Welcome to the official homepage of Matthew Grasso: improviser, composer, arranger, and musical instrument innovator. Matt plays the Extended 7-String classical guitar and unique 25-string Raga Guitar.

Here you will find audio samples from his CDs, and sample scans of his scores (both original compositions and guitar arrangements of other works).

If you live in Northern California, be sure to check out his upcoming concerts.

Raga Guitar on the mend...
On Friday February 26th 2010, I took my Raga Guitar to the Ali Akbar College Store to have a jawari bridge installed for my sympathetic strings to give the instrument an added accent. There is a noted Indian instrument repair artist who has also done some incredible add-ons to acoustic guitars to bring the sound closer to the music of India. After seeing some of his work, I became inspired to add the jawari bridge to my instrument. At first we took a jawari bridge from a sitar to put under my sympathetic strings, and lo and behold it sounded quite good. However, the bridge needed some fine tuning, so I chose to leave the store to return in a few hours to pick up the instrument.

When I returned, it turned out that the Raga guitar was left on a work bench and somehow fell off and hit the ground. Thus cracking the face completely open and destroying the instrument. The craftsman was completely in tears and even hyperventilating. I took one look at my instrument and thought, “spiritus sanctos”.

For the time being, I remained rather zen about the situation and thought Scott Richter could rebuild this. Coincidently enough Scott lived 10 minutes from the store and I took him the guitar to examine. Scott said: “it’s just a piece of wood and I can rebuild it.” Scott is very is busy with many projects this year and is not sure when he will finish rebuilding the instrument. The craftsman offered to pay for the damages. In the meantime, I am attempting to have a just fingerboard installed on an old 6-string guitar so I don’t go through withdrawls while awaiting the return of my Raga guitar. The equal temperment is killing my ears.

New Guitar!
Waylin Carpenter has just finished a new 7-string for Matt. It is a shorter scale length than his previous guitars(614mm from 650). To find out more about Waylin and his work, check out this great article from the Sacramento Bee!

A Celebration of the 7-String Guitar!
The Day Of The 7-String (July 7th, or 07-07) has passed for another year... Thanks to all who joined in for the fantastic celebration of 7-String guitars and beyond at Watermelon Music! See you again next year!

Buy Matt's Albums Online
Head over to ClassicalYou to purchase the following albums online:

• Intimate Settings
• Pictures at an Exhibition
• Music for the
  Extended 7-String Guitar

You can listen to clips of each track off of all these albums, so be sure to stop by!

Videos!
Check out these videos of Matt:

The Raga Guitar, explained
... also in a higher quality version.

Papamagama, featuring the Raga Guitar
part 1 | part 2 | part 3

Pavane For A Dead Princess

Adagio in G minor for organ and strings

The Five Deadly Talas
The new Nada Brahma album has been released!

To order, call (530) 759-9071 or email

You can also order the album and hear samples from all five tracks on CDBaby!

(click for larger version)

Album Review
Learn more about "Music for the Extended 7-String Guitar" in this new album review.

Article on Mel Bay's Guitar Sessions!
Check out Matt's article, "Playing the Extended 7-String Classic Guitar" on Mel Bay's website. If you're unfamiliar with the 7-string and want to know more, this is a great place to start! Also, be sure to check out an article by luthier Gregory Byers on "Construction of an Extended 7-String Guitar" . Be sure not to miss out on these excellent resources!