James Shufflebotham

Biography

A current PhD student (2018-present) and Graduate Teaching Assistant at Keele University, where he also gained an English and Music BA (2013-16) with First Class Honours and an MA in Music (2016-17) with Distinction. The main project of the latter was a performance titled The Harmonic Evolution of the Chord-Melody Jazz Guitar. In addition to this, he completed four other research projects into Chord Scale Theory (of Berklee College of Music), George Russell’s The Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization: the Art and Science of Tonal Gravity (2001), Reharmonisation techniques, and jazz pedagogy, all of which have acted as tributaries to his present PhD research: The Gravi-Tone Theory: Towards a Model of Gravitation in Music.

As an active and keen performer, James has been involved with diverse live and studio work as part of various jazz (and fusion) ensembles, improvisation projects, a country duo, a pop/rock function band, and as a solo guitarist. He was also a guitar tutor between 2012 and October 2019 in schools, music schools, and from home.