Education Articles

Amplifying your acoustic violin with acoustic violin pickups

Posted June 30, 2011 in Education

Hi Luis-

9 Comments - Leave a Comment »

Read more articles about acoustic violin, acoustic violin pickups, Amplifying your acoustic violin, Electric Violin Shop, violin, vnp-1

Performances set for the 8th annual Creative Strings Festival

Posted June 3, 2011 in Education, General Blog

Here’s the press release for this year’s festival. We’ve got 20 performances listed this year, and for the first time, we’re spilling over into comfest. Fun times.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Violinist Brings Music Workshop and Festival Home

—Columbus Native Offers workshop to musicians, music festival to Columbus —

Columbus, Ohio–Violinist Christian Howes, along with several world-class string players, will host the “Creative Strings Workshop and Festival” at Columbus College of Art and Design and many performance venues in the Central Ohio area, June 21-25.
Howes is a Columbus native who has garnered international attention as one of “the most intriguing young violinists in jazz” sharing stages with the likes of saxophonist Bill Evans, guitar legend Les Paul, and many other prominent jazz artists. The workshop is designed for adult string players (violin, cello, viola) with semi-pro and professional careers.. Participants in the workshop will perform several concerts at local venues alongside invited national guest artists and Columbus-based musicians
Working with Howes and his guest artists/teachers, participants live the life of a “creative” working musician during their week in Columbus. They quickly learn that the life of a gigging musician is hard work, and to keep growing, one must be versatile.
“The most important part of being a satisfied musician is having opportunities to be creative – ” says Howes. “ Violinists and cellists are typically trained to become orchestral players. This training doesn’t offer them the creative rewards of a career in jazz, r and b, pop, folk and world music. “The best way for string players to attain a more creative career is to get out and play creative music for real audiences in welcoming venues. Our workshop and festival has a symbiotic relationship with Columbus in that the city offers venues and an audience to the musicians who need it, while our musicians offer Columbus an enthusiasm that infects the community through expressive, rich, explorative music. Our presence will hopefully be felt in the music scene as an injection of “fresh spirit, which the audience picks up on. This is how music should enrich communities- often musicians are trapped in a “check in-check out” mentality. The workshop facilitates real expression.”
In addition to daily lessons and clinics, workshop participants will prepare for nightly gigs in bluegrass, jazz, blues, salsa, and other genres. Locally, Howes has scheduled performances at Comfest, Columbus Commons, the Bluegrass Music Shoppe, Dick’s Den, Park Street Tavern; Espresso Yourself Music Café, Global Gallery coffee shop, Pearl Market. “We will perform both as self-contained ensembles as well as in collaboration with established local groups.”
In addition to Howes, instructors/guest artists will include: cellists Marcelo Vieira and Cloudio Peña; jazz violinists Jason Anick, and Billy Contreras, bluegrass and oldtime fiddler Andy Reiner, keyboardist Hamilton Hardin, and drummer Cedric Easton, and guitarist Paul Brown. A seasoned battery of local support musicians will provide further accompaniment.
Having lived and performed in Brooklyn for the past 10 years (including as a regular contributor to Les Paul’s gigs at New York’s famed Iridium) Howes has recently returned to his hometown of Columbus to regain his roots.
“I have ties in Columbus; I have a vested interest in giving back to the community which nurtured me and my career. Columbus is a model city for musicians in the sense that it hosts many relaxed venues and great musicians of many styles. It’s logistically easier to get around and pull something like this off. In NYC, it would be impossible to gain access to so many venues. Many of the restaurants and clubs in Columbus are venues that I’ve played in over the years before my career expanded into the touring schedule I now maintain”

The following venues will host concerts in affiliation with the Creative Strings Festival:
Dick’s Den
June 21 – 25 10 pm – 2 am

Tuesday June 21
Pearl Market 11 am – 1:30 pm
Park Street Tavern 8:30 pm – 12 am

Wednesday June 22
Columbus Commons 12 – 1:30 pm
North Market – 12:30 – 2 pm
Global Gallery Coffee Shop 7-9 pm
Espresso Yourself Music Cafe 7-9 pm

Thursday June 23
North Market – 12:30 pm – 2 pm
Global Gallery Coffee Shop 7-9 pm
Espresso Yourself Music Cafe 7-9 pm
McConnel Arts Center 8-10 pm

Friday June 24
Pearl Market 11 am – 1:30 pm
Saturday June 25
Clintonville Farmer’s Market 10:30 – noon
Bluegrass Musician’s Supply Shop 10am – 2pm
McConnel Arts Center (Youth Program Showcase) 12:30 – 2 pm
Comfest Jazz Stage 3:40-4:40 pm

IF YOU’RE COMING:

What: Creative Strings Festival
When: June 21 – 25, 2011
Where: Columbus College of Art and Design

Leave a Comment »

Read more articles about bluegrass, jazz, jazz violinist, oldtime fiddler, string player

Jazz violin give-aways; improvisation secrets revealed

Posted June 1, 2011 in Education, General Blog

I’m giving away lot’s of stuff today. To receive even more presents, enter your email address into the form on top of the right sidebar on this page!

On to the first wave of gifts:

GIFT #1) this video http://christianhowes.com/2011/05/28/how-to-improvise-easily-with-confidence-for-classical-string-players/

which shows how a nine year-old girl can achieve a 100% success rate with improvising diatonic melodies. You can take off, using the worksheet, and do LOT’s but first, read on…

Gift #2) Secrets revealed :

1)beginning with a “scale-based” approach to improvisation really DOESN’T WORK, beyond a very limited scope…

2) some jazz violinists try to improvise based on their knowledge of arpeggios in root position and

THIS DOESN’T WORK EITHER.

3)What DOES WORK is using voice-led chord tones as the basis of any  improvised melody in just about any style of music.

In case you’re wondering, to “voice lead” is to resolve from any note in a given chord to a nearby note in another chord.

This sounds simple, right?? Why do you struggle with it?

Most likely you never internalized/memorized chords in extended range and all inversions. For most classically trained string players, no one ever explained a system or gave you a tool like the worksheet Camille uses in the video above.

These exercises will make your life easier if you’re a classically trained musician learning to play jazz violin,viola, or cello (as well as blues, rock, and a wide variety of styles.)

The Creative Strings Academy now provides an easy-to-use curriculum.

Just click here:
http://christianhowes.com/2011/05/27/finally-online-jazz-violin-lessons/

These online video lessons share everything I know about improvisation, harmony, technique, gear, the music biz, and more.

 

Are you a Creative String Player?!

 

Leave a Comment »

Read more articles about creative string, creative string players, creative strings lesson videos, Creative Strings Workshop, jazz violin, jazz violinist

My Editorial in Strings Magazine – Let’s Rebrand “Alternative Styles” Strings

Posted May 30, 2011 in Education, General Blog

For those of you that haven’t picked up the July issue of Strings Magazine, here is a re-posting of my article

We need a clear, positive definition about what is missing from traditional classical-music education, including improvisation.

By Christian Howes

Christian Howes advocates for ‘creative string playing.’

(String players interested in studying my teaching related to improvisation, harmony, gear, music biz and more, check out my new Creative Strings Lesson Videos here
http://christianhowes.com/2011/05/27/finally-online-jazz-violin-lessons/)

The so-called ‘alternative styles’ movement needs to be rebranded and a clear manifesto declared. In fact, the term itself is misleading and confusing. What does it really stand for? What are its members advocating? It’s like a political party without a clear message.

Much like a “party of no,” the term seems to rely on its opposition to the status quo of classical-music education, rather than standing for something. Like “alternative rock” or “alternative schools,” this term can only last for so long. Let’s find a clear, positive purpose, instead of saying “we are the other guys. ”

I mean, sure, I get that the movement advocates for the legitimacy of musical styles outside of classical music. But isn’t there more to it?

The term itself begs all sorts of other questions. For example, just which styles qualify as alternative? We should take a more comprehensive look at what’s been missing from classical-music education and encourage the development of these skill sets and knowledge.

But first, let me say, I’m both a proud Suzuki dad and a classically trained violinist. I’m on your side! I’m grateful for all the things I learned from my classical teachers. But there were some things missing, and these are what proponents of alternative styles should stand for.

1. Teach improvisation and composition

Classical-music education does not generally encourage or foster creativity in these ways. I would argue that improvisation and composition are among the most valuable aspects of music making and music education, and that this idea is in line with the value that every person is unique, with his or her unique contribution to make. Improvisation and composition should be valued as highly, or more highly, than anything else. After all, creativity is the ultimate equalizer (for example, there are many violinists who might play faster than me and more in tune, but because I’ve practiced so much improvisation, there is no one who can sound like me).

The cellist at the back of the section will always feel inferior to the principal cellist when measured only according to orchestral repertoire, but if the same cellist is encouraged to create his or her own music, then that musician also can be judged in terms of originality.

Think about your favorite artists. The Beatles, Joni Mitchell, and Jimi Hendrix all stand out based on their originality and not just their virtuosity.

A common purist response to this notion goes something like this: before we teach improvisation, a student must first learn proper technique. But I’ve never heard any justification for this claim. In fact, I’d suggest that creativity, when taught early, helps to build better technique.

2. Teach the theoretical and analytical understanding of Music’s construction

Let’s face it, most classical musicians can’t listen to a song and tell you how it’s put together (i.e., the chords, the bass line, the groove). Mozart could do this because he understood how the various components of music fit together. Jazz musicians can do this because they train themselves to listen to the chord progression, the rhythmic clave, the bass lines, and so on, within the music. So they can take a song apart and put it back together.

Improvising over tonal music requires some kind of understanding about how chord progressions work and how to create a melody that goes over a chord progression. In free jazz, or avant-garde improvised music, chord progressions aren’t going to be an issue. But when talking about most popular tonal music, a musician needs to have some ability to analyze harmony, namely chords, in order to formulate an approach to improvising over chord progressions.

if you are interested in learning more about string improvisation, I recommend my new lesson videos plan

or check out the Creative Strings Workshop

At age 13, I was proud of the “ears” I had developed from my Suzuki training, but grew to find that my relative pitch had come with serious limitations, including an inability to pick out chords. Yet ear training and theory can be taught and studied in a way that yields a much higher return on our investment as string players.

To read the rest of what I wrote, please go to the article in Strings Magazine here:
article

To learn directly from me about improvisation, harmony, gear, music biz and more, check out my new Creative Strings Lesson Videos here
http://christianhowes.com/2011/05/27/finally-online-jazz-violin-lessons/

The Creative Strings video lessons are a great tool for learning improvisation and harmony on the violin for beginning and more advanced improvisers, and for everyone in between (like me!). The videos and Violin Harmony handbook really help fill in the gaps that other traditional improvisational systems leave. It’s wonderful to finally have a method specifically tailored to improvising on the violin that really understands the nuances of the instrument and can deliver the content in a fun, easy and creative way. Thank you Christian for sharing your knowledge and making this available to anyone who wishes to learn to improvise!

This is especially worthwhile for any string players (violinists, cellists, violists, etc…) interested in things such as jazz violin, blues cello, playing bluegrass on viola, free improvised music , etc…

3 Comments - Leave a Comment »

Read more articles about alternative styles, blues cello, Creative Strings Workshop, free improvised music, jazz violin, playing bluegrass on viola, strings magazine, teach improvisation

How to improvise easily, with confidence- for classical string players

Posted May 28, 2011 in Education

Cut through the fog and learn the secrets of easy tonal improvisation!

This is a (free)video for classically trained string players who have struggled with harmony and want to begin to learn improvisation. This is one video in a series of 8 with accompanying worksheet and audio backing tracks.

You can get the whole series at the shop

OR you can get access to this plus DOZENS MORE videos, the 75-page VIolin Harmony Handbook, and instruction by signing up now for my new Video Lessons (30 day money back guarantee, cancel anytime) at the member purchase page
(Hint- this is a really affordable way to for players at all levels to study directly with me !):)

Get more free stuff here:

For anyone who wants to learn jazz violin, blues violin, jazz cello, blues cello, how to improvise on violin, etc….

Leave a Comment »

Read more articles about blues cello, blues violin, how to improvise on violin, jazz cello, jazz violin

« Previous Articles

Newer Articles »