tobypitman.com » Guitar stuff

IGF Bath 2009

Toby — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 11:16:28 +0000

Been a while since any updates here, and I mean a while! Been busy in the studio and I’ll write about what I’ve been up to soon.

Got back from my yearly stint at Bath Spa University teaching for the International Guitar Foundation. A good time was had by all as usual and great to see some old faces and catch up.

Some great gigs were provided during the week by John Wheatcroft, Stanton Moore and old BIMM friend Guthrie Govan with the Fellowship. Here’s a couple of pics of the week. Looking forward to next time!

My class - Classic Rock!

Tutors eating a well deserved curry!

Guthrie and the Fellowship rip it up!

Jim Clarke, Guthrie Govan and Martin Goulding. Guitar heaven!

BIMM masterclass

Toby — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 19:26:10 +0000

Last Friday I travelled down to Brighton to do a masterclass at my old place of work the Brighton Institute of Modern Music. Having taught the guitar Session Styles and Technical Development courses for three years it was good to pay them a visit and catch up with some old faces.

I was great to sit around and talk about guitar to a bunch of guitar heads as it’s something I don’t get to do all that often. Still too busy to teach now…which is great!

Here’s me back when I was teaching. As you can see I really loved it!!!!

Carleen Anderson was also there giving a vocal masterclass too. She’s about the only musician I’ve ever been a bit starstruck with as I just think she’s bloody amazing!

Now I think about it I might do some practice!

James Bond guitar gig!

Toby — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 16:56:22 +0000

Hi there folks! It’s not often you get to play guitar on a major film soundtrack. Well over the past couple of weeks I’ve been fortunate enough to be working on some of the score for the new James Bond film ‘The Quantum of Solice’.

When David Arnold said, “Fancy playing some guitar on the new Bond film?”. I said, “Yes please!”.

My main contribution is to the ‘Boat chase’ scene which is pretty rocked out. The idea was to double up the orchestral parts David had written to generally beef things up. Lots of tempo changes, time signitures, low tunings and double tracking later it was done. Finally last week I went to the mix and it sounds massive!!!! Can’t wait to see it in a cinema!

I got this picture off a blog. Apparently that’s their boat in the background! Random!!!

Many thanks and much respect to David for giving me a chance to do this. Also Rob Playford and Steve Hilton who work with David on the scores. It really doesn’t get much bigger or cooler than working on a Bond film. It’s part of cinema history and probably the first thing I learn’t on the guitar.

To top it it all off on Saturday night I went along to the recording of the theme tune for the credits. Written by Monty Norman it has to be one of the most recognisable pieces of music ever and being in the room while a 76 piece orchestra played it was totally overwhelming.

All in all probably one of the best musical experiences so far!!!

‘The Quantum of Solice’ is out in cinemas November 2008. Go see it!

Chris Poland Interviews

Toby — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 15:14:58 +0000

Been a while since I’ve posted. Been pretty busy with work. Been doing some pretty cool projects, tell you more about that in a later post.

Anyway MusicPlayer.com has a great set of interviews with the awesome Chris Poland. This guy is a great guitarist with a really unique style and sound. If your not familiar with Chris’ work he used to play in Megadeth and currently plays in a band called OHM. His bending and vibrato techniques are totally cool. If your into fusion guitar this could be the guitarist for you!!

Go check it out here.