Staff profile

staff list  BackMr James Dean

  • Job title: Senior Lecturer
  • Dept: Music and Performing Arts
  • Tel: 01843 609169
  • Campus: Broadstairs
James Dean

James Dean

Programme Director for BA Commercial Music and BA/BSc Music Technology (combined honours) programmes.

BA (Hons) in Commercial Music

BA/BSc (Hons) in Music Production

James studied the electric guitar with session guitarists David Goodes and Malcolm MacFarlane, and classical guitar with Jeff Alexander. With wide-ranging experience as a freelance guitarist both in the studio and in public performance James regularly performs live with a range of groups and artists in jazz, pop and rock settings and has also featured as a soloist with The City of Canterbury Symphony Orchestra.

As Programme Director for the Commercial Music and Music Technology programmes much of James's time is spent at the Broadstairs campus where he teaches Performance at levels 2 and 3, Melodic Improvisation in Theory and Practice, Popular Music Analysis and Individual Study. On the BMus degree programme in Canterbury he teaches Jazz and Popular Styles and Jazz Performance, Arrangement and Composition. James also teaches the electric guitar at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, and directs the Jazz-Fusion group as part of the Commercial Music degree.

Whilst completing an MMus at Surrey University James pursued research interests in jazz improvisation techniques, particularly in regard to guitarist Pat Metheny. His dissertation was entitled 'Pat Metheny's Finger Routes: An examination of left hand technique and its role in the composition of guitar improvisations'.

James has also transcribed and arranged music for Music Sales Ltd, with his publications being distributed and sold worldwide. Some examples of these guitar tablature arrangements include:

James' song arrangements have also been included in the newly revised editions of The Complete Guitar Player Songbooks and a series of chord songbooks including The Beach Boys, The Everly Brothers, Avril Lavigne and The Doors.   In addition James has provided arrangements for a number of collections such as 21st Century Rock, 'buskers books' and some of his transcriptions have appeared in 'Guitar Techniques' magazine.