, please let me know because I'd like to put a demo together soon but I am having little luck. In addition to writing and performing in the acoustic genre, I also play in rock, funk and jazz groups with my very talented and loyal friends. Other bands that I am in currently are Juss Cookin' (jazz), the Vaness Alegassi Band (dancehall/rock), Light Pollution (softer acoustic *name open for change*) and a funk/R&B group which is currently nameless but, nevertheless, mad funky.Cheers, Giordan
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