Michael Vick Bio (short/music)10

Michael Vick aka Michael Atonal Vick is a multi-instrumentalist whose main focus is performing and composing music on fretless guitars and the glissentar. His style is hard to describe because it can range from the conventional to the abstract utilizing microtonal tuning systems. Vick was born in Fairfax, Virginia and recently relocated to the upstate of South Carolina. He has been teaching and performing music for over 20 years, and his teaching style is one that encompasses all aspects of music from theory and technique to composition and performance. He is adept at teaching all styles of music for the guitar and bass and also gives workshops at schools on the artistic benefits of learning and understanding cultural tuning systems. Since moving to the upstate of SC, Michael has taught summer music courses at Furman University as well as group and private lessons at the Cherokee Creek Boy's School, Main Street Guitar & Drums and the Greenville Guitar Academy.

Michael's formal music training began when he was fifteen years old. While in high school, he was invited to study classical guitar and music theory at the College of Charleston under Michael Poulos and in Master Classes with Frederick Hand. Around this time, he was also invited to study with Christopher Berg at the University of South Carolina delving deeper into advanced classical guitar and compositional techniques. Over the years that followed, Michael worked under Carroll Brown at Oceansong Records as a recording engineer, and then later moved to Atlanta, Georgia and became a freelance recording engineer and studio musician. As an artist, Michael has performed with the Charleston Symphony Orchestra, the Wayang Modern Theater, the Footlight Players, the Pat Curtis Jazz Trio, the C Of C Classical Guitar Quartet and the American Festival Of Microtonal Music Orchestra, and he has performed at the Spoleto Festival, Hotlanta's Acid Jazz Festival, the NYC Fretless Guitar Festival (which he founded in 2005) and the National Slide Guitar Festival. Vick has also toured and recorded with The Michael Vick Trip, Wit's End, Bass Fight, MusicaMunadana.TV and Vead (w/ Todd Campbell aka Electro Acoustic Drummer). For his extensive work with fretless guitars, Vick has been featured in major guitar publications around the world including Guitar Player & Guitar Classique and has released over 12 CDs. Recently, he can be heard on the CD compilations World's Fretless Guitarists: Village Of The Unfretted (w/ David Fiuczynski, Bumblefoot & Elliot Sharp), GtrOblq: The Unraveling Begins (w/ Marco Oppedisano & Ken Rubenstein), Artists For Charity: Guitarists 4 The Kids (w/ Steve Lukather, Pierre Bensusan & Robert Fripp) and Unplugged & Unfretted: A Collection Of The World's Acoustic Fretless Guitarists (w/ Neil Haverstick & Edward Powell) . VVV also has a new recording out with VEAD called FootHills Jam am:pm available from ReverbNation.com and features Vick on fretless guitars & bass plus the glissentar.

"Pick up a copy of his CD if your ready to have your mind blown.......music in favor of the esoteric." Guitar9.com

"He plays fretted and fretless guitars, and sometimes his music takes a little getting used to." PBS / Fret Net.com

"I feel we're at a turning point where the fretless guitar is shedding its novelty status and becoming a viable instrument in its own right." MAV in Guitar Player magazine

Michael Vick is sponsored by Godin Guitars, FreeNote Music and UnFretted.com.