About

Mark Marrington is a writer, teacher and guitarist based in the North of England. He is currently an Associate Professor in Music Production in the Faculty of Arts at York St John University (m.marrington@yorksj.ac.uk).

Mark has published articles and chapters with Cambridge University Press, Bloomsbury Academic, Routledge, Future Technology Press, British MusicSoundboardClassical Guitar, the Musical Times and the Journal on the Art of Record Production. His research is currently focused on the following areas: digital technologies in music creation and production – principally Digital Audio Workstations – and their role in shaping contemporary popular music in genres ranging from EDM to metal; theories underlying music production practice; songwriting pedagogy and its relationship to practice; ideologies in music pedagogy with particular reference to music technology; the contemporary classical guitar, its history and repertoire; British classical music in the 20th century. His recently completed book, Recording the Classical Guitar, won Best History in the category Best Historical Research on Recorded Classical Music in the 2022 Association for Recorded Sound Collections Awards for Excellence.

During the 1990s and early 2000s Mark was also involved in writing and publishing pedagogical material for the guitar. He co-authored Guitar from Scratch with Christopher Norton (Boosey and Hawkes, 1999) and also performed and arranged the music for the accompanying CD. In 2004 he acted as a consultant for Usborne on a new series of books, Guitar Tunes for Children, and in the same year Mel Bay published his book of classical guitar arrangements, Nineteen Gilbert and Sullivan Favorites. In addition, Mark has worked as a freelance music typesetter on publications by Cambridge University Press (Julian Rushton’s Elgar: Enigma Variations), Boosey and Hawkes (the book, Guitar from Scratch), The Consort (early music journal) and for numerous private individuals.

Mark taught guitar privately in Leeds from 1996 and 2001 and also worked as a peripatetic guitar teacher for Roundhay Music (North Leeds) and later Calderdale local authority.  He taught at Leeds College of Music between 1998-2011, initially at Further Education level and then Higher Education for undergraduate and Masters degree levels, on a variety of music-related modules across the Classical, Jazz, Popular Music and Music Production degrees offered by the college. More recently he was a Teaching Fellow and the Programme Manager for the BSc Music, Multimedia and Electronics at the University of Leeds, School of Electronic and Electrical Engineering (2011-15). He has also worked as an external examiner for the University of Brighton (BA Creative Music Production at City College), the University of Hertfordshire (BSc Music Technology Programme), the University of Chester (MA Popular Music) and the Institute of Contemporary Music Performance (BA Creative Music Production).