California Guitar Trio (CGT) is an acoustic–electric band formed in Los Angeles in 1991 with the aim of expanding the potential of acoustic guitars played in the New standard tuning (NST) introduced by Robert Fripp on Guitar Craft courses. The California Guitar Trio’s core lineup consisted of Paul Richards, Bert Lams, and Hideyo Moriya. Today’s CGT lineup includes founding members Richards and Lams, with the addition of Tom Griesgraber, a Chapman Stick virtuoso. Highly regarded instrumentalists, the CGT have achieved worldwide renown for their eclectic repertoire, precision arrangements, and expansive sonic palette. The California Guitar Trio has toured globally for over three decades, performing more than 2,000 concerts. CGT has released 21 albums, with their music being streamed over 120 million times on Pandora, Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music.

New standard tuning (NST) is an alternative tuning for the guitar that approximates all-fifths tuning. The guitar's strings are assigned the notes C2-G2-D3-A3-E4-G4 ; the five lowest open strings are each tuned to an interval of a perfect fifth {(C,G),(G,D),(D,A),(A,E)}; the two highest strings are a minor third apart (E,G).