Spook offers hands-on workshops in 3 major areas –
Songwriting, Performance and Guitar.

            Each workshop is easily adapted to accommodate any level of experience and expertise of participants and most any special needs they may have. Whether the aspiring artist is novice or seasoned, Spook strongly feels that it is important to make artistic instruction available to all regardless of level of accomplishment. It is the exploration of the artistic process in which the real value of art is discovered by the artist.

 

Secrets of Songwriting 1:
 

    Spook, your workshop was fantastic! - You are a wonderful teacher - you really know how to connect with people, meet them at their level and give them something they can use.

                                … Patty Reese , Education Coordinator, Songwriters Association of Washington
 

Morning Session: Creating the Story Behind the Song! Creating the story behind the song is a powerful start to writing a great song. A lot of the work in creating a good song happens before any lyrics or melodies are written. This workshop is full of techniques and exercises to help you find good ideas to write about, develop them into interesting and unique stories and finally turn them into a song.

Afternoon Session: Creating Lyrics and Songs from Stories and Ideas! Let’s dive in! So, you have a great story or idea you want to turn into a song (or poem, story or speech). You even have a clear idea of what you want the song to say. If you could only find the right words with which to say it! This workshop will give you a wide variety of tools for finding the right words and will show you how to use them. You will learn about lyric pallets, the use of visual images and the effective use of rhyme, cliché, parallelism and contrast.

Bring lots of paper, pencils and pens.  Feel free to bring in your own song ideas or come up with new ones in the workshop.
Available as a TEENS ONLY Workshop or for the GENERAL PUBLIC.

 

Secrets of Songwriting 2:
 

Morning Session: What Makes People Want to Sing MY Song? Melody, Rhythm and Phrasing: Maybe you have great lyrics for a song, but the melody is weak. Maybe the lyrics say a lot but aren’t catchy. Why can’t you stop singing some songs but can’t remember others? The answer may lay the melody, rhythm and phrasing. This workshop will explore techniques that demystify melody writing, show you how to find natural rhythms that match the song and teach you how to make your songs easy to sing along with by using the right phrasing.

Afternoon Session: People don’t Write Good Songs – They RE-WRITE Them! When first writing a song it’s often a good idea to be as creative and uncritical as possible. But, after a preliminary draft is written or even years later some OK or weak songs are ready for a little fix up that will turn them into GREAT songs. We’ve all heard that a great song is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration. This workshop will teach you where and when to use the critical aspects of the mind to polish everyday songs into rare gems.

Bring lots of paper, pencils and pens.  Feel free to bring in your own song ideas or come up with new ones in the workshop.
Available as a TEENS ONLY Workshop or for the GENERAL PUBLIC.

 

Techniques for Effective Stage Presence:
 

    Spook's workshop was a huge success. Everybody was enchanted by his music, critiques, honesty and friendly rapport with the young folks. I would highly recommend Spook for any group, event, or just for your own enjoyment – don’t miss the chance to enjoy his show!

                                … Fran Housten, Reference/Teen Librarian, Cranford Public Library

Morning Session: Get Out of the Way!! – How to Best Express Your Performance Skills: Whether you’re an actor, actress, musician, poet, comic or public speaker when you are on stage you need to make every part of yourself available for your art. This workshop teaches techniques and exercises that help the artist step out of the way and let the art come through. Time permitting this workshop may also briefly address what to do before the gig, when you arrive, before taking the stage and when taking the stage.

Afternoon Session: Connecting with the Audience: Whether you are on stage or not the audience is watching your every move and looking to connect with you from the time you enter the building to the time you leave. This workshop teaches techniques and exercises that help the artist connect with his/her audience both on and off the stage. Time permitting this workshop may also briefly address introductions, banter, aesthetic transmission, encores, exiting the stage, and meeting and greeting the audience.

Bring a monologue, scene from a play, song, poem, comedy sketch or speech and be prepared to present it to the rest of the participants. A handful of participants will be selected to perform and will be critiqued in a gentle and constructive way by the instructor. A sound system will be provided and effective use of a microphone will be addressed.

Available as a TEENS ONLY Workshop or for the GENERAL PUBLIC.

 

Simple Measures for Drastic Guitar Playing Improvement
 

    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
 

It's easy to drastically improve your guitar playing by learning a few simple techniques. Having MCed over 1200 open mics over a 20 year period - and hearing over 3000 performers of all ability levels - I have been astonished by how many guitar players do little more than strum their instruments and don’t take advantage of simple tools that will make them stand out as accomplished players.

Fortunately, I picked up a few guitar concepts early on from some hot bluegrass players. The fact that I don't play bluegrass makes these techniques all the more better, because I apply them to genres where they are often overlooked. Now, I want to share these techniques, so I put together this workshop for the beginner and intermediate level performer.

According to individual ability workshop participants will:

* Learn about bass lines, riff lines and chord embellishments
* Learn and practice hammer-ons, pull offs, slides and bends
* Explore chord inversions and alternative chord structures on songs they already play
* Learn and practice simple and intermediate finger style techniques.
* Explore dynamics and contrast
* Learn why knowing a variety of tuning techniques can make your guitar stay better tuned.

This hands-on workshop is designed for the beginner and intermediate level guitar player. Bring your guitar, paper and pencil and the desire to drastically improve your guitar playing.

Available as a TEENS ONLY Workshop or for the GENERAL PUBLIC.

 

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 four CDs with his most recent, "Whatcha Gonna Do?" topping out at #12 on the Folk Radio Charts.   His song “Vote” was a top 10 hit on Folk Radio in October 2008.   Spook has also written music for theater and film.

            Since 1985, Spook has organized and/or MCed over 1200 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.

 

Final Notes:
 

Each Workshop Includes:

* Actual hands-on activities. This makes up a majority or each workshop - songwriters will write songs, performers will perform and be constructively critiqued and those who use guitar in their songwriting or performance will receive tips tailored to their own talents on how to get more out of their instruments.

* Brief introductions by attendees (so that the instructor can gain an understanding of the goals of the students)

* Creative exercises

* Informative Instruction
 

And to top it all off:

* 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. Send me an email at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. '; document.write(''); document.write(addy_text94494); document.write('<\/a>'); //-->\n This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.