Alonso Padorn

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Biography

Alonso began playing music at age 10, starting on piano. He studied piano with an instructor for about a year, studying classical works such as Mozart, Beethoven, and others. Though he made swift progress on the piano, he became enticed by the sounds of rock and popular music and eventually discontinued studying piano. A few years later, he studied the rudiments of percussion but soon became disinterested in playing only a practice pad.

Soon thereafter, a friend showed Alonso a few chords of a song on a guitar, and he was immediately captivated. That summer (1986), the Padrons visited family friends in Connecticut. The friends said that they had an old classical guitar that had been in the closet collecting dust. Alonso told them he would love to play it, so they got it out. He played it for hours and hours during the next two days, playing the same song over and over. He became hooked on guitar from that moment forward and the friends said that he could keep the guitar since he liked it so much.

Alonso studied guitar on my own for a few months, learning songs by ear, then studied guitar for another year with an instructor. After that he studied guitar arduously on my own until 1989. While studying at University of Georgia, he decided to foray into other styles of guitar as well. In 1989 he took courses in music history, theory, and applied studies. Studies in music history included analysis of many classical works, which spawned Alonso's interest in that genre of music as well. As a result, he undertook his own studies in the classical finger picking guitar style.

By 1994 Alonso had written and recorded a rough demo of 5 instrumental finger picking guitar pieces. In 1995 he continued writing original works and recorded a demo of 5 original rock compositions entitled Shades. Because he likes to have a lot of control over his artistic endeavors, Alonso wrote and put the parts together himself for the recordings using a Fostex 4-track recording machine. He wrote parts for drums, bass, guitar, and vocals, and performed everything myself, except for the vocals.

Between 1995-1996, Alonso began recording the beginnings of what was to become the Cycles album. A couple of songs were recorded at that time and were kept in the vaults while he pursued other musical endeavors, including playing guitar for a couple of different bands. One band was a cover band called Scattered, Smothered and Covered who performed an array of different rock covers from Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, and Rush to The Clash, Smashing Pumpkins and U2. The other was a rock/funk/soul band called the Street Poets. They played various shows throughout the state of Georgia in places such as Athens, Atlanta, and Carollwood. Alonso also recorded lead guitar parts for 5 songs on the band’s 1998 CD release.

After playing with Street Poets for about 9 months, Alonso realized he had a desire to be more involved in composing and songwriting, as well as focusing on Latin/Spanish guitar. He left the Street Poets and formed a duo of Latin/Spanish instrumental guitars called Los Sonidos. The duo performed a hybrid mix of originals, Latin/Spanish standards, and rock songs adapted to a modern Flamenco style. They performed for a year at various restaurants and private parties until Alonso's partner in the duo moved out west.

In 2000 Alonso decided to record and produce his own CD of Latin/Spanish instrumental guitar entitled Soledad. On this CD, he recorded three original works and three standards of other composers’ works. He also continued playing solo guitar on a regular basis at restaurants, art galleries, and private parties.

Having completed Soledad by the year 2001, Alonso continued to work on the Cycles album project begun in 1996. Cycles was completed in 2006. This album has an array of different musical influences ranging from pop and folk, to new age and classical.

Alonso has been teaching guitar since 1993 to students of varying ages and an array of styles. See the Lessons page for more details. He also performs solo guitar in both jazz and flamenco styles, and plays occasionally with the Lapis Duo which is a violin-guitar duo that is available for all types of events..