That’s because until last year, Feingold was not a well known figure, except perhaps to a NYC teenager Brianna Perez, who attends a music program at the Bronx Global Learning Institute for Girls.

What brought the unlikely pair together is an old violin. That’s right – an old violin!

A Gift of Music

The inspiring story starts just after WWII, in the displaced persons camp in Germany, where Joe found himself after his mother and brother were killed in a concentration camp.

Before the war, while living in Warsaw, Poland, Joe played the violin. But his beloved instrument was lost. He missed it a lot.

While waiting to be resettled from the camp to the United States, Joe traded a carton of American cigarettes for a violin, which he brought with him when he was finally able to move to America. He lived on the Upper West Side and worked as an architect.

All the while, he continued to play the violin, but eventually it became too difficult for his aging hands.

One day in 2014, Feingold heard about an instrument drive managed by the Mr. Holland’s Opus Foundation, which distributes donated instruments to NYC public schools.

He took his cherished violin to the Lincoln Center to drop it off, hoping it would come to life again.

A Musical Bond

The story could have ended there, but it didn’t. When filmmaker Kahane Cooperman heard an interview with Joe on a local radio station, she wanted to find out which student would be practicing on Joe’s violin. So she traced the instrument to Brianna, who was 13 years old at the time.

Joe went to the school to hear Brianna play “his” instrument and was very moved by her performance.

This experience inspired Kahane to make a documentary film about the unlikely musical bond between the nonagenarian and the Bronx teen. Appropriately titled “Joe’s Violin,” the film premiered at Tribeca Film Festival last year.

And in February of this year, the movie was nominated for an Academy Award for the best documentary short subject.

We are glad to share this touching story with you — even more so, because March is the Music in Our Schools Month, which sheds light on the numerous benefits of music programs.

What better example can there be to celebrate this event than to know how one instrument can change the lives of many students? We say “many” because after Brianna graduates, the violin will pass on to another student, and so on.

It’s the circle of life!

Photo: Violin Courtesy of Jason Hollinger on Flickr

The post How an Old Violin Got a New Lease on Life appeared first on Hey Joe Guitar.

This, of course, is a purely theoretical (or, if you prefer, hypothetical) question, but genetics work in mysterious ways! We became intrigued by it a couple of months ago when we came across an article with this headline: “This instrument is the musical love-child of a double bass and a trumpet.”

Naturally, we had to read it and we are glad we did. We learned that a rather unusual offspring of a string instrument — double bass – and a trumpet (brass) is called Tromba Marina (“marine trumpet”), and it was popular in medieval and Renaissance Europe. According to the article, this bundle of joy “sounds like literally nothing else we’ve ever heard.”

And it is a handsome little fella (or a lass, we can’t be sure): made of wood, it is long and lanky, narrow at the top and wider at the bottom.

The instrument, which dates back to the 12th century, “has one long, thick playing string which is bowed and a host of resonating strings.”

Old but Not Forgotten!

We learn more about the Tromba Marina’s origins from Clare Salaman, the founder and director of The Society of Strange and Ancient Instruments (more about it a moment).

Here’s what she says (as quoted in the article): “Many surviving instruments were found in convents. It seems that tromba marinas were a staple of the Northern European nun’s musical instrument box. Wind instruments would have been off-limits for women so it’s possible that tromba marinas were used as substitutes for trumpets.”

Fascinating, isn’t it?

And speaking of fascinating things, we find The Society of Strange and Ancient Instruments totally awesome.

Just look at some of the many unusual old instruments the Society features:

• Baroque Triple Harp: A chromatic harp with three rows of strings.
• Baroque Guitar: A small guitar with 5 pairs of strings.
• Bray Harp: A diatonic harp with bray pins that buzz when pushed close to the soundboard.
• Cajon: A large box with a hole in the back.
• Clarsach or Celtic Harp: A harp with levers that can change the pitch of each string by a semitone.
• Leg Bells: Metal bells braided onto a woven band tied around the leg.

… and many more!

The Past and Present

It’s important to note here that every “modern” instrument – be it the guitar, piano, violin, flute, etc. – has historical origins of its own.

Instruments that we teach in our school didn’t just appear magically overnight out of nowhere. Someone in centuries past had to either invent them from scratch or take an already existing instrument and modify it to make it sound better.

Not every instrument may be a “love child” in the same way as the Tromba Marina is, but we, for one, love them all!

Photo: String instruments at the Musical Instrument Museum, Berlin on Wikimedia Commons

The post The Mating Game: A “Love Child” That Toots Its Own Horn appeared first on Hey Joe Guitar.

Have you ever wondered where various genres of the so-called “American” music originated? Let’s see: jazz and ragtime were born in New Orleans, while the country western style had its beginnings in Georgia. However, the South, although prolific, was not the only birthplace of American music. Our great city, New York, has a rich history of its own, and it is not limited merely to Broadway’s musical theater. Since the beginning of the 20th century, the Big Apple has been an important center for many different musical genres and phenomena.

It all started with Tin Pan Alley, the hub for city’s songwriters and music publishers from the late 19th century until the 1930s.

New York, New York

In the early 20th century, New York’s lively song-publishing industry was centered on 28th Street between Fifth Avenue and Broadway. By the 1920s, it moved south and west – around Broadway and 32nd Street; ultimately, it ended up on Broadway between 42nd and 50th streets – not coincidentally, the area of the budding musical theater. The phrase “tin pan” – or so the story goes – referred to the sound of piano keys pounded by players demonstrating latest tunes – ballads, dance music, and vaudeville – to publishers. Quite a few of these “Tin Pan Alley” songs became American classics: Irving Berlin’s “Alexander’s Ragtime Band,” “I Got Rhythm” by the Gershwin brothers, Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein’s “Ol’Man River,” and Cole Porter’s “Anything Goes,” among many others. You can see why, in its own time, Tin Pan Alley was such a significant part of New York’s musical and cultural history. And as the 20th century progressed, several genres sprang up right here in our city.

The birth of music

Originally, blues came from the Mississippi Delta at the end of the 1800s. Decades later, the New York blues emerged with a newer, more urban sound. From the 1940s to 1960s, musicians in Greenwich Village created a new style of American folk music rooted in political activism. Pete Seeger and Joan Baez were among the most outspoken New York-born folk singers of that era. In the 1970s, the downtown music scene saw the advent of punk rock with home-grown groups like New York Dolls and Ramones . At about the same time, at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue in the Bronx, hip-hop was born. According to PBS, “on August 11, 1973 DJ Kool Herc, a building resident, was entertaining at his sister’s back-to-school party, and tried something new on the turntable: he extended an instrumental beat (breaking or scratching) to let people dance longer (break dancing) and began MC’ing (rapping) during the extended breakdancing.” As you can see, New York City’s musicians have played a significant role in the creation or expansion of various music genres.

New Yorkers unite!

At Hey Joe Guitar, we are proud to be a part of New York’s cultural history. While we have not (to date) invented any new music genres, we can teach any kind of music, on any instrument. Our teachers are well versed not only in New York-born genres, but in all other styles as well – classical, jazz, rock, pop – if it has been invented, we can teach it. As soon as you contact us, we will send one of our amazing teachers to your Manhattan, Brooklyn, or Riverdale home or office. Maybe he or she will help you find your own sound – in New York, anything is possible!

Photo by unknown, available under Creative Commons License

The post At Manhattan Guitar School, We Have the New York State of Mind appeared first on Hey Joe Guitar.

Hey Joe Guitar might be one of NYC’s top guitar schools, but that doesn’t mean we have no other interests. We do – and we are especially fond of gripping “whodunit” mysteries.

Recently, we came upon a news report that caught our attention. It’s about a Mozart museum in Vienna putting on an exhibit focusing on whether Antonio Salieri had really murdered Mozart – as many people believe.

The article inspired us to look into other music mysteries, which, like the one surrounding Mozart and Salieri, remain unsolved to this day.

Carrying their secrets to the grave

Let’s start with Mozart. Did the Italian composer Salieri poisoned his more famous rival, as the 1984 movie, “Amadeus” suggested? Rumors of intentional poisoning started circulating soon after Mozart’s untimely death at 36 and, in fact, Salieri had allegedly confessed to the act. All this, however, is speculation based on diverging reports, and there is no evidence to prove (or disprove) Salieri’s guilt.

As a matter of fact, there are several different variants of what (or who) might have killed Mozart – including kidney failure, rheumatic fever, and eating bad pork chops – but no definite answer. One thing we are fairly sure of is that the butler didn’t do it.

The plot thickens…

The mystery around Mozart’s death has captured the public’s imagination the most, but it is certainly not the only one. Here are just a few of other unresolved music whodunits:

• Baroque violinist Jean-Marie Leclair was stabbed to death in Paris in 1764. The suspects included his ex-wife and nephew, but that’s all we know.

• Another famous composer whose death is shrouded in mystery is Peter Tchaikovsky, who died in 1893 at age 53. The official cause listed was cholera, but there were some suspicions that Russia’s ruling Tsar had something to do with Tchaikovsky’s demise. We’ll probably never find out what really happened to the composer of “The Swan Lake” and “The Nutcracker.”

Enquiring minds want to know…

You might be thinking by now that all the music mysteries relate to suspicious deaths. True, some of them do, including the one about Baroque composer Alessandro Stradella, who was stabbed to death in 1682 but his killer was never found.

Still, there are some mysteries that are not about death at all, but rather about puzzling events associated with renowned composers or pieces of music. For instance, questions are still raised about the identity of Beethoven’s “immortal beloved” to whom the composer sent a love letter in 1812. Or where the 16th century English composer Thomas Tallis was buried – the site remains unknown to this day.

There are also other intriguing music facts that are still inexplicable.

What about mysteries that have been solved at last? Let’s fast-forward to the 20th century, 1972 to be exact. There had been a long-running speculation about who was the subject of Carly Simon’s hit, “You’re so vain.”

The usual list of suspects included past boyfriends Warren Beatty, Mick Jagger, and Kris Kristofferson, among others. In 2010, Carly finally shed light on a nearly four-decade-old secret: the “vain” man she sang about was record producer David Geffen. We really didn’t see this coming!

We have nothing to hide!

Here’s one fact that is NOT a secret: the excellence of our New York City music teachers.

Whatever instrument or music style you’d like to learn, a competent instructor will come to your Manhattan, Brooklyn, or Riverdale home or office and give you personalized lessons.

There’s no mystery about that at all!

Photo by: Celisa B.M.Serra

The post Music Mysteries: New York City Guitar School Won’t Tell All! appeared first on Hey Joe Guitar.

Feast your eyes on some new additions today to the stunning Gottlieb Jazz Photos set, uploaded by the Library of Congress to their Flickr Commons collection. Rehearsals, performances and even a jazz wagon ride in Times Square – wonderful photos.

The post All That Jazz: The Amazing Gottlieb Archives appeared first on Hey Joe Guitar.