by Dr. Matthew Warnock.

Matthew Schroeder is one of the busiest guitarists and guitar pedagogues in the Midwest. As head of the guitar department at the Wisconsin Conservatory, Schroeder spends his days running one of the most storied and revered guitar departments in the country before stepping out on stage as one of the region's most in demand rock and fingerstyle guitarists at night. While many fans know him for his work in The Barbeez, one of Milwaukee's most popular rock bands, Schroeder has also developed a highly-respected concert career as a fingerstyle guitarist.

After receiving a performance degree in American fingerstyle guitar from the University of Wisconson-Milwaukee/Wisconsin Conservatory of Music, where he studied with Pierre Bensusan, Benjamin Verdery, Pat Donohue, Billy McLaughlin and Alex DeGrassi, among others, Schroeder has returned to lead one of the most successful community music school guitar programs in the nation. Though the Conservatory is no longer a degree-granting institution, it still maintains the high level faculty and course offerings that it did during its prime as one of the Midwest's leading college music conservatories. Under Schroeder's direction, the guitar department continues to provide students the chance to study jazz, classical, fingerstyle, blues and rock guitar in private lessons, combo and classroom settings. Students are also exposed to a wide variety of world-class performers as part of the Conservatory's concert and master class series that runs throughout the year.

As a performer, Schroeder is as versatile and diverse as the Conservatory's guitar department. He is a WAMI (Wisconsin Area Music Industry) award winning guitarist who is equally at home in the rock and fingerstyle genres. His first CD, Signal, has received praise from fans and critics alike for his energetic approach to solo acoustic guitar playing as well as for his emotionally engaging original compositions. With a busy summer schedule of festivals and shows with his rock band and alongside writing tunes for his next solo acoustic CD, Schroeder continues to move forward as one of the area's leading guitarists.

Matt Warnock: You are well versed in both the rock and fingerstyle genres of guitar and you regularly perform concerts in both of these styles. Was fingerstyle something that you have always worked on, or did you discover a love for that music later on in your career?

Matthew Schroeder: It's something that came along later on in my career. Right after high school, I was mostly playing in cover bands around my home town, and then I discovered a local guy who was writing his own tunes. After meeting up with him, I thought "this is really cool, he's writing great songs," and I wanted to be a part of that creative process. So we formed a band called Pet Engine, which played regularly in clubs around Milwaukee. One day, we were hanging out and he said, "Hey man, you've got to hear this tune," and it was a song by Michael Hedges called "Ready or Not." He asked me if I could play like that, and I told him I had no idea what Hedges was doing. [Laughs]

After that, I began checking out more players and really became interested in songs like "Aerial Boundaries," and "Helms Place," which I still love. Also, most rock bands I liked at the time had featured their guitar player doing an occasional steel string solo like Jimmy Page, Steve Howe, Jorma Kaukonen and Peter Frampton, so fingerstyle seemed like a natural progression for my growth as a guitarist. When I started in 1990, the fingerstyle genre was in an incredibly exciting phase. Michael Hedges, Leo Kottke, Alex DeGrassi, Pierre Bensusan, Billy McLaughlin, to name a few, were all creating this new amazing out-of-the-box music.

After a while, Pet Engine folded and I moved back to my home town and started taking some music courses at the University of Wisconsin, Manitowoc, including guitar lessons with a teacher, Peter Pivonka, who was studying fingerstyle guitar at the conservatory down in Milwaukee. He was one of the first people who told me I should pursue that style further, and he turned me on to all sorts of great players by giving me tapes to take home and listen to and fingerstyle music to learn. He was also a big influence on my decision to enroll as a guitar major at the Wisconsin Conservatory.

Later on, I studied with John Stropes, someone who was working shoulder to shoulder with many famous fingerstyle artists, and still does, with the exception of Michael who passed away. He was the personal transcriber for Michael, and continues to work with Leo. So along the way, I fell in love with the style and have continued to play and learn.

Matt W: When you began studying formally at the Conservatory did you study a variety of styles (jazz, classical etc), or was the sole focus of your time there spent on fingerstyle playing?

Matt S: My primary focus was fingerstyle and my secondary focus was jazz. I had to have both a major and minor for my degree program, and I was lucky enough that they offered both of these styles that I was really into at the time.

Matt W: Why did you choose jazz as your secondary focus, was there anything in particular that drew you to that music as well as fingerstyle?

Matt S: At the time I was experimenting with improvisation in rock, blues and other contexts, so I felt a connection to that aspect of jazz playing. I quickly realized that jazz is a language and fingerstyle is another language. I learned to think of these styles like German and French for example. They both use the same alphabet but are completely different in many other ways.

Matt W: When you began to focus more on the fingerstyle playing, were you drawing from your rock and jazz backgrounds, or did you have to separate those styles in your mind when you were performing them?

Matt S: I wouldn’t want to have to do them both on the same day! They're two different animals, sort of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The energy from one to the other is very different. The way I spend the time leading up to the performance is not the same either--what I eat, what I listen to, how I psych myself up. When I’m playing rock guitar, I’m standing, moving around, and the energy flows in all directions. When I’m playing a steel string solo, that energy is more tightly focused, due to the intricate nature of the music. The audience energy is very different too, as well as the difference between being part of a band and playing as a soloist. The feeling of satisfaction when the music comes off just right, when you bring life to the music, is different too.

Matt W: How about the technical differences between the two styles. Does that cause you to think differently about them as well?

Matt S: I've always wished there was more of a connection there for me with regards to technique. When I began playing fingerstyle, I found my left hand was in great shape. Having grown up in the '80s reading Joe Satriani and Steve Vai magazine columns, I had a great left hand. But fingerstyle is more related to classical guitar in regards to the right hand, so I felt like I was starting from square one in that sense. For example, in 1992 I was playing with my rock band at Summerfest in Milwaukee but there was no way my fingerstyle playing was at a level where I could have done that gig on my acoustic. My fingerstyle technique was playing catch up for many years with my rock chops since I had a big head start playing in rock bands in high-school and college.

Matt W: Do you feel that your fingerstyle technique has now caught up with your abilities as a rock guitarist?

Matt S: Definitely. It's been a good decade since I've felt pretty comfortable in both styles. I think they're on the same level by this point, especially since I've been able to maintain steady performances recently in both styles.

Matt W: You mentioned that you studied fingerstyle when you were a student at the Wisconsin Conservatory. It's kind of a rare thing for a degree granting institution to allow guitarists to major in a non-jazz, non-classical style, with the exception of schools like Berklee. Even though the conservatory no longer offers college degrees, they still offer lessons and classes in these non traditional styles. As the director of the Conservatory's guitar department and a teacher there, can you describe a bit about the curriculum that is now being offered in regards to the fingerstyle genre?

Matt S: Right now we offer an Introduction to fingerstyle Guitar course that's a great way for people to try out the genre and see if it's a good fit for them. Other than that course, there are three faculty members, myself included, that offer private, one-on-one, fingerstyle focused lessons. All three of us have a different niche that we draw from in the style, so the lessons are fingerstyle based, but the students can learn different approaches to and aspects of the genre from all three teachers.

Matt W: When you teach fingerstyle guitar do you also teach arranging and composition at the same time? Many fingerstyle players, including Kottke and Hedges, perform mostly their own compositions. Do you bring this aspect of the fingerstyle genre into private lessons and encourage the students to arrange and compose their own pieces as well as study the music of the great players in the genre?

Matt S: Absolutely. I work with people who not only want to learn the classics, but that are singer songwriters who come to me asking for help in writing and arranging their own tunes.

Matt W: How important do you feel being able to compose and arrange is to someone who wants to pursue fingerstyle guitar playing?

Matt S: I think it's very important for anyone who wants to get out and play fingerstyle gigs that they have a few of their own arrangements and compositions in their sets. As a classical player who is out performing and recording the standard repertoire, there are a certain amount of guidelines that they can follow as far as interpretation is concerned. For example, someone could record an album of Tárrega pieces in the style that he would have played them himself. For a finger-stylist, this approach would not come off as successful. It wouldn't really work if someone decided to record a record of Michael Hedges tunes exactly as he would have played them. I think the more successful players have studied these great players such as Kottke and Hedges, but when they are ready to record or go on stage they are more focused on making a personal musical statement than playing fingerstyle interpretations of standard repertoire.

Matt W: You've mentioned Leo Kottke a number of times as being an influence on your playing and writing styles. Can you talk a bit about how his music has shaped your own output as a player and writer?

Matt S: I got into Kottke through first discovering Michael Hedges, but once I got into Kottke's music it felt really natural to me as a player and student of the genre. I just did a concert called "Six Degrees of Leo Kottke" where I played four tunes per set that were his compositions and the other tunes were drawn from various associations Kottke has had over the years with other musicians. We did a Mahavishnu tune as a trio with Tom Clippert after he brought up that Kottke has opened for them at one point in his career. There were also a few tunes on the concert by Ben Verdery who wrote a couple of duos that Kottke played slide on. I played a lot of those tunes on a Leo Kottke signature 12-string that I own, which was really fun because it gives the audience a sense of the tone and sound that Kottke uses in his playing.

Matt W: Sort of the fingerstyle version of playing Bach on a Baroque-era harpsichord.

Matt S: Right. I like to try and bring something new and interesting like that to my concerts. I find it makes things more interesting for the audience and also for me as a performer.

Matt W: You still perform regularly in both genres, rock and fingerstyle. I'm wondering if there are times when one takes over the other as far as having more gigs in one style at certain times of the year. How do you maintain a level of balance between those two careers?

Matt S: The way it ends up working out is that during the summer I'm out on the road playing festivals and shows with the rock band, so I end up focusing on that side of things for that part of the year. During the school year, when I'm teaching at the Conservatory more, I tend to have the acoustic guitar in my hands more and can focus more attention on that side of things during that period. I'm also finding that as I get older, I think my focus will probably shift more to the fingerstyle side of things, mostly due to the physical nature of playing in a rock band on a regular basis. Not so much on my hands and body, but there's definitely a toll on my ears from playing so many rock gigs every year.

Matt W: What do you have planned right now as far as your fingerstyle playing? Are you writing a new album or are you more focused on promoting your first album and concertizing?

Matt S: Writing is definitely where I'm at right now with the fingerstyle stuff. I'm writing and promoting and trying to take my concert program into some new venues over the next year. I've got about six tunes that I'm working on for my new CD, but even writing is very time consuming, alongside the performing and booking side of things.

One of the things that I'm really working on with the fingerstyle stuff is developing my writing. There's a lot of soul searching that goes on for me when I'm performing in a solo-acoustic setting. What material do I want to play? What musical vibe do I want to portray to the audience? What did I write these songs about? All of the songs I write are connected to things, personal experiences in my life. So I have to think about how much of myself do I want to reveal to the audience. What's my message, what do I really want to say with my music?

My writing style is based around letting emotions guide my note choices. Always making sure what I write is true to my overall concept or theme for that song. I would say I wrote all of the tunes on my first album from the heart. Much of it was written on vacation, so it’s got a laid back vibe that a lot of people have told me they really enjoy.

Links:
Matthew Schroeder
Wisconsin Conservatory of Music