the ruling grade

debut album

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The "Solo Guitar" Project

Solo Guitar is a magical style of playing where the guitarist brings melody, chords, bass, and rhythm together all at once. To start to wrap your ear around the style, listen to tunes like “Deep River Blues” - Doc Watson, or take a look at Tommy Emmanuel’s energetic demonstration of the style in his TEDx talk.

In 2023 I came across a master of this style named Ted Greene who blew me away with his beautiful music and really challenged me with his dexterity, his understanding of the fretboard, and his immense harmonic vocabulary.

Over the last couple years I’ve been growing my ability to play in this style and make my own arrangements of tunes and I thought it would be fun to start to share them!

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Bio

Charlie Brown is a multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter who grew up in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. His music draws on influences from Doc Watson to Jack White to Jason Isbell, from bluegrass to gospel, from blues to folk. He received his Bachelor of Music in guitar performance from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill studying classical guitar under William Stewart and jazz guitar under Scott Sawyer. During his senior year at UNC he recorded his debut album, The Ruling Grade. Charlie now lives in Austin, TX. Though he performs occasionally at conferences, retreats, and house shows, his focus in this season has shifted towards jazz guitar.