Gary Ormond - Biography

**Still under construction**

Name: Gary Anthony Ormond

DOB: August 9th, 1974

POB: Doncaster, South Yorkshire, UK

Instruments:     

• Electric Guitar
• Classical Guitar
  
• Bass Guitar
  
• Voice

How it all began

I started listening to music when I was very young but I never really thought about playing guitar til a teacher at primary school started a "guitar club"; I was 7 at the time. Well suffice to say that when my father heard my efforts he decided to take a hand and teach me properly. So began 6 months of classical guitar lessons which culminated in my becoming quite a good player, but being disheartened that I was unable to play as well as I thought I should, so I shelved playing for a while. Itwas some 5 years later that I ask my father, totally out of the blue,if he'd teach me again....and with a stern warning about the consequences of my quitting a second time, he agreed.

Discovering the Electric Guitar

I played classical guitar for a couple of years at that point, and listened intently to the Classical greats; Andrés Segovia, Julian Bream, Pepé Romero, John Williams and others, with no thought whatsoever of the classical guitar's louder, more ostentatious cousin, the electric guitar. This all changed thought when a friend at senior school loaned me "Passion and Warefare" by Steve Vai! That was it! Rock was officially cool and I begged my dad for an electric guitar, to which he finally agreed but insisted that I continue my classical studies and go to music college; which I did.

Electric guitar/Early influences

I carried on my classical work at college, but devoted large chunks of my spare time to listening to Rock guitar greats and discovered, in addition to Steve Vai, the joys of players like Yngwie J. Malmsteen, George Lynch, Joe Satriani (Vai's teacher), Vinnie Moore and others.

After college I really was able to through myself into the electric guitar properly and began practising it in earnest, several hours a day. I also started collecting as many instruction VHS cassettes as I could of the great players, or people teaching their styles and licks, this gave my developing technique something to really sink its teeth into.

You never stop learning and discovering/Later Influences

It's true! You never stop learning, and you never become so old that new discovery does happen! But it was into my thirties that I started getting switched on to guys like Chris Impellitteri, Michael Angelo Batio, John Petrucci and of course Michael J. Romeo! To paraphrase the great George Lynch, "hearing those guys was like 'right! back in the woodshed for 12 hrs a day!' hehe" Ok, ok.....I don't have a woodshed, but the principle is sound!

How I started teaching

Simple really, a guy at school asked me for lessons. I hadn't really thought about teaching, but a lad 2 yrs below me in senior school confided in me that he wasn't happy with the tutor the school had and wanted more lessons. I told him that it made me uncomfortable teachin him while he was still having the other tutor, but he pleaded, and my music teacher at school sanctioned it, so I began to teach him privately. He later quit the teacher in school and studied just with me. Gaining double Grade 5 merit before leaving to go to college.

Important turning points in your life

Hmmm, do I really have to try to answer this? :) I don't know, I think there have been so many. I think having a guitarist father has to be the first one....after all, would I be a guitarist without him? Probably not! Also hearing that first Vai album, and later "Live in Lenningrad: Trial by fire" - Yngwie Malmsteen....that taught me that you could use the classical vocabulary that I had gained in electric guitar. Meeting Graham Wade, my college, classical tutor, who I argued with EVERY WEEK! (good arguments though) I'd even say, getting my first Stratocaster (sadly long since departed) which was just an AWESOME guitar! In truth, they're still happening, and life would be dull without these turning points!