Tracy Silverman: Electric Violinist and Author of “The Strum Bowing Method”
Tracy Silverman is truly an inspiring musician in every respect and it was such an honour to meet him and be able to record this memorable episode. We talked about his classical roots, studying with legendary teachers Lewis Kaplan and Ivan Galamian, his rejection of the classical world and his fascinating career, through his years in rock bands, we even talked about some of his early gigs, including learning the ropes as a strolling violinist, getting the job as first violinist of the innovative Turtle Island string quartet, and the development of his Strum Bowing method. We talked about many musicians, including some of his collaborators and mentors including Terry Riley, Darol Anger, Roy “Futureman” Wooten, Mark Wood, and composers Roberto Sierra and John Adams.
Lauded by BBC Radio as “the greatest living exponent of the electric violin”, Tracy Silverman’s groundbreaking work with the 6-string electric violin defies musical boundaries, and you’ll get to hear him demonstrate quite a bit in this episode . A leader in the progressive string community, his Strum Bowing Method has been adopted by players and teachers all over the world, and we talk about strum bowing and he shows us the basics.
Tracy Silverman was named one of 100 distinguished alumni by The Juilliard School and he has performed as a soloist with many of the world’s finest orchestras and has had many violin concertos composed specifically for him by Pulitzer winner John Adams, Terry Riley, Nico Muhly, Kenji Bunch and others as well as the composer of 3 electric violin concertos of his own. In this conversation one of the many topics we covered was the new concerto writtten for Tracy called “Ficciones” by Roberto Sierra.
Finally, we dived into his creative process, how music affects our emotions, and how to stay open by listening to others, and learning to show up as ourselves.
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If you liked this episode, you may be interested in many of the other innovative string players and educators I’ve featured.
The complete catalog of episodes is here: Episodes Catalog
