Sheet music by Tom Quayle

Tom was born into a family of musicians in 1980 in the city of Bristol, UK. His parents are both folk and blues musicians and it would be Tom’s Dad who would inspire him to pick up the guitar at the age of 15. His Dad is a gifted finger-style guitarist and after many hours sitting in folk clubs listening to his parents play, Tom decided upon guitar as his instrument of choice.

He was immediately hooked and developed an obsession for practice, learning everything and anything he could get his hands on. Guitar magazines formed a huge part of Tom’s growth in the early years allowing him to learn solos and concepts by such greats as Brett Garsed, Greg Howe, Steve Vai, Guthrie Govan and Shaun Baxter.

After 3 years of self-tuition Tom took lessons from a great teacher inspiring him to look into fusion and jazz and tune the guitar in all 4ths (E A D G C F tuning), allowing for greater freedom and symmetry on the fretboard. This was a revelation and Tom set about doing a BA(Hons) in Jazz Studies at Leeds College of Music for 3 years. In this time he spent many hours learning the fretboard and studying jazz harmony whilst finding a new obsession for playing over changes and jazz.

Soon after graduating Tom gigged and taught as a modern jazz guitarist but never felt satisfied or happy with his playing. A student from Chicago played some Greg Howe tracks to him in a lesson and the fusion spark was reignited. It was now that Tom started to work on his technique again developing his trademark legato and hybrid picking style in conjunction with the changes and groove based playing he’d developed in the preceding years.

In 2008 Tom’s career and recognition really started to flourish after gaining a place in the international Guitar Idol 2008 live final, held at the London Guitar Show on the Main Stage of the Excel Centre. Since then Tom’s career has gone from strength to strength with a large fan base and endorsements from Wampler Pedals, Fibenare Guitars, Suhr Guitars and Port City Amps amongst others. Appearances at the Frankfurt Musikmesse and NAMM show in LA followed with Tom demoing products for Fibenare guitars, Suhr Guitars and Toadworks pedals. Tom’s session career also took off at this time, playing on fusion albums by greats such as Adam Nitti and Antoine Farfard amongst others.

Tom is also a very well respected educator and journalist, running his own highly successful teaching website where he has sold video lessons to literally thousands of guitar players from all over the world. Tom’s debut tuition DVD ‘From Rock to Fusion’ was released in 2012 via Lick Library where Tom has a large catalogue of online lessons and writes and reviews for the international digital publication ‘Guitar Interactive Magazine’. Tom regularly conducts international master classes and is recognized as a leading force in the new breed of fusion guitar players.