Jazz and Contemporary Music

Phone: 621-3274

Fax: 621-3293

Office hours: By Appointment

Bob Thompson - Guitar, Music Business

Bob Thompson is a self-taught, multi-stylistic guitarist, college and private instructor, clinician, author and music projects development and business manager, based in Northern New England. He has accumulated forty years of deep, diverse music-oriented experience in the regional and national arenas. Teaching professionally since 1972, his unique and highly acclaimed pedagogical approaches to guitar have earned him national acclaim as a private instructor, clinician and adjunct faculty member in some of New England's most prestigious music colleges and universities. He is currently teaching Applied Guitar and Music Business at the University of Maine - Augusta (22 years) and Fretboard Harmony at Berklee College of Music during the Guitar Sessions Program (10 years). Past college adjunct positions also include multi-year relationships at the University of Southern Maine's and Bowdoin College's jazz programs.

Bob has helped countless guitarists across New England, the U.S. and beyond achieve their creative musical potential. Locally, he has been the prime resource for Maine guitarists seeking intensive, results-focused college audition preparation, placing dozens of students in top music colleges across the U.S and Canada. His high school jazz students have consistently won top awards for the past fifteen years of Maine's annual jazz performance competitions. He also specializes in teaching guitar-centric theory and harmony, jazz and modern blues styles, and is a much sought-after private instructor and clinician, teaching a broad range of styles including Lenny Breau, Jimi Hendrix, Robben Ford, and numerous other subjects and genres of importance to serious, dedicated guitarists.

Bob's primary performance base in his early musical history was the New Haven / New York City region, but he also performed extensively across the United States from 1970 to 1977, and across the northern New England area from 1979 until the present time. He worked in a dizzying array of stylistically diverse projects that represent the gamut of professional performance. These included Top-40 and "Las Vegas" show bands, blues-funk-horn club bands, standard and progressive jazz ensembles, acoustic music projects, regional and national theater projects (including a Kennedy Center performance in 1983), children's music, sideman / arranger on dozens of original music projects and more. Across almost four decades of performance, the diversity of his musical associates included some of the most notable pop, rock and jazz performers of the time.

In 1979, with a desire to reduce distractions and dramatically expand his guitar skills, Bob abandoned his rapidly advancing performance and recording career in the CT / NYC region and moved to Portland, ME in order to seek out and study with the iconic finger-styled jazz guitar master Lenny Breau. Through over a year's worth of Lenny's mentoring and friendship, Bob gaining an extremely heightened awareness of the guitar's most intricate and complex functions, which he incorporates into his highly effective advanced teaching methodologies.

After coming to Maine, Bob also began acquiring significant experience in the regional recording and production fields, bringing his skills to Maine's music community as the "first call" musician for composition, arranging, studio performance, engineering, mixing, and project development / management. Over the past three decades, he has interacted creatively with many of Maine's top recording artists, along with creative production and performance involvement on dozens of radio and television commercials, corporate and indie film scores, audio book production and publishing, and related types of media projects.

Bob's professional business experience in the music products industry is also significant. His successful history as manager for large audio and music equipment retailers in CT and ME ultimately led to sales, marketing and clinician positions for several prestigious musical instrument manufacturers. However, Bob's insurmountable passion for teaching music won out over his love of the MI industry business, and he permanently returned to full time professional teaching in 2004.

Melding his formidable business, performance and teaching skills into a single entity, Bob's upcoming publishing company, Harmonic Arts Publishing Group, LLC (mid-2011 launch date), creates and distributes dozens of guitar-centric instructional titles under the Fretworks Master Classes^TM imprint. Concisely designed DVD, CD and text products provide college-level, professionally presented courses in theory, form and analysis, technique, fretboard visualization, creative application and stylistic authenticity to serious players of jazz, progressive blues, contemporary rock, funk / R&B, acoustic and other styles.

bethomps@maine.rr.com (preferred email)
robert.e.thompson@maine.edu
Facebook Profile
www.fretworksmasterclasses.com (March 2011)

Education

• Mattatuck Community College, Waterbury, CT - Liberal Arts Major (1971)
• University of Maine / Augusta - Continuing Music Education (Current)
• Self-directed Music Study - Music theory, form, analysis, guitar styles (1969 - present)
• Private Study w/ Lenny Breau - Guitar theory, technique, arranging (1979-1981)

Institutional / Private Teaching Experience

• University of Maine, Augusta, ME, Adjunct Faculty - Multi-stylistic guitar, music business (1991 - present)
• Berklee College of Music, Boston, MA, Summer Guitar Sessions Faculty - Fretboard harmony (2000 - present)
• Bowdoin College, Brunswick, ME, Adjunct Faculty - Multi-stylistic guitar (mid-1990s)
• University of Southern Maine, Gorham, ME, Adjunct Faculty - Multi-stylistic guitar (mid -1990s)
• Private Studio Instruction, New England Region - Music theory, multi-stylistic guitar (1972- present)
• Guitar Clinician, New England Region - Music theory, multi-stylistic guitar (1990 - present)
• Music College Preparation Consultant, Portland, ME - All aspects of guitar-centric audition prep (1996 - present)

Music Industry Business Experience

• Fender Musical Instrument Corp. (FMIC), Scottsdale, AZ, New England Regional District Sales Manager (2002 - 2004)
• C.P. Thornton Guitars, Auburn, ME, Product Development / Marketing Consultant (2004)
• TASCAM, Montebello, CA, Eastern Region Product Clinician (1994)
• Dana Bourgeois Guitars, Lewiston ME, National / International Sales and Marketing Director (1994 -1995)
• Various Audiophile and Music Instrument Retailers, ME / CT - Sales and management (Intermittent 1975 -1988)

Recording / Production Experience

• Tundra Recording Studios, Portland ME, President / Project Development Manager (1988 - 1991)
• Session guitarist, arranger, producer, engineer, project manager, ME / CT (1979 - present)

Performance / Band Management Experience

• Multi-stylistic Performance, U.S and Canada - Guitarist, arranger, booking and business management (1970-1993)
• Multi-stylistic Sideman, New England Region - High profile bands, vanity projects, blues / jazz, etc. (1993-current)

Music Instruction Publishing Experience

• Harmonic Arts Publishing Group, LLC, Managing Partner, publisher of multi-media music instruction products (Current)
• Fretworks Master Classes, LLC, President, publisher of advanced guitar instruction products (Current)