Martin Lloyd Howard shares “Surrey Bells”

The guitar has always offered a way to tell stories without words for UK-based guitarist and composer Martin Lloyd Howard. Drawing on a background in classical music while embracing the melodic stylings of folk, blues and rock, he’s developed an instrumental style that places atmosphere and emotion alongside technical talent. His compositions explore how a sequence of notes can evoke a feeling, a landscape or a brief moment in time, resulting in a timeless sound that’s struck a chord with listeners across the UK and beyond.

His musical identity began in the classical world, where years of training shaped his understanding of tone, phrasing and dynamics. That context remains central to his output, particularly in the attention he gives to the spaces between notes; silence and restraint can carry as much expressive impact as a melody, allowing individual passages to breathe while his creative interests have gradually extended beyond classical traditions, introducing a wider fabric of sounds and textures into his work.

Acoustic and electric guitars now occupy complementary places within his compositions, with folk contributing a sense of melodic storytelling, while blues and rock offer different shades of energy and emotional colour. Martin is proficient on electric, acoustic and slide guitar but one instrument holds a particularly significant place in his creative life, a handmade classical guitar that’s now fifty years old.

Its nylon strings and accumulated history seem well suited to music built around subtle changes in tone, mood and atmosphere. Collaboration has also helped shape his journey, including his work with Mark Johnson, leader of Kent-based band The Midnight River Crew. Even when working alongside other musicians, Martin maintains an identifiable voice, combining accomplished playing with an expressive style that gives his compositions their emotional focus.

His recorded career began in 2020 with “The Night Train,” the first step in a growing catalogue that’s since attracted tens of thousands of streams. The figures offer one measure of his progress but the increasingly engaged audience around his music also points towards listeners drawn to the distinctive space he occupies within contemporary classical guitar. His recent single, “Surrey Bells,” presents original composition for two guitars, taking its inspiration from the sound of church bells travelling across the English countryside.

Recorded at home, Martin built the arrangement around his Tanglewood steel-string guitar, overdubbing parts to create a layered, resonant soundscape. The entire composition uses DADGAD tuning, giving the music a particular richness as its interlocking guitar lines form the character of the imagined setting. Martin pictures two sets of bells answering one another across a rural Surrey valley on a bright winter morning, with one guitar treated to sound distant and echoing, creating the impression of a reply arriving from across the landscape. The second part responds and the relationship between the two instruments becomes the centre of the composition.

Distance is not merely suggested through the arrangement, it becomes an essential part of the music’s structure, giving the listener a sense of space in which each phrase can travel and return. Flowing with lilting acoustic guitar notes, the song glides with chiming leads to cast a dreamy instrumental outing that’s delicate, soothing and utterly charming from start to finish. Offering another super showcase of his creativity and assured performance talent, “Surrey Bells” delivers a delightful musical moment that’s enjoyable and original from start to finish.

Across his work, Martin’s classical discipline and wider musical influences meet in a search for expressive possibility. “Surrey Bells” distils that pursuit into a composition shaped by tuning, texture and the suggestion of a landscape, with the guitar giving distance sound and atmosphere a physical shape.

Listen to Surrey Bells below

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