• Writings: full list •

 

Almost everything: 2016-present

 

Above all, I aim to enthuse fellow musical searchers, connecting new textures and abstract sonic interrelations to the human voices, cultures, and passions behind them. I cover topics related to jazz, rhythm, and global improvisation, drawing on my experiences playing guitar, tabla, and santoor.

—Support the site!—

In the past few years I’ve written for The Wire, Jazzwise, Jazzed, MusicRadar, and Música Macondo, with subjects ranging from Coltrane and Hendrix to microtonal guitar tunings and West African polyrhythm. I also teach guitar & global music (hit me up for Lessons). Here’s a list of (nearly) everything so far. Broader CV here – and get in touch!

—Jump to—

• Fresh Repertoire: global guitar •

• World of Tuning: peg-twists •

• Darbar: Indian classical music •

• Ragatip: South Asian sonic tales •

• Reviews: London’s happenings •

• Coltraneology: a scale puzzle •

• Raga Index: Hindustani horizons •

• Odds & ends: other explorations •

• Non-musicals: activism & more •

 

(green = hosted here, blue = off-site)

• GUITAR RESOURCES •

‘Fresh Repertoire’ series: mainly my lesson articles for Guitar World – finding fresh fretboard perspectives via global musical ideas, and reappraising a few familiar guitar topics along the way (2018-)

• DARBAR •

Living Traditions: 21 articles for 21st-century Indian classical music – in-depth collection for Darbar, exploring how music with ancient roots is adapting to a fast-paced, interconnected modern world (2019)

—Interviews: Subcontinental stars in their own words

—Explorations: Indian classical from different perspectives

Other Darbar writing: articles, events, projects, etc (from 2018)

  • Artist Database: 150+ multimedia bios of our past performers
  • YouTube channel: 300+ video descriptions on musical context
  • Darbar VR360: covering the world’s first fully VR music festival
  • Raga writings: e.g. Darbari – musicological, historical, spiritual
  • Community: e.g. obituary of Pt. Ramakant Gundecha [n.b. note]
  • Concert programmes for Barbican, Southbank, & Sadler’s Wells
  • Editing 80+ shorter articles by author & critic Jameela Siddiqi
  • Social media, press releases, engagement with academia, etc

• WORLD OF TUNING •

Everything you didn’t know you wanted to know about guitar tuning…from Malagasy myth to modern psychoacoustics (out 2022!)

• Menu of Altered Tunings (100+) •

In-depth database: ‘Palate expander’ of 6-string tunings from around the world – with notes, songs, origin tales, etc (see Tag List):

 

 

All 100+ tunings (click to expand)…
EADGBE (‘Standard’) | Eb Std. (‘Hendrix’) | D Std. (‘Tone Down’) | Db Std. (‘Iommi’) | C Std. (‘Two-Tone Drop’) | B Std. (‘Baritone’) | F Std. (‘Raise’) | G Std. (‘Terz’) | Drop D | Double-Drop D | Drop C (‘Neon’) | Low Drop C | Drop A (‘Slack Thwack’) | Dmaj (‘Vestapol’) | Dmin (‘Bentonia’) | Dsus (‘DADGAD’) | Gmaj (‘Taro Patch’) | Gmin (‘Banjo Minor’) | Gsus (‘Sawmill’) | Cmaj (‘Wide Major’) | Cmin (‘Wide Minor’) | Csus (‘Wide Modal’) | Amaj (‘Spanish’) | Emaj (‘Vestapol’) | Emin (‘Cross-Note’) | Fmaj (‘Low Taro’) | Fmin (‘Low Banjo’) | All Min. 3rds (‘3s’) | All Maj. 3rds (‘4s’) | All Fourths (‘5s’) | All Tritones (‘6s’) | All Fifths (‘7s’) | All Min. 6ths (‘8s’) | AirTap! | Albert Collins’ Fm | Albert King’s F6 | Ali Farka Touré | Alphabet | Atta’s C | Bağlama (‘Saz’) | Banjo | Black Crow | Blown a Wish | Bruce Palmer | Cabbage | Carnatic Drone | Cello (‘Haircut’) | Charango | Coyote | Dracula | Drop DG | Ead-Gad | Equilibrium | Ethereal | Fuji | Funky Avocado | Gambale | Ghost Reveries | Godzilla | Gothic | Haja’s Bb | Hejira | I Only Said | Icarus | Iris | Jack’s Chikari | José González | Kabosy (‘Leonard’s C’) | Karnivool | Keola’s C (‘Wahine’) | Lefty Flip (‘Mirrored’) | Lute (‘Vihuela’) | Magic Farmer | Math Rock F | Mauna Loa C6 | Mesopotamian | Mi-composé (‘Elenga’) | Nashville | New Standard (‘Fripp’s NST’) | One-Tone Drone (‘Ostrich’) | Only Shallow | Orkney | Oud (Arabic) | Oud (Turkish) | Overtone Series | Papa-Papa | Papuan Four-Key | Pink Moon | Place to Be | Rakotomavo | Road | Schizophrenia | Square-Neck Dobro | Teardrop | Ten Years (‘Decade’) | Wind of Change | Yvette’s Dadd9 | Zen Drone (‘Dulcimeric’) | Zigzag Thirds (Maj.) | Zigzag Thirds (Min.)
—ALL RESOURCES—
Menu of Tunings (100+) • Altered-tuned artists • Divine Indian drones • Global instrument tunings • Joni Mitchell’s stringed canvas • Alpha-melodic word-games • James Taylor’s puzzle • Double-siding: capo-harp hacks • Tales & quotes • Megatable: analytics • Glossary: tuning terms • Feedback

• REVIEWS •

Various events from 2016, mostly jazz & global concerts in London (…the spectre of free press tickets helped get me into music writing in the first place)

• RAGATIP •

Ongoing series of quick articles for Ragatip, spanning various topics related to South Asian music and culture – folk & classical roots, modern fusions, historical & spiritual foundations, geographical oddities, etc (launched 2020)

—On camera: interviews & demos

—Profiles: quick bios of fascinating South Asian artists

—Instruments: short intros and sonic samples

—Cultural: assorted snapshots, primers, & oddball tales

• COLTRANEOLOGY •

John Coltrane left behind some cryptic, handwritten notes entitled ‘Scales of India’. I’ve been trying to work out which ragas they are, where he found them, and what he might have been doing with them [out 2022]

IridescenceB19

• HINDUSTANI RAGA INDEX •

Ongoing non-commercial project: 40 fascinating North Indian ragas in sonic, geometric, and cultural depth – new sources, fresh explanatory techniques, and lots of direct input from the masters (out 2022!)

• ODDS & ENDS •

Musical breakdowns, interviews, speculations, early writings, etc (from 2016)

• OUTSIDE MUSIC •

Before music I worked in systemic global dev activism, and also dragged myself through 5 years in corporate consulting (see Bullshit Jobs)

  • Workplace Activism Handbook: pushing for radical change from within the private sector (v2 draft on request)
  • Assorted global dev projects with GiveDirectly and GWWC, inc. speeches given at Harvard, UC Berkeley, & UCL
  • Personal correspondence with Gary Otte (1971-2017), spanning his final five years on death row in Ohio (via Human Writes)
  • Urbexing Bristol’s Railway Hotel: looking inside a long-derelict local landmark (photos & writeup for 28 Days Later forum)
  • (…sadly, the local magazine which hosted some of my terrible teenage travel writing has long vanished from the web)

George Howlett | Rāga Junglism

rāga – ‘that which colours the mind’

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