I'm happy to announce I'll be continuing my music education at University of Denver's Lamont School of Music. I was awarded a scholarship to attend, and will begin my classical guitar studies there in September.
this news was featured on…
Read moreHello! I'm Craig Winston, a guitarist, touring musician, and instructor in Denver, Co. I am a Master of Music candidate at the Lamont School of Music, University of Denver, where I also teach studio guitar lessons for non-music majors. I hold a BFA in music performance, with an emphasis in Classical Guitar, from New Mexico Highlands University, as well as a BA in English Literature from Lewis & Clark College.
I started playing guitar at the age of 9 after hearing the music of Faith No More and Metallica, so my formative years were spent learning all the best thrash metal and grunge riffs until I attended Berklee College of Music and later Lewis & Clark College where I developed a sense for melody, composition, and technique through the study of Jazz. As a rock guitarist and composer I spent many years actively performing, composing, and touring as part of groups in Chicago, Denver, and Portland.
I began studying classical guitar in 2019 after the incredible, and enlightening, experience of attending the Denver International Guitar Festival at Lamont School of Music. During the 2020-2021 Coronavirus pandemic I returned home to New Mexico and completed my BFA studies at NMHU while applying to graduate programs for Classical Guitar Performance.
I am available as a classical guitarist to perform at your event or venue. Other musicians can also contact me about work as a session or live guitarist.
To inquire about live performances, online lessons or in-person lessons please fill out the contact form below.
Performances
Classical Guitar
I returned to studying the classical guitar in the fall of 2019 after about a twenty year hiatus from the idiom. The beauty of guitar in general is the variety of approaches and techniques, with classical and finger style guitar being at the pinnacle for their technical complexity and expressiveness.
I perform a wide variety of music, from Baroque to Romantic Era, Latin American Classical to Brazillian Jazz and Modern Art Music. Please enjoy these samples of my playing. You can click the button below to inquire about booking a performance for your event or venue.
Current Repertoire:
"Platero," "El Loco," "La Azotea," “Paseo,” “La Muerte” - Eduardo Sainz de la Maza
Cello Suite in C Major BWV 1009 – J.S. Bach (arr. Richard Wright)
Variations on “Les Folies d’ Espagne” – Mauro Giuliani
“Capricho Árabe” – Francisco Tárrega
Suite in B Minor – Robert de Visee (arr. Karl Scheit)
“Lettre à Sydney,” “Lettre à Isaac, Emilio et les Autres,” “Lettre Encore” – Roland Dyens
Quatro Valses Venezolanos - Antonio Lauro
“Zapateado” – Regino Sainz de la Maza
“Mallorca” – Isaac Albeniz, arr. A. Segovia
BWV 997 Suite for Lute in C Minor: Prelude - J.S. Bach
Sonata K1, L366 – Domenico Scarlatti
“3 African Sketches” – Dusan Bogdonovic
"Adelita" - Francisco Tárrega
Etudes Simples I – VI – Leo Brouwer
Etude no. 1, 2, 7 – Matteo Carcassi
Etude 1 – 5 (from the Segovia Edition) - Fernando Sor
"Straniero" - Craig M Winston
Rock, Metal, Jazz
I have been an active performer in the Portland, Chicago, and Denver rock and metal scenes. My guitar work has been featured in concert and on recordings for The Gentry (Portland, OR), The Dead Superheroes Orchestra (Chicago, IL), Thy Shade (Denver, CO). I am the songwriter, vocalist, guitarist for Corpse Paint (Chicago/Denver) for which I also performed bass guitar and acted as assistant producer alongside Mike Tholen for the 2018 release "Nothing Here in the Dark." I have also had the pleasure to perform guitar for several musical theater productions including Spring Awakening at Loyola University in 2015, and to work as music director/composer/guitarist for the Signal Ensemble Theater production of "Devil's Day Off" by John Steinhagen (the "acoustic invention" below is an excerpt from that project).
Below are some samples of original and cover material in rock, metal, and jazz genres.
Blog
Some ways to manage all of this extra time
In today’s online guitar lessons, we’ll look at the best ways to stay motivated, practice, and improve your technique during these strange times we live in.
I had a talk with some friends the other day in which I asked…
Read more
Five simple ways to improve your pentatonic scales
In today’s guitar lesson I’m going to cover five simple ways to improve your pentatonic scales and make your soloing more interesting. This is a lesson that I’ve been doing with many of my students getting into rock and blues…
Read moreOn the use of downstrokes vs. other picking techniques
I made something of a breakthrough in my playing recently thanks to Dave Mustaine. Megadeth has always been my favorite metal band and a few years ago I saw them play at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago. When they played…
Read more
2020 updates
I’ve neglected to update this page in a while, but I just wanted to give you some news about everything that I’m up to lately.
My bands Thy Shade and The Union are both actively gigging in the Southwest having…
Read more
The 3-octave pentatonic scale.
This whole thing sounds intimidating, and I should say it’s not a simple thing to execute, but the concept, once divulged, will come across as exceedingly simple. Today we’re going to talk about a 3-octave pentatonic scale using a couple…
Read moreThe most important lesson anyone can learn from practicing music.
Too many people get into music for the wrong reasons, their parents sign them up for guitar lessons or violin lessons etc. because they believe the hype that says that Music is going to make you better at math or…
Read moreThis is a progress video of my work on “Shepherd of Fire” by...
This is a progress video of my work on “Shepherd of Fire” by Avenged Sevenfold. I spent a good lot of my life being intimidated by learning things like this, but recently made a strong resolution to just keep working…
Read moreI’ve been missing for a while, very busy practicing I guess and not much creating. I’ve learned a...
I’ve been missing for a while, very busy practicing I guess and not much creating. I’ve learned a few things in all this time. A few helpful points:
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, even though it…
Read more