UPCOMING HOLIDAYS:
MARDI GRAS - FEB 13 (OPEN), VALENTINE'S DAY - FEB 14 (OPEN), PRESIDENT'S DAY - FEB 19 (OPEN)
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THANK YOU FOR ANOTHER FABULOUS YEAR!
IF YOU WERE ONE OF THE 358 NEW STUDENTS THAT FOUND US IN 2017 - CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR DECISION TO MAKE MORE MUSIC!
And speaking of gratitude and recognition, we have decided to not only use this newsletter to share information & announcements throughout 2018, but also to highlight students that are celebrating their anniversaries of taking lessons here!
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ANNIVERSARIES - JANUARY 2018
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Nobody is born able to play an instrument. Just ask anyone that "makes it look easy" - it takes
years
of struggle to even come close to truly "playing" music. A HUGE congrats to this very elite crew that has stuck with it!
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Mixolydian Level - 5 Years of Lessons
Astrid Mann
Lydian Level - 4 years of Lessons
Isabella Carrano
Julianna Scullard
Kassidy Stoner
Phrygian Level - 3 Years of Lessons
Alex Chong
Anthony Tong
Nate Cameron-Chiao
Harry Dunne
Mackenzie McDonald
Lilian Ocano
Nalin Verma
Kevin Strandberg
Ryan Strandberg
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Dorian Level - 2 Years of Lessons
Rhea Biju
Amalya Cherukuri
Eliana Cherukuri
Saumya Sahay
Delton Cayetano
Aiden Lu
Bryan Lu
Brian Zhang
Sophia Khairallah
Grant Scharnhorst
Mia Susana Factora
Ionian Level - 1 Year of Lessons
Henry Vera
Colton Rieke
Yahav Levy
Kenny Nguyen
Mindy Nguyen
Josiah Troup
Victoria Qiu
Patrick Russ
Lily Wallen
Nick Bastovan
Azucena Enriques
Daniel Ghabrial
Ashwin Murthy
Kannan Murthy
Camille Troup
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*NEW* - SONG OF THE MONTH CLUB
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STOP STARING AT YOUR SCREEN & GO WRITE SOME MUSIC!
There is something about being creative that just makes a person feel better! Here's a great excuse for you, or your child, or even better: YOU AND YOUR CHILD TOGETHER to write a song. We bet you'll have a blast trying! And we also know that the more you try, the better you'll get (just like, well, anything else). Oh, and just as a little incentive, we'll over a prize to our favorite submission each month:
THIS MONTH'S TOPIC:
WRITING YOUR FIRST SONG
Yep, you heard me. I want to hear your writing experience, in song form. You can use any instruments (standard...or not). You can have words....or not. You can make it short....or not. You can write alone....or with a friend. Let's hear what you got! Don't like the topic - well guess what:
IF YOU ARE SELECTED AS THE WINNER THIS MONTH, YOU'LL GET TO CHOOSE THE TOPIC FOR NEXT MONTH
(subject to approval).
Not a cool enough prize? Well here's a little bonus for
ANYONE THAT SUBMITS!
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Submission must be received via post on our Facebook page. Offer includes any printed book currently in stock. Limit one per person. Limit of $25 retail value. May not be exchanged for cash or gift certificates.
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Accepted formats include: video, audio,
lyrics or written/sheet music. Submissions will be accepted until the next newsletter. That'll probably be sometime in late February, no promises.
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Congrats to Darshini for earning the Student of the Month honor! She will receive not only priceless glory & endless bragging rights, but also gift certificates to Music Time Academy & Livermore Cinemas.
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Instrument:
Violin
Teacher:
Judy
Age:
10
Grade:
5th
School:
Lawrence Elementary School
Student Since:
2012
Hobbies (besides practicing):
Dubbing (on musical.ly), baking, singing
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FROM JUDY, DARSHINI'S TEACHER:
Darshini has been playing violin since she was 6 years old! Her bubbly and charismatic self has kept our lessons filled with laughter and has also transcended to her playing. She is always outgoing and likes to perform in front of big groups - earning 60 tickets in one day for our concert raffle! On our Winter Concert in 2016, Darshini was determined to win our grand prize of an iPad mini. With her hard work and perseverance (plus a little luck) she was thrilled to hear her name called to receive her prize! Keep up the good work Darshini!
"I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I
work
, the more I have of it." - Thomas Jefferson
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Xavier Guerrero
I had a fun conversation with Xavier recently in which we went over his humble musical beginnings (playing on an old beat up guitar that his dad brought back from Nicaragua), his first gig with a heavy metal band (which was also their last), his formal education (and the struggles between gaining musical knowledge without losing
free-form
creativity), and a whole lot more! I hope you enjoy this interview with one of our longest standing instructors, the one and only, Xavier Guerrero!
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I understand you’re not the only musician in the family (and yes, I understand that is not a question).
Pretty much my whole family is musical. I grew up with my dad just playing a bunch of instruments, mainly guitar. He had this really awesome vintage organ. Occasionally my mom would hop on vocals & they would sing duets when I was a kid. I used to steal his guitar all the time and he would get mad at me for doing that!
Was your father a professional musician?
Not per say, not on paper. When my dad was younger in Nicaragua he had a band and they played a lot of gigs out there. They would travel to different parts of the country and play gigs. He knew what was up, what I was getting myself into. He was in his mid 20s when he left Nicaragua. He was about to have a family with my mom so he put music on the backburner, for most of his life actually. When he moved to the states it became jamming with buddies.
Any other musical tendencies in the family?
My brother has always been a vocalist on the hip hop scene, since that’s been a thing. He gave me a different perspective as to what music could be. It was interesting having my dad as the more organic musician and having my brother be more on the electronic, modern side. As a kid I remember he and his buddies coming over and making beats. They were using analog samplers and 8 track recorders, all the really old school stuff that was available at the time. When I was lucky, I would get to sit in on a night and watch them do their thing, which was pretty cool.
How did you get started in music?
My first instrument technically is piano. I played that from when I was 4-ish. It was off and on, sometimes I was into it, sometimes I wasn't. I would go to a formal teacher for weekly lessons until I was about 7. I would write songs on the keyboard. I was really into video games - not much has changed since then. I would learn to play that stuff and try to write that stuff myself.
And how did you get into guitar?
My dad would try to teach me chords when I was 9 or 10, and I would get frustrated. He would teach me chords & a couple of really folky songs. The later part of middle school was when Nirvana came out and I was like “Ok that’s it. I like this.” Something about that sound really, really struck a chord with me, pun intended. And i just decided to be a guitar player. When I was about 12 or 13 I played an electric guitar for the first time and I was hooked. It was done! At that point, I knew I needed a guitar. I was so afraid to ask my parents for it, but I did. I stuck to guitar since then.
You asked your parents for an electric guitar?
I was kind of jamming around on this beater acoustic guitar that my dad gave me when he noticed that I was really into it (and I just kept taking his guitar). “Where’s my guitar?”, “Sorry, Dad!” After a while he just gave me a guitar that he brought back from Nicaragua. I got more serious, I got songbooks and really learning how to play my parents got me an electric guitar.
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How were you learning guitar at that time?
I was learning how to play songs that I liked out of books. Just practicing that stuff every day. I always had a creative bug in me. Around sophomore year in high school I started writing tunes and hooking up with friends that played other instruments. I started a couple bands in high school, one pretty steady one, on the grungy/metal side. At that point, I had been listening to a lot of Metallica. I was really obsessed with those guys for a long time so a lot of it was based on that. Very aggressive stuff.
Did you play many gigs with this band?
We got invited to people's house parties and played those. Our first official gig was actually our last. It was at a dive bar. We were all 17/18 and the manager was freaking out. Before we even got set up, they kicked us out of the bar for being too young!
What was your next step after that band?
After high school, I went to Silicon Valley College and got a degree in graphics. The job market was bad so I took a few years off then went to DVC. For a while, music was not a prevalent thing in my life. I was focused on trying to find a tech job and got a few odd jobs here and there. I worked at Borders for a long time and started picking up music a lot more around then. Music was always there but I didn't’ start seriously pursuing it until that time. Borders would hire me to play at special events to play acoustic songs that I wrote, cover tunes, just anything kind of folky..
So you were not doing music that was so aggressive? How did you change directions from the heavier stuff?
A big game-changer group for me was Rush. Then I discovered Yes after that, which was pretty different and more like classical, more melodic. That helped broaden my perspective on what rhythm is and what harmony is. Prog rock came first. It was a game changer for me when it came to playing music! It’s the borderline between being melodic & being crazy with your rhythms and chords. It doesn't adhere to a formula, and it’s very musical. That was a huge appeal to me, the whole grandioseness of it.
What brought you to Diablo Valley College?
I went to DVC specifically to pursue music. It was so much of an everyday thing in my life at that point, it would be stupid not to, since the tech stuff wasn't working out. I’ve been playing music for so long, might as well be as well-educated in it as I can be!
What sort of classes did you take in college?
I did everything they would let me do. I retook a lot of classes there, too! At that point in my life I was very hungry for music, any music. DVC was a great catalyst for exposing me to new things and explaining to me things that I already knew. They would puts names to the concepts that I knew. It exposed me to how to intentionally make that sound. I was familiar with the sounds of the things I was playing, mostly through piano lessons, but didn't’ really know what they were called until I got to DVC. When I continued with the courses, the whole world expanded, I just learned so much more than I thought I would ever know.
Did formal education affect your songwriting? Did the songwriting process change for you during this time?
I had a lot of struggles with that after taking a semester. I had a big fear that my creativity would diminish because I knew all these patterns and formulas. But now, it only helps to augment what I do. It helps me to not only to help remember something without playing it first, but to take something that might already be an established thing that we're used to hearing and change it in a way to make it my own. I feel that it’s only helped to aid the songwriting process, even though I thought it would not. I thought it would hinder me, but it didn’t.
The first semester was, “OK now I know all these concepts and I can’t stop analyzing everything, listening and putting a label on it.” That was a very cumbersome experience! Before that, it was all free-form and I didn't really know what I was doing. Once I really learned what I was doing, I caught wind that I had a style myself & became aware of that style, and used the knowledge to work within that style.
After this experience, how do you approach teaching your students that may have similar fears and struggles? Do you teach both creativity and theory together?
I try to teach the cliches, or whatever is common practice, just so you have the framework for the sound that you’re trying to achieve. Then I will show how you can augment that sound with your own input, which can be a hard thing to do! Once you have a formula, it’s hard to deviate from that formula sometimes.
If you’re being taught well, the two will meet at some point and you shouldn't fear that one is going to take over the other, particularly if your education is going to make your creativity diminish.
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FEATURED CONCERT:
Who:
Pete Escovedo
Where:
The Blue Note in Napa (ages 8+)
When:
Friday, Feb 9th at 7:30pm
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Pete Escovedo and his Latin Jazz Orchestra have always been breaking new grounds when it comes to playing live music, bringing talented and well known musicians together to perform on stage. Their shows attract all ages, backgrounds and nationalities who come together to hear incredible music, the memory of which will last forever.
Pete Escovedo has recorded 8 acclaimed solo albums, 2 albums with his daughter Sheila E., and the Latina Familia live album with Sheila E. and Tito Puente. The entire family has gotten together as the “E Family” to record the album “Now and Forever”, featuring Pete Escovedo, Sheila E., Juan Escovedo and Peter Michael Escovedo.
Pete Escovedo, toured internationally with the legendary guitarist, Carol Santana, for five years and performed on three Santana albums: Moonflower, Oneness and Inner Secrets. Mr. Escovedo left Santana to follow in the musical footsteps of his mentor, the late Great Tito Puente, who influenced his music and decision to form his own orchestra consisting of a five-person horn section with strong rhythm and percussion personnel.
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Every Thursday:
Tim G (guitar) at Tiki Tom's in Walnut Creek
Every Thursday:
Michael Solomon at Live Oak Lodge # 61 in Oakland
Every Saturday:
Adam (trumpet) with West Grand Brass Band at Lake Merrit Farmer's Market in Oakland
Friday, February 9th
Muncie @ Lagunitas
Saturday, February 10th
The UnOriginals at Meenar Music Club, Danville 9pm
Tuesday, February 13th:
Brooker D & the Mellow Fellows (Mike M) at Boom Boom Room in SF
Friday, February 16th
West Grand Brass Band at Starry Plough in Berkeley
Timmy G at A Grape In The Fog, Pacifica, CA
Todd Gardner Band at Berryessa Brewing (Mike M)
Saturday, February 17th
UnOriginals at Eight Bridges Brewing
Friday, February 23rd
The UnOriginals at Johnny Foleys SF
Saturday, February 24th
Brooker D & the Mellow Fellows (Mike M) at Shanty Shack Brewing
Friday, March 2nd
West Grand Brass Band at Drake's Frist Friday in San Leandro
The UnOriginals at Retro Junkie, Walnut Creek 9-11pm
Brooker D & the Mellow Fellows (Mike M) at Gale's in Petaluma
Saturday, March 3rd
The UnOriginals at Maggie Mcgarrys, SF
CHECK OUT SOME LOCAL BANDS FEATURING MUSIC TIME STAFF:
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From the Music Time Academy Administrative Staff:
Anna, Monica, Mike & Adam
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For every new private lessons student that you refer to Music Time Academy, enjoy a 25% discount from your monthly tuition! REFER 4 STUDENTS & GET A FREE MONTH OF LESSONS!
*Offer does not apply to immediate family members or to prior students re-enrolling.25% discount applies to tuition rate for one student only.
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