Electric Guitar

It's listed on my manxortho.com website that I play classical piano and rock guitar. It's probably more correct to say that I used to play rock guitar, as I rarely pick it up these days. I was pretty good. For most of my 2nd year at medical school I skipped lectures and played for 6 hours a day, and at that stage my technical skills were quite impressive.

Since then I've played only occasionally, with long periods of inactivity interspersed with bouts of fairly intense practice. I recorded some tracks about 2 or 3 years ago, and the best of my efforts can be heard on the little iPod touch mock-up in the sidebar. One of the tracks, 'nothing original', is all my own work. By that I mean it's not a tune by an established guitarist, but it's not quite original as the themes are based on Chopin's Fantasie Impromptu, a classical piano piece. As for the rest, 'Adagio' is a famous classical piece on guitar, 'Always with me...' is by Joe Satriani, and all the rest are by Vinnie Moore who is arguably the best instrumental guitarist in the world today.

The thing about the electric guitar is that it is not the ideal instrument for others to listen to, and unfortunately for them it should be played loud. I play through a Marshall 60W valve amp with 2x12" speakers - trust me it's loud. So when I play, I may think I'm playing the greatest, most technical solo in the world, but to everyone else it's just a noise. They all prefer the piano, and for now at least I'm concentrating on that.