A Weekend with Howard Levy: UMass Lowell Workshops

      One of the things that I’ve learned since coming to college is that, while I’m not a terrible musician, I still have a long ways to go if I want to become as great of a professional musician as the famous musicians today. Even though I don’t have any plans of performing for a living, I do think it’s important for any person working in music to have as good of an understanding of music that they can. In order for a person to become better at music (or anything in life), however, there are usually two things that one can do; either practice, or learn from someone who is proven to know their field. In the case of the latter, it’s sometimes hard to find someone to learn from, but when you do, the knowledge that one can gain is invaluable. I recently learned this in a series of workshops with Howard Levy, who is known for playing harmonica with Bela Fleck and the Flecktones. Being a part of Howard Levy’s workshops has helped me to become a better musician and appreciate the opportunities to grow here in Lowell.

The stage of the workshop (Levy on piano)

      My intentions of going to these workshops were to gain experience, but not in the way one would expect. Recently, I had landed a job as part of the technical staff in Durgin Hall. I thought that working as part of a tech crew would give me a lot of experience and knowledge for live sound and general technical setup, and this particular job would give me expertise in setting up equipment for a major talent.

      
      In all honesty, I was not very familiar with Howard Levy before working. I had only heard his name in passing and in reference to Bela Fleck (who I had heard of). That’s not to say he was a relative unknown to me; my parents are big fans of his work, both with Bela and on his own. My father in particular is a big fan of Levy; when I told him that I would be tech work for his workshops, he became very excited, telling me stories of listening to the Flecktones’ albums with friends and family. With this in mind, I was intrigued to see Levy live and in person.

      
      After setting up the stage in one of Durgin’s recital halls, Howard Levy arrived and got accustomed to the stage, and the workshop began. There wasn’t much more work to after getting everything set, so I was able to watch the workshop. As an introduction, Levy went over who he was and his musical experience, but it was when he began playing the piano and harmonica that people truly took notice. There have been plenty of times in my life when I have been humbled by another musician, and this was certainly one of them. Suffice it to say, the man’s skill on both instruments is impeccable. His piano playing was precise and complex, and his harmonica playing was particularly impressive; I had never thought of the harmonica of a complex instrument, but Levy definitely proved me wrong. The ways that he incorporated breath and throat noises into playing the harmonica made it sound as if he was conducting a orchestra of small horns. Just from this one introduction, I knew that the audience and I were in for something great.

      
      I mentioned before about being humbled by Levy’s playing, but I became even more humbled by his knowledge of music that he shared with us. Over the course of the four workshops he held during the weekend, he went over concepts that were as simple as playing separate patterns with left and right hands on the piano to as complex as polyrhythms (two rhythms added and played together) to improvisation based mainly on Western and Indian styles. He also gave out sheet music for some of his pieces that he had performed with various groups, including one called “Sweet Pomegranates.” He kept saying that he was attempting to cram weeks’ worth of teaching into four three-hour sessions, and while some topics were difficult to fully grasp, it was aminly a feeling of wanting to incorporate this knowledge into all of our music; it was almost like Christmas day, but for musicians. He also managed to keep things interesting with anecdotes about his time with the Flecktones and other groups.

      
      Overall, each of this workshops with Howard Levy were both enjoyable and mind-opening, a real treat being able to observe a truly gifted musician express his knowledge of what he loves doing. If anything, it helped affirm every student’s desire to become professional musicians in some way. I am incredibly glad that I was able to attend thes workshops, and I implore everyone reading this to seek out more knowledge about Levy if they don’t already know him.