pete

Pete Langman was born far too long ago for his liking, and has since crawled his way, tooth and claw, into his fifties. He’s beginning to think that this may have been unwise.
Since this first appearance on this benighted globe, he has managed to do a few things, most of which he’s either forgotten or repressed.
Having taken to heart a teacher’s comment that ‘schools weren’t designed for the likes of Pete’, he tried a few for size, including an unsuccessful stint at military academy, where he got into trouble a lot. A couple of years after the enforced withdrawal of his academic gifts from Nottinghamshire’s military fast track, during which time he learnt how to paint houses and pull pints, he found himself in Los Angeles, armed solely with a stratocaster and a trilby: ample equipment to allow for his initiation into the secret arts of rock and roll guitar heroism.
He subsequently spent his twenties treading the boards as a guitar mangler, teaching budding axeologists, and writing articles about how one might most efficiently spank one’s plank. Finding that the acme of his career was looking like being a sideman on the 70s reunion circuit, he refused at the final fence, wrote a book or two, bumbled through an undergraduate degree in English, and accidentally ended up ‘doing’ a phd on Francis Bacon (the other Francis Bacon). No, really, it just kinda happened. He has also been spotted moonlighting as a tour guide and a theatre sound engineer, amongst other things.
The olive groves of academe, however, proved less than accommodating, and while Dr Langman has lectured at the Central School of Speech and Drama, Queen Mary, Brunel University, Sussex University, Goldsmiths College and even Oxford, Pete Langman has been busy working as a tour guide, a theatre sound engineer, an e-learning scriptwriter and a producer of educational videos, amongst other things. If he’s good at anything, however, it’s scribbling.
He began professional scribblage at Guitar and Bass magazine, for whom he wrote some sixty tuition columns before becoming techniques editor. Since hanging up his strat, he’s contributed random features and interviews of various guitar demiurges. These he writes to this day. He has also written for The Independent and Prospect, as well as having two letters published in the Guardian. A close friend of his, Trenchard Cleats, has been known to contribute to the odd blog, and may well be turning up here every now and then.
In what spare time he has, he likes to play cricket (indeed, he’s a qualified coach), practise the odd martial art (originally in order to defend himself from his ginger cat, but since the latter’s sad demise, the need has become less immediate), and look at his guitars wondering what went wrong. He also likes to work on perfecting his bad habits. Some of which he quite likes. He was diagnosed with Parkinson’s early in 2008, which irritated him somewhat. He has written the odd book, and even been interviewed on TMS.
Pete currently lives in the Netherlands, and likes it.
Want to know anything else? Well hey, just ask.

11 thoughts on “pete

  1. Pingback: Special Sunday Guest Feature…Personal Accounts: “The Longest Wait” reproduced with permission from author Pete Langman « Dopadoc's Parkinson's Journal

  2. Pingback: The Experience of Developing/Having Parkinson’s Disease « Dopadoc's Parkinson's Journal

  3. Pingback: The Experience of Developing/Having Parkinson's Disease | Dopadoc's Parkinson's Journal

  4. Hi Pete,
    Finally got around to reading some of your stuff. Of course I navigated to the Slut one, well its in my nature to go for the murkiest looking title. I quite enjoyed that and even more the banter that came with it.The moon on a stick went a bit over my head but I am after all a bit of a thicky!!
    I also have a ginger cat but I do not need to fend him off with Martial Arts moves, I find the high pitch scouse shriek often does the job.
    Sherry
    x

  5. Pingback: Pete Langman's Parkinson's story, the longest wait | .............Dopadoc's Parkinson's Journal

  6. Hello Pete,

    I have been a student around 98 when MIT switched to LMS. I always enjoyed your wonderful lessons and they stuck with me since today.
    Now I am music teacher too and try to help upcoming guitarists on their music travel.
    You handed us out those great lessons like “Taming of the Legato Beast” and so on. Is there any (a slight chance) you still have those lessons somewhere around ? And if so , could you hand me a copy of them. I want to teach them the same stuff you taught me once.
    That would be so awesome.

    Good luck on your journey and I wish you nothing but the best.

    Yours,
    Thorsten “the crazy German” Schwalb

  7. Hey Pete!

    I just wanted to drop by and let you know that I got a hand on your teaching material from the early ’90s via Aris, who I believe is a former student of yours, and it’s helping me a lot! It’s great fun to do these exercises and even after quite some years of playing, this is helping me expand my technique and speed.
    You’re still inspiring and helping people after 20 years!

    Thanks for that!
    Cheers!
    Michiel

    p.s. Thorsten Schwalb; I believe this is the material you are talking about. I could make some pictures and send them to you if you’re still looking for it 🙂

  8. Hi Pete

    It was somewhat out of nowhere that I decided to look you up. I had been a student of yours many years back on a 10 week course at the Musicians Institute in Wapping (I won’t even pretend that you might remember me…) and I was trying to recall your name as I sat here strumming my guitar!

    I always admired your playing but in all honesty that course at the MI was too advanced for me and can still recall how I started to feel overwhelmed as you started to explain “the cycle of 5ths”. By the time you got me to improvise a solo in class it had dawned on me that maybe I should have chosen drums.

    I was saddened to see that guitar features less in your life and gutted for you to read that Parkinson’s has raised it’s ugly head. As someone who has had to face the trials of cancer I will only say, keep researching, look beyond the scope of allopathic medicine and don’t give up! (Happy to talk about this should you be inclined…)

    As for me, well guitar still figures in my life but I never reached the dizzy heights of speed widdling and fret tapping as ably demonstrated by you! Some of your teaching did stay with me however and these days I do perform as a singer guitarist; something that took many more years of practice after your course but was worth the wait.

    Wishing you the best of luck and health Pete. Thank you for the inspiration all those years back!

  9. Hello Pete
    I learned how to sweep pick from your Guitar Articles While My Guitar Gently Sweeps. I started to search for you because I cannot find those 1995 issues. Is it possible to send me or post pdf or better copies of the articles? I tried opening/saving/printing the images on this site but they are pretty much unreadable. I was looking to share the articles with my students. Thanks so much, Skip

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *