Author Information

Norman Kelton started taking private guitar lessons at the age of eight and began playing the pedal steel guitar professionally with the top bands in Fresno, California at the age of fifteen.  Norman always had the desire to learn more and more about the theory of music and took music theory lessons from many top Jazz musicians along with a correspondence course from Berklee School of Music.

In those days, only the very few top guitar artists knew a symmetrical system of playing the steel and standard electric guitar.  During this time, Norman created a symmetrical system of how to apply music theory to the standard electric guitar using positions (chords, scales and licks).

In 1956, Norman started teaching private guitar lessons. Between 1960 and 1970, Norman opened two guitar studios.  The first Kelton Guitar Studio was in Fresno, California.  The guitar studio grew to, in excess of, four-hundred students taking private lessons weekly (which required several guitar instructors).  Then, Norman opened a second guitar studio in Sunnyvale, California.  The business motto was (and still is) "Your Progress Is Our Reputation".  Today, Norman has many past guitar students who are top-notch professional musicians playing Country, Rock, Blues and Jazz.

Smooth Jazz has always been Norman's favorite style of music.  However, he could always make more money creating musical arrangements for recording studios, playing on TV, and playing with Country dance bands, including some of the old-time Bob Wills musicians.

Norman has always loved seeing a novice guitar "picker" take lessons, learn music theory, and apply the theory to the guitar.  The "Norman Kelton Guitar Method" (for standard electric guitar) shows the beginning guitar enthusiast and/or those "seasoned pickers" how to go about learning the guitar (using basic music theory) with a symmetrical system of playing chords, scales, licks and improvising (learn to play a song in any key).

In order to help the students progress much faster and keep interested, Norman created the Pickin' Pal MIDI Player software that plays MIDI (Musical Instrument Data Interface) files.  The student can play the exercises, licks and songs in the book (after tuning-up with the MIDI file) along with a MIDI Combo (with or without the melody), starting at a very slow tempo and gradually increasing the tempo faster, faster, and faster.  This "play-along-with" method has proven to be the very best way to properly develop the guitar student's technique.

You may contact Norman Kelton at: norman@pickinpal.com