WORKSHOP WITH TCHA LIMBERGER

THIS IS HOW I TEACH

An interactive session between Tcha and students with an aim to further knowledge in ensemble and individual playing, and mostly within a context of jazz, Hungarian, Transylvanian, Romanian and Gypsy music from the same regions. Tcha Limberger has taught all over the world, group or otherwise, advanced and inexperienced, including the Weimar summer school, L’academie d’été Neufchateau, Agios Lavrentios music village, Django in June USA, Grappilliez camp Holland and Gypsy jazz festival Taiwan.

Workshops can be held in Dutch, English, French, Hungarian, Romanian or German.

GROUP WORKSHOP – 5 PERSONS OR MORE
Requirements. Reasonable knowledge of your instrument and the courage to learn by ear.

PRIVATE TUITION – 1-2 PERSONS

IF YOU WANT TO BRING YOUR ENSEMBLE/GROUP/BAND, PRICE WILL VARY. FOR ENQUIRIES USE THE CONTACT FORM ON THIS SITE.

VIOLIN & GUITAR TOPICS COVERED
String players, in particular, are encouraged to come although all instrumentalists are welcome.

• Philosophical ‘what is jazz?’
• What is the Manouche element?
• What is it Django did that many don’t do today?
• Interpretation of melodies
• Finding ways through harmonies
• Group phrase repetition, playing by ear

WORKSHOP TECHNIQUES

• Listen and response.
The process of making music collectively amongst musicians in a group. The art of listening.
Clapping rhythms, banging them, moving on to instruments adding pitch to ideas.

• Rhythmic placements.
Practicing awareness of the various beats in a bar and shifting emphasis. Clapping again to start with, moving on to instruments when we have understood the feeling of each placement. Try to play a phrase, using each different placement to begin and end with, improving sense of the framework (bars, beats, form) in which the music exists allowing us greater freedom of expression.

• Rhythmic pattern in an odd meter.
Collective performance, using one simple scale as a harmonic start point, and an unusual time signature. Everybody, regardless of ability on their instrument or experience of improvising, can play a useful role in this piece. The less accomplished players can use a few notes from the scale to begin with. The advanced players can move away from the harmony if desired, super-imposing new harmony. Backings behind solos, dynamic variation, doubling and halving the feel can all occur in a sort of spontaneous orchestration!

• Other rhythms. Doina, Kopanica, Sirba, Csardas.

ADVANCED INSTRUMENTALISTS
It’s suggested that advanced instrumentalists could take take a private lesson but are encouraged to take part in the workshops also as they are about playing as a group rather than individual evolution.