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Music Mentors - Who Helped You Make Better Music?


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Posted

Oh yes! I've had a few really influential mentors.

 

The first was my first "real" guitar teacher, Kent Lampa. He played nylon string classical and took me on a journey of the great composers of the past and made me aware of the spanish and sour american composers. In recent years I have tried to figure out how he taught me and why I responded so well to it. I just were so happy being in his classroom being included in his world.

 

Second one was my music teacher in Wayland, NY in 1976-1977 when I was studying at high school as an exchange student. Mr James Hauser was the person who made me realize that music was an integral part of who I am and that there wasn't anything I could not do if I really wanted to. And he pushed me to do things I would not have thought I could do. I would like him to know how much has has meant to me, but I haven't been able to locate him. So if anyone knows a music teacher by that name, please tell him.

 

Third was my guitar teacher at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Gothenburg, Bengt Sahlèn. He tried to teach me the inner voice of music. How to interpret a piece and make it my own. He tried in vain to make me find phrases I didn't see or hear. Until one day, something happened, I we both realized I had taken the first step. Bengt passed away many years ago, but I still think of him every time I write and record something and want to find the right phrasing.

 

Then there's a forth. He wasn't really a mentor but he really made an impact. His name is Hans Agrell and he was a substitute teacher in my music theory class at the Royal Conservatory. As he was only going to meet us 3 times I thought I could show him the first tune I ever wrote. As he was going to be there such a short time I figured it wouldn't hurt my grade if he didn't like it. So I brought the tune in notation and showed it to him. He played it through twice, turned to me and said "wow, you really have a talent for composing" and then left. I have never seen him since but since that day I have written numerous tunes and I love writing tunes and I'm not scared of sharing them.

 

Cheers,

 

Mats N

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1) My Jr High and then High School band director, Robert C Monroe. He taught me how to make music out of the notes and taught me how to listen to music.

 

I found him on the Internet, and contacted him when he was in his 70s. He not only remembered me, but remembered that I used to secure the mouthpiece with a little piece of paper, because my Mark VI always played sharp.

 

2) A sax player that unfortunately I cannot remember the name of. When I was 18 we were playing in a club - two bands - the white one and the black one (something for everybody?). Florida was still very segregated but the musicians never seemed to have problems with race.

 

Anyway, before gig we'd be in the back room (the blacks weren't allowed in the club so all the musicians hung out in the back room behind the stage) and this generous sax player taught me how to use throat distortion (he called it a hum tone) and how to use flatted 5s as passing tones in the blues. He was older with grey hair, I was a kid, and he used to say that he was the past and I was the future.

 

Anyway, when we got on stage, I'd play with the white band, and when the white band went on break I walked to the other side of the stage and played with the black guys.

 

The name of the club was "Lenny's Lounge" and it was in Fort Lauderdale Florida.

 

Thank you to all the teachers.

 

Insights and incites by Notes

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No mentors. Buncha boring assembly liners for public school and I developed no strong relationships with my private music teachers although I did manage to learn a few kilos of the tons they had to offer if not exactly their philosophies and motivations. I'm still a stubborn drummist at heart. Strangely it was a theory teacher that opened my head and allowed me to see music as a musician should. Brilliant guy.

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The only mentors I had were books. I've never had a music lesson.

 

The books:

Classical Guitar, © 1918 Williams Publishing

A Beatles-arranged-for-piano book my sister gave me when I was 10 (along with my first guitar, an all-plastic Eminee Hootenany).

 

The classical guitar one was pretty amazing; it laid a foundation for some of the inverted chord shapes I use today that my co-musicians tell me are 'indecipherable'.

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