How to Be a Better Overall Musician

Be a Better Overall Musician

“I really appreciate all the tips and tricks you have given me. It has already helped me so much. Keep teaching those workshops! I hope you do another tour in Utah soon that i could come to. Your cd Breakfast By Myself is great!”

….. Carson Natter, Park City, Utah 🙂

” Spook made a great impression upon all the participants, regardless of their skill level – not an easy task, but he did it with ease and grace! We really enjoyed having this gifted teacher and performer back for another workshop!”

….. Jean Bayou , President, Songwriters Association of Washington

Wouldn’t it be nice if there were a comprehensive workshop that addressed the wide range of the qualities that add up to great musicianship? Well, this is it. A few simple techniques to improve a song a little, a new technique or two to learn on your instrument or learning a way to present your song a little more effectively can drastically improve your overall musicianship.

This workshop is a combination of:
Simple Measures for Drastic Guitar Playing Improvement
Effective Stage Presence
and Secrets of Songwriting.”

In this workshop, I ask as many attendees to perform a song as we can fit in the allotted time. The attendee chooses any or all of the three disciplines to be critiqued. For example, if the someone picks all three and then performs a song, I will discuss ideas of how the song can best be presented, ranging from tweaks in the song itself, to guitar techniques that will work best with the song, to performance techniques that will allow the performer to put the song front and center. All attendees are sure to leave the workshop better overall musicians, learning not only from the individual attention they get, but also from watching others perform and seeing what does and doesn’t work.

About the instructor:

Spook Handy has written hundreds of songs and performed over 2000 concerts in his 20+ year career. His songs have been covered by dozens of other artists including Pete Seeger. He has won numerous awards and accolades including “Best Folk Artist” by Upstage Magazine, Gannett New Jersey, The Courier News, The Home News and About.com.

Spook has recorded five CDs with his most recent, “Pete, Woody & Me, Volume I – Keep the Flame Alive,” released in June, 2016, currently # 3 on the International Folk Radio Charts.  The song “Banks of Marble” from this CD reached # 3.  His song “Vote” hit # 6 on the International Folk Radio Charts in November, 2012. Spook has also written music for theater and film.

Since 1985, Spook has organized and/or MCed over 1300 musical events including New Jersey’s longest ever running open mic, “The Spook Handy Show” which ran from 1985 to 2005. He has MCed “Freehold Idol” in Freehold, NJ and “Idol Search” in Little Falls, NJ. In that time, he’s seen over 3000 musicians perform, has heard probably 10,000 songs and has developed quite an eye for effective stage presence and good songwriting.

Additional notes:

* Each discipline can be taught in a single workshop or a series; compacted to as short as 90 minutes or extended to as long as you’d like; or formatted in any other way to meet your needs.

* Workshops can be offered to the General Public or for Teen Only. “Teens Only” workshops are available in order to help create safe spaces and help build a sense of teen community.

* Private lessons are also offered

Book a workshop and attend for free!

Spook likes to accommodate those folks who would really love to attend workshops but have a limited budget. If you arrange for your musicians or songwriters group or any group to sponsor a workshop Spook would be happy to waive your fee. Contact Spook for more details.