About Me

At this stage it's probably a great idea for me to introduce myself and tell you a little bit about my musical background and professional guitar teaching experience. And why is this so important?

Simple.

It gives you the confidence that the lessons in the Guitar Scale Mastery membership website are accurate, trustworthy, and are based on real-life playing and teaching experience. I'll try to keep it really brief, but I don't want to leave too much out...

My Musical Background:

My name is Craig Bassett, I'm 38 years old and I've been playing some form of musical instrument for the last 30 years. The first instrument I formally studied was one that many people learn...the piano!

I was lucky enough to study classical piano for nine years starting at the age of eight. This really helped me to develop an understanding of music and music theory. It also helped me learn the practice techniques used by classical pianists. But my piano days were soon to be a thing of the past. I had discovered a much better intsrument...

I started playing guitar three months before my 18th birthday. It didn't take long for me to fall in love with the instrument. I would usually practice at least 3 hours each day after school. In the weekend I would often practice up to 10 or 11 hours a day. It would be a fair comment to say that I was obsessed! The styles of music that interested me most at this time were metal, blues, funk and rock. I worked VERY hard at these styles of guitar playing for around 7 years. But then a new obsession was about to start...

In 1997 a friend introduced me to jazz guitar. And I fell in love with it! I particularly loved the guitar playing of Wes Montgomery, and proceeded to spend countless hours transcribing, learning and analyzing his solos off albums like "The Incredible Jazz Guitar Of Wes Montgomery". (Click HERE to see part of one of my incredibly messily-written transcriptions). I learnt a lot about jazz doing this, but I felt I needed some formal training...

After a year of intensive jazz practice, in 1998 I headed down to Wellington (in New Zealand) to start a Bachelor of Music (Performance). During my three years there I was fortunate enough to study and play with some of the best jazz musicians in New Zealand including Noel Clayton, Leigh Jackson, Colin Hemmingsen, Paul Dyne, Nick van Dijk, Norman Meehan and Roger Sellers. During my studies I learned about jazz improvisation, jazz composition, jazz arranging, music theory, ear-training and ensemble playing.

It was particularly life-changing to study with Noel Clayton and Leigh Jackson. They are probably the two best jazz guitarists in New Zealand, and I definitely learnt a LOT from them. I thought I was a really good guitarist before I started lessons with them, but then I saw them play! It was a very humbling experience, and it definitely drove me to become a better guitarist and musician.

In 2000 I completed the Bachelor of Music (Performance) from Massey University in Wellington. (Click HERE to see a scanned copy of my certificate).

Over the last 20 years of playing guitar I've had experience performing in situations ranging from speed metal gigs to freelance jazz gigs. But I have to say here...

Even though I love playing guitar and consider myself to be a pretty good player, my main passion is teaching others. I love the buzz of seeing my students improve their playing. I also love the challenge of breaking down complex musical concepts and explaining them to people in a very simple way! So let's take a look at my teaching experience...

My Guitar Teaching Experience

I started teaching guitar on a professional level when I was 21. I gotta admit I wasn't very good at it initially. In fact I sucked! But over the last 17 years of teaching I've worked hard and have improved a lot as a teacher. A heck of a lot. I've taught guitar in a wide variety of situations including:

• High Schools (eg. Pakuranga College, St Kentigerns College)
• Music Schools (eg. The Music Education Centre, Studio 10)
• Internet Teaching (eg. Alternate Picking Fast Start, Guitar Scale Mastery, Guitar Note Mastery).
• Master Classes (Improvisation and Technique Development)
• Private Teaching (Both one-to-one and group settings)

In April 2008 I relocated from New Zealand to Melbourne, Australia where I set up a successful guitar coaching business. You can find out more details about this at: Guitar Mastery Coaching

Check out what some of my one-to-one tutoring clients have said about me...