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The Senior Guitar Competition showed off the skill and dexterity of five excellent musicians. It was great to feature contemporary music in between the strings and the singers and the combination brought a great sense of the breadth of talent in the Cranleigh music department. Richard E. kicked things off with an atmospheric rendition of Victor Wooton’s unaccompanied version of ‘Amazing Grace’ on bass guitar. This showed the full range of tonal colours available on an often overlooked instrument with excellent use of harmonics. Brandon G.’s performance of the power metal epic ‘Through the Fire and Flames’ was full of intensity and dazzling fingerwork.
Sirus P’s ‘The Stumble’ slowed things down and was played with a great sense of fun and a heavy blues groove and Euan B’s confident delivery of ‘Smack Talk’ showed that he has a fine technique developing. In the end Jamie T took the prize with ‘Manhattan’ by Eric Johnson. This showed a beautiful sense of musical line and phrasing. The tone used was excellently judged and this really brought out the artistry that is possible with an electric guitar.