Biography

Doctor of Musicology (PhD), professional solo classical guitarist, electric guitarist, baroque lutenist and composer-arranger

Dale Harris is an English guitarist whose transcriptions of works such as Richard Wagner’s German opera ‘Tristan And Isolde’ and Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ are fast contributing to his reputation as a heavyweight arranger-performer in the solo-guitar world. Dale Harris has performed with The Lorne Gibson Trio, and Sir Cliff Richard.

As a teacher of music, Dale is proud to have the opportunity to share his experience with a wide range of students working alongside area arts organizations. Moreover, Dale has taught lessons and workshops for students at University at under- and post-graduate levels. Dale presently teaches the guitar at a leading British private educational establishment.  

Visit The Foundation Classical Guitar Course With Dale Harris For Video Tutorials Click Here!

Click on the above text (link) for an in depth study of the fundamental techniques and concepts required by students of Classical, Spanish and Latin guitar styles covering correct left and right hand position, basic theory concepts, essential picking techniques, fretboard knowledge, chord construction, scales and much more! There are two courses at the moment covering Beginners and Intermediate. 

Dale's lute playing was featured in Simon Sharma's Shakespeare' (aired BBC TV 22-June & 29 June 2012) and in Martin's Close starring Peter Capaldi (aired BBC FOUR TV 24-December-2019. Dale has also reviewed lute music recordings for the Lute Society of GB. His guitar music was used in a promotional advert for BP British Petroleum. Dale as also performed for the former Duke Of Edinburgh Prince Philip. 

Dale was nominated amongst nine other leading professionals as "Best Instrumentalist Of The Year" in the GSMC awards, as run by music promoter Graham Steel. Dale subsequently won the GSMC award for Instrumental Musician Of The Year in both 2017 and 2018.

Dale studied classical guitar under many teachers but most prominently with the leading recitalist, John Mills. Dale has studied composition, musicology and musical analysis under some amazing scholars and composers including: Edward Cowie (he inspired me to 'go for it' and opened my eyes to not just music, but music in the context of it being art, noise, sound, silence, chaos, order, etc.); Roderick Watkins (my long-suffering adviser and mentor, I will learn about music one day I promise!); Dalwyn Henshal (who encouraged and inspired my work on cryptography in music); David Carhart (who introduced me to atonal and 12-tone music for which I am eternally grateful); Sidney Fixman (a wise man indeed; he told me every week for two years that 'if you want success at anything bad enough YOU WILL ACHIEVE IT given absolute dedication'. He was right!). This is just to name a few. 

Dale has studied guitar performance with guitarist-teachers as well as with non-guitarists such as: Lora Dimitrova (an amazing concert pianist! she taught me about the 'notes', not just how to play them but 'why' and she gave me 'vision' that I thank her for to this day), Jeffrey Alexander (classical guitar: he taught me about tone, control and, importantly, checking the widest number of sources for accuracy when making arrangements), Grahame Klippel (my first proper classical guitar teacher), John Myhill (jazz guitarist extraordinaire; he encouraged me to improvise when I was young and absolutely naive). The list goes on and I will add more names to this list very soon...

Dale studied musicology and authored a PhD thesis 'Cryptograms In The Music Of Alban Berg' under the supervision of world-leading expert on Viennese music Douglas Jarman. Dale discovered a hitherto unknown encipherment technique encoded into the music and he could reverse-engineer the cipher to reveal the source of the 'messages'.  Dale successfully supported his claims in verbal examination by composer and author Geoffrey Poole (who previously held the next 'best guess' as to the root of Berg's ciphers) and the latter endorsed Dale theories as having finally 'cracked the code'. Dale's Berg theories were aired on Radio 3 in May 2016 as part of a lecture recital at the Wigmore Hall, London as presented by Gavin Plumley.