About Roger Pell

Macrocosmos for Guitar is a collection of 9 books that provide instruction on finger style, plectrum and bass guitar, from pre-teen to conceptual artist. This is achieved by new methods and new music with the aim to advance the human condition when making music on the guitar.

In 1956 I was going to school in Kensington England. The home my parents rented had a piano and I enjoyed rhythmically improvising sound patterns on it. In this respect nothing has changed except for the fact, I exchanged the piano for a guitar and understand that pattern making is not a branch of maths but is indeed its trunk.

There is nothing new about ideas, and communicating well is also common enough. However to amalgamate these two concepts requires knowledge of creative brain functioning, which I studied at Arizona University.

So why seek out guitaristic experiences that provide lasting insights into expressing the semblance of felt life? Because, when thought and feeling create forms that are symbolic of human feelings, they in return nourish us with emotional knowledge. Language alone is unable to explain this phenomena yet we know that its effect is greater than the sum of its parts and is universally accepted as a cultural necessity and part of being human.

In the production of time and tone we are subjectively removed by involuntary activity where ‘inner-tuition’ motivates the musicality of our interpretation. Although for brief periods of time, we will refer to the voluntary or intellectual map in order to place our metaphoric impressions in perspective. It would seem in these situations that intuition lasts longer than intellect, with the latter being more objectified than the former.

Most guitarists initially approach the instrument intuitively, that is how I made sounds in 1956. The problem for the guitarist is that unlike the other three harmonic instruments, piano, harp and vibraphone, the guitar has many of one note. Its unique chromatic layout reveals unisons. Therefore, to name the note you play and to finger its position in relation to a harmonic context is more complicated than the other three instruments. This goes along way to explain why some guitarists have difficulty in interpreting notation, and why they are likely to rely on their intuition.

Some people pen autobiographies, I decided to write Macrocosmos for Guitar.    

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