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 This section is entirely devoted to the finger style guitar. Bob Ord has played the finger style guitar for over 50 years now. His musical tastes are wide, from folk music to blues and jazz onto classical music.
At the age of twelve there being no piano in the house and the piano accordion was far from being a cool instrument to play, he bought his first guitar a "Paragon" acoustic guitar by Clifford Essex.
He was taught by Charles Smith a Tyne Tees Television session musician, and gained a grade 4 from Trinity College (it being one of the five grades offered by this examination board for the guitar at the time).
It was during his time with Charlie Smith that Bob bought a Jose Ramirez guitar (see left) which he played for many years, but now, because of its age and lack of tone he has retired this guitar.
Unlike violins which can last for centuries a guitar lasts for about fourty years. During a visit to Tombland in Norwich Bob tried a five course guitar made by Stadivari, nice guitar, well made but, he wouldn't give you twopence for its tone.
In the early seventies Bob taught himself to play the eight course lute as used in renaissance period.
During the 1980's he used an Ibanez AK80 to play finger style jazz. During a visit to Norwich, I played a guitar made by Stradivarius (yes he made guitars) in Tombland
He now uses a Yamaha SLG120W an electric nylon strung guitar together with a Sonuus S6 MIDI decoder to play into Sibelius the music scoring program.
He has done many arrangements for the guitar, mainly from piano music since this is all that is available. Over the years, he has learnt how to pick out the essential harmony and a good bass line from piano scores to make both simple and advanced guitar arrangements.
He includes tablature below the music in his scores, because this shows the fretboard fingering positions more clearly than the traditional capo markings over the music notation. All of his chord fingerings are within four frets up to to the seventh position and above this up to the twelfth position be within five frets.
All of the music in this section may be printed absolutely free of charge.
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| Paragon - Clifford Essex Cello Semi Acoustic | 1958 - 1962 | Steel- Electric |
| Harmony Jumbo - The Original Harmony Guitar Company | 1962 - 1968 | Steel - Acoustic |
| Conde Hermanos A26 Flamenco Guitar | 1968 - 1972 | Nylon - Acoustic |
| Manuel Conde Concert Guitar | 1970 - 1972 | Nylon - Acoustic |
| Jose Ramirez 1968 Flamenco Guitar* (now retired) | 1972 - Present | Nylon - Acoustic |
| German Made 8 Course Renaisance Lute | 1972 - 2004 | Nylon - Acoustic |
| Ibanez AK80 Cello Semi Acoustic* | 1979 - Present | Steel - Electric |
| Unknown Make Les Paul Copy | 1981 - 1992 | Steel - Electric |
| Yamaha SLG120W Silent Guitar* | 2008 - Present | Nylon - Electric! |
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| 8 course renaissance Lute |
Stadivari Guitar |
Ibanez Cello Type AK80 |
Yamaha SLG120W |
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