Mike has been playing the guitar since 1965. By that time he had already studied piano for three years and taught himself to play the ukelele, but playing the guitar brought him the greatest joy and satisfaction.
The early influence in Mike’s development as a guitarist was his father–a professional mandolin player who became a businessman and later an ordained minister. His father was a fingerstyle guitar player as well as an avid Chet Atkins fan, and Mike grew up listening to that kind of music. He also credits guitarist John Knowles for being a significant influence later on in the development of his approach to arranging guitar solos.
Over the past twenty-five years Mike has regularly performed guitar solos as special music for his local church.
In 2017, he retired from his position of thirty years as instructor in the teacher education department at Southeastern FWB College in Wendell, NC. He and his wife Joan are members of Beacon Baptist Church in Raleigh, NC.
Solo guitar recordings include two hymn CDs, one Christmas CD, and three recordings of Ron Hamilton (“Patch the Pirate”) music: Pickin’ on Patch, More Pickin’ on Patch, and Still Pickin’ on Patch.
A couple of years ago (please pardon the coming shift in person), I began uploading videos on Youtube in order to have a permanent record of the guitar arrangements I had worked up. My tendency had been to develop an arrangement, play it in church (or just at home for a while), and then after a couple of months of working on other songs of interest, to forget a good bit of how I had played that arrangement. It seemed that preserving videos on Youtube would be an effective strategy against my memory loss--much easier and more efficient than writing out the scores of all the arrangements that I was apt to forget.
I decided to upload several “unpublished” videos--so as not to embarrass myself with my intermediate level arrangements in a Youtube world abounding with virtuoso guitarists. Then, at the encouragement of family and friends, I started making the videos public.
For family and friends--and for those who just happen upon the channel, I hope the music will be a blessing--and certainly not a hindrance to the pleasure of meditating on the lyrics of uplifting hymns and gospel music.
For those who are interested in “intermediate to advanced-intermediate” level fingerstyle guitar arrangements for hymns, I hope the videos will provide some ideas to develop and improve (a euphemism for “fixing” some of my insipid ones!), or to apply in their own arrangements--or to ignore totally and avoid like the plague (lol)!
So, herein lies my three-fold raison-d-etre for the Youtube channel (wanted to make my philosophy prof proud!).
The TABS are note-for-note from CDs, or from Youtube videos. The TAB page gives a preview and details regarding each arrangement. The scores do include standard notation, tablature, and chord diagrams.
Fingerstyle TABs [even for these intermediate to advanced-intermediate level] take a good bit of time to write out, but the intent is to continue writing out the music to the Youtube videos.
The total cost--when purchasing FIVE or MORE TABS at one time, will qualify for a 20% DISCOUNT. At CHECKOUT enter the Coupon Code: 5TAB20 to receive the discount.
For the first half of 2025, all of the proceeds from the sale of TABS will be donated to National Hoops Ministries (Spartanburg, SC).