There can't be too many New Zealand guitarists who could confidently say they've made a comfortable living from playing their chosen instrument over a period spanning decades. Martin Winch certainly can, and now has a new album 'Guitar Song' to add to his list of credits.

You've almost certainly heard Martin Winch play, whether you realise it or not. His guitar has adorned literally thousands of TV and radio commercials such as Toyota's 'Welcome to my World' campaign. He has played with a vast array of blues, pop and jazz artists from here and abroad, toured with musicals such as Chicago, Jesus Christ Superstar and My Fair Lady, lent his fine touch to hundreds of local albums and even jammed with Nigel Kennedy. Latterly he's found genuine and quite major success with his multi-platinum selling 'Espresso Guitar' albums 1 and 2. As a man who confesses to being "...no good to myself if I'm not busy..." he has also taught jazz guitar at the Auckland University School of Music for the last five years.

While the 'Espresso Guitar' concept was one of rendering classic pop songs into an easy listening, classical guitar-based instrumental form, with his latest album release 'Guitar Song' Winch composed 10 of the 12 tracks himself.

I caught up with him at his secluded Birkdale home on Auckland's North Shore, location of Canongate Studios where 'Guitar Song' was written, produced and performed by Winch with engineering help from long-time right hand man Doug Jane. I kick things off by asking whether the runaway success of the 'Espresso' albums (sales of around 80,000 units in New Zealand and 35,000 in Australia), took him by surprise.

"What surprised me most is I've spent most of my life playing rock guitar or jazz guitar, and I ended up on a nylon string!

"It did surprise me, but see, I'm in this business to survive and I'm not interested in doing anything else. And so it was an opportunity, and if I actually like the idea I'll go after anything."

Whereas the 'Espresso' sessions were produced and arranged by Carl Doy, flush from the success of his own 'Piano by Candlelight', this time all the composition, production and performance duties were handled by Winch himself, with satisfying results.

"The thing that was starting to make me very uncomfortable was that my legacy was going to be this covers guitar player who'd had some success just playing other people's tunes. So I thought, 'Okay, if there's a market for me in that style of relaxed thing, I'll get in there and write it next time'. And I did and I'm really proud of it."

Winch did have the benefit of genuine marketing guru Murray Thom, once managing director of CBS Records New Zealand, founder of Personalised Plates, and the brains behind 'Piano by Candlelight'. Even so, it seems remarkable that they were able to tap into such a rich vein of a market. By rights you would expect there to be little room at the inn, so to speak. Winch has a valid explanation for their success.

"I've gotta be busy and I've gotta play, otherwise I will just fade away or sit and watch television. If you don't play you get rusty very quickly and it feels awful..."

"I don't think the [other] guitar albums that have been done, have been done as well. Not because the people couldn't play as well or whatever, they just seemed to get done in a hurry and they sound like that. So they go into that easy listening bin and it's just like 'Do them in a couple of days and get it out there'. But we spent a long time on it, a long time."

His approach to recording 'Guitar Song' comes across as an interesting combination of casual and methodical. He may be just playing away in front of the TV, picking notes out of a chord progression or singing a loose melody over the top. If he gets on to something with potential, even two or four bars, then it's down to Canongate Studios for the acid test. He then plugs his Godin MIDI guitar into a Roland sound module, and voila, piano.

"If I think I've really got something, the next thing I do is use the MIDI guitar and I'll then record that as a piano, and then I can sit and listen to what I've done objectively."

The guitar/piano (which sounds disconcertingly realistic), is then fed into a rather ancient-looking notating device which acts as a sequencer and also nips out any short notes accidentally triggered by the guitar.

"I really did develop some of those melodies on the last album - they really were quite rough to start with, some of them. You just keep changing little bits here and there, and you end up with something you really think is quite good."

He says he's not particularly interested in keeping tabs on up-to-the-minute studio gizmos, gesturing towards a rather out-of-work-looking Emulator, and agreeing that it's more important to have a good grasp on the gear you have got. Recording proper is carried out on Cubase SX through a couple of PCs, augmented by a nice array of outboard rack effects and mainly AKG mics.

I'm a little surprised to learn that the guitar responsible for the resonant tones of 'Espresso Guitar' and 'Guitar Song' is actually a Matsuoko bought for $300 in 1980, but he explains the sound Doug Jane captured via a purpose-built stereo mic holder was superior to the actual room sound of the instrument. Whatever works works, appears to be the lesson here.

While 'Guitar Song' has not been selling as well as its illustrious forebears - a lot to expect from an album of original instrumentals, Winch believes it will continue to sell steadily for some time, being somewhat immune to the ravages of music fashion.

With the ability to create highly marketable music in the comfort of his bushy hideaway, you might expect that Martin Winch - guitar slinger - would have given away the constant gigging and session work that he has thrown himself into for 35 years. Yes? Naaaaaaaaaa! as the Tui ad goes.

Martin Winch's Guitar Inventory  - Re-issue Stratocaster from the 80's with bridge humbucker  - 80's Strat with mini humbuckers  - Ibanez 'George Benson' jazz electric - semi-acoustic  - Gibson Les Paul Classic re-issue  - Rickenbacker 360 6-string electric  - Godin MIDI guitar  - Cort 12-string acoustic  - Martin acoustic  - Seagull 'parlour' guitar (very small)  - Masuko classical guitar

"No, I've gotta be busy and I've gotta play, otherwise I will just fade away or sit and watch television. If you don't play you get rusty very quickly and it feels awful and you go 'Grrrrr'. I don't practice now, I just, if anything, do a bit of warming up but nothing much compared to what I used to do."

To keep the rust at bay he does a fair bit of solo work such as opening for the 'Amici Forever' opera production in Wellington, Auckland and Christchurch recently, and teaming up with brother Rob (himself a mean guitarist), and mates Billy Kristian and Stuart Pearce for their much vaunted tribute to Eric Clapton. There's also his pop outfit featuring three female vocalists with Winch programming up the backing and laying down that tasty guitar. He just contributed to several tracks on pop diva-in-waiting Yulia's new album and the covers band is off to Napier tomorrow, so it doesn't look like Martin Winch is going to be fading away in front of the telly any day soon.

www.martinwinch.com