Tyler Greenleaf

University of Toronto Faculty of Music alumnus Alex Goodman is the first Canadian ever to win first prize and the Public's Choice Award at the Montreux Jazz Festival International Guitar Competition.

The prestigious competition accepts applications from around the world, selecting ten guitarists to compete in the semi-finals in July. Three musicians made it into the final round: Goodman, Columbia’s Andres Corredor and Israel’’s Yoav Eshed.

The Juno-nominated guitarist has performed at such prestigious venues as the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., Massey Hall in Toronto and ABC Studios in New York City. He has played or recorded with such international jazz stars as Dick Oatts, Tim Ries, Rich Perry, Garry Dial, John Riley and Ron Westray as well as with the New York Ballet on guitar and the American Repertory Ballet on mandolin. An accomplished composer, with more than 100 original compositions and two film scores to his name, Goodman makes his home now in New York City.

Goodman, who is performing in Toronto this week, took time out to speak with writer Tyler Greenleaf about his latest accomplishment.

(Goodman also shared some advice with Faculty of Music students. Read his tips on creating and managing a career in music.)

Congratulations on the win at the Montreux Jazz Festival! Tell us about that experience.
The Socar Montreux Jazz Electric Guitar Competition is one of the only annual international jazz guitar soloist competitions, and is something that I've been aware of for some time. But it was actually a bit of a last-minute thing for me to apply.

In the spring this year, somebody brought it up in a casual conversation because the deadline was a day or two away. I had a session with some friends at my apartment later that afternoon so I played the required repertoire and used my phone to record it. Thankfully this got me through the selection phase and I was invited to the competition in Montreux, Switzerland. At this point we had about one month's notice so I began arranging music that I would perform in the semifinals and potentially in the finals.

The competition took place over three days during the Montreux Jazz Festival. On our first day, every guitarist had thirty minutes to rehearse with the house rhythm section for their two semifinal selections. The semifinals took place on the second day and featured each guitarist performing ten-minute sets. At the end of the semifinals, three finalists were named who advanced to the final round. On the third morning, the finalists had a short rehearsal with the band for the three pieces to be performed in the finals. The finals took place later that afternoon; after the three performances, the jury left to deliberate on the winner and the public voted on their favourite guitar player. During the awards ceremony I was awarded first prize and the Public's Choice Award. The next morning I flew back to New York.

All in all it was a very intense but incredible experience. The best part was meeting and getting to know amazing guitarists from around the world. Everyone had a really good attitude and avoided any kind of overly competitive interaction. When you are sharing the stage with nine other phenomenal guitar players, it becomes obvious very quickly that no one is going to stand out through technical proficiency alone. It made me really think about what I wanted to say and what my own personal sound is. I had already gone through a great learning period preparing my arrangements for the competition, which allowed me to craft something that fit my musical concept.

When performing, I really tried to drop any feelings of performing in a showy or competitive way and tried to make good music with the band through group interaction. This was an amazing lesson and was very difficult given the pressure in such a stressful performance setting.

I'm also someone who has dealt with performance anxiety issues so found this to be a difficult thing to achieve. I've found these anxieties rather crippling in the past, so really tried my best to overcome them in the competition. I've been working on developing this skill and found that when I started playing it was easiest to relax if I just focused on making music in the moment. It was tough to be subjected to that kind of intensity, but learning how to play through it and sound my best was a great learning experience.

When you graduated in 2010, you won one of the two top graduating prizes at the Faculty of Music, the William and Phyllis Waters Graduating Award. How did you use that to launch your career?
Winning the William and Phyllis Water Graduating Award was one of the first major recognitions I received. It was a real honour and meant a lot to me, especially since I was the first student from the jazz department to win the award.

Winning the graduating award made it much easier for me to relocate to New York two years ago.

Living in New York is extremely expensive; it's very hard for musicians to make ends meet upon first moving there. I was enrolled at the Manhattan School of Music for my master's degree, but lost all my work and connections when I left Toronto. My first year in New York was pretty slow and having some savings before moving was an enormous relief. It has taken about two years to get to a point in New York where I can support myself on playing music exclusively. A lot of musicians need to find some sort of other income stream to cover their costs. Because of support from the William and Phyllis Waters Graduating Award, in conjunction with support from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Manhattan School of Music, I was able to focus on music exclusively from the time I moved here. I know how fortunate I am to have this luxury and take it very seriously to do my best and not abuse these opportunities. It’s important to me to work as hard as I possibly can to honour the respect I've received from people like William and Phyllis Waters, Canadian granting agencies or competitions like Montreux. I try to better myself as a musician every day and work as hard as I can to do so.

Shortly after graduating from �鶹��Ƶ, I recorded my third CD “Bridges.” For the first time, I felt like the music I presented had a unified concept that really reflected my musical personality. Winning the William and Phyllis Waters Graduation award allowed me to invest more into the project. That record went on to be nominated for a Juno, which was a huge recognition.

I also saved some of the money from the graduating award for a new instrument (Collings Eastside LC). I think I've improved a lot since then through the process of redeveloping my touch and tone on such a wonderful guitar. For me, there has been something about loving the sound of your instrument that makes it easier to get outside of yourself and focus on music at a broader level. I've been trying to focus more on the collective ensemble sound than being too wrapped up in just playing guitar.

It's so hard to get recognition in the competitive music industry these days that awards like the William and Phyllis Waters Graduating Award are vital to musician's career development. There is such a surplus of great professional musicians that it's hard to get a first break without any reputation or name backing. Venues have too many musicians to choose from and bandleaders and contractors have their own networks that are hard to crack into. Winning something like the William and Phyllis Waters Award or the Montreux Jazz Competition legitimizes a musician's work and helps them to branch out and expand playing networks. It's important to realize that winning an award is really only the start; its efficacy is really up to what the musician does with it. You get out what you put in. At the end of the day, I am concerned with being the best musician I can be, but these competitions and scholarships are vital tools in helping me along the way.

Your last CD, Bridges, was nominated for a 2013 Juno for contemporary jazz album of the year. What has been influencing your compositions lately?
I am preparing for a couple of new projects. I'll be recording a chamber group CD later this year with amazing Toronto musicians Felicity Williams (voice), Andrew Downing (cello), Michael Davidson (vibraphone) and a New York guest percussionist. The CD will feature a combination of my original music and arrangements of classical pieces by composers such as Scott Joplin, Felix Mendelssohn and Franz Schubert. I've also been developing repertoire of rearranged jazz standards and have been thinking about recording a trio CD with a New York band.

For the last two years or so, I've been trying to directly relate all my compositions to real-life experiences. It has been a good experience to tie my music to something bigger and think about communicating larger extra-musical themes in my music. It's been a great learning experience and I think I've become a better musician and artist as a result. I have to struggle to figure out how to musically communicate very real things that mean something to me. It's more personal this way and makes me go deeper into music through relating it to something larger.

I've also been working to edit myself as a player and composer. I've always struggled with playing and composing too much, so I've been working on getting things closer to their essence. The music I wrote for “Bridges” was personal but also very dense and complicated. I'm trying to evoke the same moods and feelings through cutting out superfluous parts in my pieces. I'm trying to develop a better command of orchestration and write in a clear, idiomatic way for instruments. For both composition and playing, I'm really focusing on clarity and development of my core ideas. I'm trying to develop a more sophisticated approach to communicating my ideas eloquently.

I'm constantly transcribing and arranging pieces that appeal to me. I'm working on a Mozart piece right now (Eine Kleine Gigue, K 574) and trying to learn something through deconstructing the music. I've done this with a lot of jazz and classical composers and try to use the information I learn to inform my own composition. Much like a jazz musician transcribes solos to learn musical language, I'm doing the same thing in composition. Every time I do this, I try to analyze what I like about a piece and how I can use it in my own music.

What’s next? We heard you were planning a European tour.
I am planning a European tour for November 2014. It's looking like I'll be performing in Holland, Belgium, Denmark and possibly Germany. I've been staying busy in New York playing regularly and have some things coming up out of town. In August I'll be in Toronto for about seven days to play a number of shows, including four nights at the Rex Jazz Club. I'll be playing August 12th and 13th with Dan Jamieson's big band (�鶹��Ƶ graduate) and on August 16th and 17th with my trio featuring Rick Rosato and Jimmy Macbride coming up from New York.

In addition to my European tour, I'm going back to Montreux in the fall and am doing a small Eastern Canadian tour with a Canadian drummer living in New York, Curtis Nowosad. I'm premiering some new music I wrote for electric guitar, mandolin and string quartet this December at the Spectrum Music Series. I also plan to record my chamber CD before the end of this year. It's a busy but exciting time and I'm looking forward to everything that's coming up.

(You can read more about Goodman at www.alexgoodmanmusic.com or find him on Twitter @agoodmanjazz.)

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Tips from award-winning guitarist and composer for aspiring musicians

sgupta — Fri, 15 Aug 2014 10:39:30 +0000

Tips from award-winning guitarist and composer for aspiring musicians sgupta Fri, 08/15/2014 - 06:39

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Alex Goodman (seen here in Montreux) used to wake up at six a.m. to practise before attending classes at the University of Toronto (photo by Damien Richard/Montreux Jazz Festival)

Tyler Greenleaf

Author legacy

Tyler Greenleaf

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Alex Goodman: "It's the 'failures' that have helped make me who I am much more than the successes"

Now based in New York City, University of Toronto alumnus and award-winning guitarist and composer Alex Goodman is visiting Toronto this week, playing a number of shows including four nights at the Rex Jazz Club.

He spoke with writer Tyler Greenleaf about what it was like last month to become the first Canadian ever to take first prize at the Montreux International Jazz Competition. (Read the interview.) And he also took time out to share his reflections and advice on creating and managing a career in music with the University’s Faculty of Music students.

Work ethic is likely more important than talent

For a long time I didn't believe in the concept of talent. As time goes on, it's become clear to me that many musicians possess an extraordinary level of talent, but I've never really felt like I had much of it. I’ve tried to work for everything and figure out how I could get to where I wanted to go in music. I do think that I've come to grips with my strengths and weaknesses but music hasn't necessarily come that easily to me.

Through tenacity and hard work, you can really get to where you want to go.

Capitalize on your setbacks

I think it's important to not let setbacks and “failures” deter you from continuing on the path to becoming a musician. I feel like I'm a bit of a late bloomer in music because I started relatively late. I only started getting into jazz in the year before university and lacked the work ethic to get my skills together. I was terrible and couldn't even get into a music program when I was applying for schools. I enrolled in the arts program at McGill and started taking every jazz course I could on top of my arts course load to try and improve. I eventually did get in to both the McGill and University of Toronto jazz programs, but it took me three auditions before it actually happened.

I ended up choosing �鶹��Ƶ in 2007 and started really focusing on music at that time. It was really hard and discouraging in the time leading up to this, but in retrospect things weren't happening because I wasn't ready for them. Going through that process of rejection and working through it was likely the most important thing I ever did. It would have been so easy to quit, but dealing with rejection and learning that it was my responsibility to improve ended up being the best lesson I ever learned.

Four years after finally getting into a music program I recorded my CD that was nominated for a Juno. If I had quit or blamed someone else for my setbacks, I never would have got there. Looking back, it's the “failures” that have helped make me who I am much more than the successes.

Have an open mind in music

I would like to stress how important I think it is to have an open mind in music. I had an amazing time in the University of Toronto Jazz Program and also tried to seek out classes in other departments. �鶹��Ƶ is such an amazing place and we are so lucky to have amazing teachers working there. I learned some of the most about music studying counterpoint with Sasha Rapoport and composition with Gary Kulesha and Norbert Palej. I was also fortunate that the school was open-minded enough to help me start up a cross-departmental ensemble using musicians from the jazz and classical departments. My composition studies really shaped me as a musician and ended up being pivotal in developing my own voice. I've learned so much from amazing faculty members like David Occhipinti and Andrew Downing, who have such a beautiful, curious and accepting approach to music.

Try not to get so caught up in your style that you write off other types of music. Since moving to New York, I've had the opportunity to play with some great orchestras and music theatre ensembles; at one time I might have shrugged off opportunities like this, but I've learned so much about timing, ensemble playing, texture, sound production, composition and orchestration in the process. Both jazz and classical music have so much to teach one another about rhythm, interaction, harmony and time feel. Every genre today has something to show us and it's up to us to figure it out. It's a great challenge and a great opportunity to continue growing in music in new ways. Keep an open mind about music and see how the fundamentals of rhythm, harmony and melody apply in different musical situations. Seek out different musical experiences and make friends with musicians from different backgrounds. Keep a positive, curious and constantly inquiring mindset and you'll learn amazing things.

It takes time, persistence and hard work

I think I could track all recognition I've received back to my first FACTOR demo grant, which I received as a �鶹��Ƶ student. This gave me a solid first product that I then used to solicit larger grants and awards. I slowly worked on my music, and over the course of many years developing my sound, eventually came closer to what I really wanted to do. It takes time, but through constant hard work, tenacity and persistence, one can build a career and life in music. It's important for me to share my music with an audience so I'm grateful for every recognition I've received and the opportunities they have provided me with.

Upon starting the music program at �鶹��Ƶ, I was tired of being so far behind everyone and started to work really hard. I would wake up at six a.m. to practise before school started and made sure I practised intense regular hours every day. I just really wanted to get better and have something to offer in music. I worked really hard and have tried to keep up that work ethic as much as I can. Since I've never felt particularly talented, I felt that the only way I would get anywhere is if I worked harder. The funny thing is that even with all that work, I still think it took me a long time to start internalizing music. I saw many other people progressing in music more quickly than I was, and I tried to use this as a motivator for myself. It actually took a long time for me to feel in command of musical concepts, and I only feel like things have really started to come together very recently (in the last year or so).

Music isn't a sprint, it's a marathon and I think that this long dedicated approach is pretty powerful. It's been important for me to stick through any hard spots and keep my focus strong.

Work on the fundamentals

I think it's imperative to always develop your command of the fundamentals in music. Don't take any shortcuts; real growth in music takes slow, methodical and patient practice. Don't overlook the basics to work on flashy stuff, nothing sits right without a solid command of the fundamentals. I think it's important to keep an open mind but to also have a really strong foundation in the music you specialize in. Develop a proficiency in the various sub genres of your specialized music; it's amazing how it informs your primary musical voice and teaches you new things. Learn and immerse yourself in the tradition of your music and increase your understanding of how styles relate to each other.

The music comes first

It's important to never feel like you are entitled to anything and also not to let any recognition you get go to your head. I've been lucky to receive a lot of support, but it has been important for me to see it as simple encouragement of my musical growth. I know where I want to get to and the only way to do it is to continue working as hard as I can to improve my music. Winning Montreux was a huge honour but there were a lot of guitarists there who could have and maybe even should have won the competition. I feel really proud to be recognized internationally but it still doesn't reflect where I want to be in music and how much work I still have ahead of me to get there. I came back to New York and was immediately reminded by all the amazing players here how much further I still have to go.

I think that recognizing music is a lifelong pursuit, staying humble and constantly working to better yourself is vital. The really powerful motivator in music is feeling like you need to express yourself and feeling confident that you have something to express. If you are motivated by that and have a need to reach an increasingly deeper understanding of music, I don't think anything can stop you. Success can be encouraging, but it’s important to keep your mind on music and how you can be the best musician you can possibly be.

(Read more about Goodman or find him on Twitter @agoodmanjazz.)

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Rude a #1 Billboard hit for MAGIC! man Mark Pellizzer

sgupta — Thu, 17 Jul 2014 13:28:31 +0000

Rude a #1 Billboard hit for MAGIC! man Mark Pellizzer sgupta Thu, 07/17/2014 - 09:28

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Photos and video courtesy Mark Pellizzer and MAGIC!

Tyler Greenleaf

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Tyler Greenleaf

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Alumnus talks about performing on Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, playing with Usher

For Faculty of Music graduate and MAGIC! guitarist Mark Pellizzer there are no tricks to writing a Billboard #1 hit single – just hard work, an ear for a musical hook, and persistence.

After starting the band in 2013 with singer Nasri Atweh, Pellizzer has found himself travelling around the world this summer to perform and promote their new album Don’t Kill the Magic and hit single “Rude”. And, on July 17, MAGIC! became the first Canadian band in 12 years to top the Billboard charts – and only the sixth Canadian band to ever record the feat.

Pellizzer, who graduated with a Bachelor of Music in Performance in 2004, credits his time at the University of Toronto as integral to his work as a musician. His professors and instructors remember him well.

“Mark is a very talented, hard-working, dedicated musician," said Jazz Professor Emeritus Paul Read. "I remember him as a great person and a student who was very easy to work with while at �鶹��Ƶ.”

Pellizzer's guitar instructor, David Occhipinti, also praised Pellizzer's work ethic and positive attitude, adding he had been very impressed Pellizzer was also studying classical piano.

"I think he gained a very strong foundation in music by studying both jazz and classical music at the same time," Occhipinti says. "Aside from all his talents in music, Mark is also a good person. I’m really happy to see all the success he is getting. He has worked very hard at music and his career, and is very deserving of the accolades and success he is now receiving.”

After performing on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon and between interviews and performances in London, UK, Pellizzer checked in with writer Tyler Greenleaf.

You were in the Jazz Studies program at the Faculty of Music. What sparked your interest in guitar? And Jazz? When did you start playing?

Yes, I was extremely lucky to have attended the jazz program at �鶹��Ƶ. My teachers there were incredible and I learned so much from the program. David Occhipinti especially really took me under his wing and imparted a lot of musical wisdom to me. I had a fantastic experience there and highly recommend the program to any aspiring musicians and not just those interested in jazz music specifically.

I started guitar seriously at age 13 and literally haven’t put it down since. I would play five hours a day during high school – I sorta had it permanently slung around my back. I started piano when I was six and worked a lot at that as well. My first year of university was actually at York studying classical piano under the great, late Antonic Kubalek. I had many great piano teachers over the years as well—James Tweedie really helped me with my technique and musicality.

My interest in jazz music started when I was 15… I loved the classiness of the genre and how much it lent itself to introspective creativity. Toronto was a great city to grow up in as a jazz guitarist… watching Ed Bickert perform at the Montreal Bistro and Top of the Senator was life changing.

(Above photo by Melissa Rolston)

How did your university studies contribute to your work?

My university studies were integral to my work. I learned so much from studying jazz and classical music at �鶹��Ƶ. The faculty members were incredible and the curriculum really challenged the students to improve rapidly.

Also the network I developed and the friendships I made really influenced my career. I made a close friend named Anthony Lavdanski while studying there and when he got hired to be the bass player for an aspiring singer/songwriter named Justin Nozuka, he spoke highly about me and the fact that I could play guitar, piano, sing and produce. The reason I toured for years with Justin and gained much experience performing internationally was due to my friendship with Anthony. If it hadn’t been for him, I never would have met Justin’s brother George with whom I produced/co-wrote many songs. George spoke very highly about me to Nasri Atweh with whom I'd later write a song for Chris Brown called “Don’t Judge Me”.

A year later, Nasri and I started our band called “Magic!”… now our group is known internationally. None of this would have happened if I hadn’t taken my studies and network seriously at �鶹��Ƶ.

What are your playing and songwriting influences?

My playing and songwriting influences are vast and wide. They have changed over the years but I can mention them here to the best of my ability. I wasn’t interested in pop music as a young teenager. It sounds weird but I used to listen to the symphonies of Beethoven and a lot of piano music. When I was about 15, I really got into Radiohead and the Beatles and learned a lot from their musical sensibilities and Nigel Godrich’s production. I was also really into RnB and Soul music at the time and still am very much to this day. I started playing guitar and keys in my first RnB band when I was 16 and we would cover a lot of material such as Donny Hathaway’s version of “What’s Goin On”. Those were extremely important years for me as I really learned how to communicate well in that genre. Years later I joined a gospel group called Divine Worship and that pushed me even further to play guitar in that soulful style. Now I get calls to play on records for Chris Brown, Usher, JoJo and Trey Songz. My favourite singer is Kim Burrell and I owe a lot of my playing style to gospel guitarists such as Spanky Alford and Jairus Mozee.

“Rude” has been shooting up the charts all over the world. Tell us about the songwriting process.

Rude isn’t an autobiographical song although it appears to be, based on the storyline. Nasri and I produced two versions of the song before we ended up getting it right with the help of Adam Messinger. My contribution to this song was more on the musical end as opposed to the lyrical end but I had a big role in it and I’m very happy I was part of the process.

Each song has been crafted differently but some variables have been constant. Nasri usually comes to me with some sort of melodic fragment or cool lyrical hook and then I set some music to it. We’re all producers in this band… actually Alex Tanas, the drummer (seen here in foreground of a photo MAGIC! posted on Facebook after arriving in the UK) and I had a production team together before even entering the project.

We sort of have a multi-tiered system of crafting the songs as we all help to co-produce it. We join forces on sound selection, part-playing and arrangement and all try our best to be respectful and accommodating of each others’s ideas. It can be difficult to work with so many chefs in the kitchen but as along as we continue to have mutual respect for one another and do our best to service the project it is my hope that we will continue to win.

Adam Messinger plays a huge role in this as well as he is the “finisher.” We will take a song as far as we can in respect to its arrangement part-wise and sonically… Adam then brings it to the next level. He and Nasri have been running a production team called The Messengers for almost a decade now and they both have challenged each other very much to push the limits of pop music. Nasri comes up with genius hooks, melodies and lyrics and Adam is an incredible multi-instrumentalist who brings these ideas to life and gives them musical context. My first collaboration with Adam and Nasri was “Don’t Judge Me” for Chris Brown which was one of his singles and hit #1 on Urban Charts in the US.

For the Magic material, we all play important roles in crafting out the songs and do our best to play to our strengths.

If you could give one piece of advice for students at the Faculty of Music, what would you say to them?

I can’t remember who first told me these very important words of wisdom—I believe it was Terry Promane: "Don’t go into music as your career for money, go into because you have no choice because you love it and can’t picture things any other way." This is very true because it certainly can be difficult to earn money in this business… that being said, it’s not impossible but in order to do so you have to develop an indomitable spirit. Never let someone crush the enjoyment of music out of you. It’s really hard to do, but try and figure out what your calling is within music… not everyone is necessarily destined for the same path. Study hard and learn as much as you can from your teachers, but also work hard at building your network.

It’s not imperative but it’s helpful to learn how to produce and write… after moving to LA and working in multiple sessions everyday, I realized that I wouldn’t be able to offer the same services had I not been able to record myself and craft out my own productions. Often top-liners just wanna feel inspired to freestyle over a beat and of course it’s impossible to do so if there’s no musical context for them to do this upon. Playing an instrument is definitely helpful but producing your own music can help you earn more $$$.

Try not to be precious about certain things you may have learned in school… I’m not suggesting that you don’t learn these things because it’s important that you do so. It seems almost counterintuitive sometimes but it’s important to never come off as a musical elitist or someone that knows it all. In the studio every idea is a good one and it’s important to just roll and make the people you work with feel good. I hope this is helpful.

What’s next for Magic!?

Well we just did The View and Jimmy Fallon in NYC. Right now I’m in London doing radio promo and trying to blow up the song here as well. As of next week “Rude” is gonna go to #1 on Billboard in the US which is huge.

We will primarily just be doing radio promo and continue pushing the record in multiple territories. The next single off our album is most likely gonna be "Let Your Hair Down" which I've been told has a pretty cool guitar solo so I'm very excited that people are digging the song.

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