The extended 7-string guitar has a low seventh-string and 22 frets on the first-string. This instrument has one octave more melodic range and greater harmonic/contrapuntal possibilitiesthan the traditional 6-string guitar.

The 25-stringed guitar called the "Raga Guitar" is a unique innovation of Matthew's. This instrument is a hybrid of an extended 7-string guitar and the Indian instrument, the Sarod. There are 7-playing strings, 12-sympathetic strings, 2 chikari and 4 jawari strings. This instrument is also using a just intonation fingerboard.

These instruments provide Matthew with myriad possibilities for transcription, composing and improvising.

Born in 1972 of Chinese and Italian ancestry, Matthew began playing guitar at the age of twelve. He attended the San Francisco Conservatory of Music where he studied with Scott Tennant and Lawrence Ferrara. Matthew participated in master classes held by artists including Eliot Fisk, David Russell, and the L.A. Guitar Quartet. Matthew complemented this training by studying the classical music of North India at the Ali Akbar College of Music with Ustad Ali Akbar Khan.

Matthew has contributed to the classical guitar repertory by transcribing numerous works for the Extended 7-String Guitar, including Barber's Adagio for strings; Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite; Dvorak's Nocturne; Debussy's Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun; Rachmaninoff's Symphony no.2; Bach's Chaconne; and other works for violin and piano.

Matthew developed a new style of playing entitled Indian classical fusion. This combines elements of north and south Indian music. In this style he has conceived new talas (rhythmic cycles) such as 10 1/2, 27 1/2, 9 1/4, and 5 1/2. This music can be heard on his "Raga Guitar" with his group, Nada Brahma Music Ensemble.

Matthew performs and lectures throughout Northern California. He was a soloist with the Solano Symphony, Davis High School String Orchestra, and has played with the Sacramento Youth Symphony Premier Orchestra. His recordings include two CDs of original compositions, Intimate Settings (1995) and Echoes of a Lake (1999) as well as his transcription of Moussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition (2001), and Music for the Extended 7-String Guitar (2006). In addition to recordings, Matthew has published music scores of his own compositions and transcriptions, and has published "Playing the Extended 7-String Guitar" in Mel Bay's Guitar Sessions.

Matthew is on the faculty at Sacramento City College, The Experimental College of U.C. Davis, and teaches privately. He currently resides in Davis, California.

Matthew's website can be found at:

http://www.cambium.com/matthewgrasso