Peter Rubie

Primary Instrument

Guitar, electric

Location

New York City

Willing to teach

Intermediate to advanced

Credentials/Background

Peter Rubie studied guitar and improvising privately for 4 years with Lennie Tristano's bass player, and later iconic jazz educator Peter Ind, in London, England. During that time he played with such British jazz musicians as Bobby Wellins, Dave Cliff, Jim Mullen, Gordon Beck, Ike Isaacs, Martin Taylor, the renowned U.S., singer Adelaide Hall, and toured with Claude "The Fiddler" Williams as well as playing jazz festivals as a sidesman in England and Europe. * Through Peter Ind he met and played with drummers Dick Scott (aka Tox Drohar) and Al Levitt, as well as Al's son, guitarist Sean Levitt, and trombonist Slide Hampton among a number of others. Along with drummer Roger Sellers and bass player Paul Morgan he led the resident house rhythm section for the old 606Club jazz club in the Kings Road, Chelsea. * Again, through Peter Ind, Rubie met saxophonists Warne Marsh and Lee Konitz, and began studying privately with Warne in 1978. In 1980, Peter emigrated to the U.S., and continued his studies and occasionally played with Warne in New York for 2 years before Warne returned to California. After that, Peter spent a further 2 years studying with saxophonist George Coleman. During that time he also played on the scene with such musicians as singer Judy Niemack, and saxophonists David Binney and Junior Cook, and guitarists Emily Remler, and Jack Wilkins with whom he remains close friends. * In 1992, Peter retired from professional music to focus on writing and book publishing, married and had a child though he continued to play the occasional house concert with Jack Wilkins and others and recorded with his wife, singer Melody Johnson. * In 2009, Peter returned to the music scene and a couple of years later picked up his studies along with occasional lessons with guitarists Larry Koonse and then Peter Bernstein, which continue to this day. * Peter can be found regularly playing around New York city in venues such as Dizzy's Club CocaCola, Mezzrow, Smoke, Cleopatra's Needle, and Smalls among other places. He also continues to play in England returning regularly to play gigs in London and elsewhere.

Clinic/Workshop Information

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Primary Instrument

Guitar, electric

Location

New York City

Willing to teach

Intermediate to advanced

Credentials/Background

Peter Rubie studied guitar and improvising privately for 4 years with Lennie Tristano's bass player, and later iconic jazz educator Peter Ind, in London, England. During that time he played with such British jazz musicians as Bobby Wellins, Dave Cliff, Jim Mullen, Gordon Beck, Ike Isaacs, Martin Taylor, the renowned U.S., singer Adelaide Hall, and toured with Claude "The Fiddler" Williams as well as playing jazz festivals as a sidesman in England and Europe. * Through Peter Ind he met and played with drummers Dick Scott (aka Tox Drohar) and Al Levitt, as well as Al's son, guitarist Sean Levitt, and trombonist Slide Hampton among a number of others. Along with drummer Roger Sellers and bass player Paul Morgan he led the resident house rhythm section for the old 606Club jazz club in the Kings Road, Chelsea. * Again, through Peter Ind, Rubie met saxophonists Warne Marsh and Lee Konitz, and began studying privately with Warne in 1978. In 1980, Peter emigrated to the U.S., and continued his studies and occasionally played with Warne in New York for 2 years before Warne returned to California. After that, Peter spent a further 2 years studying with saxophonist George Coleman. During that time he also played on the scene with such musicians as singer Judy Niemack, and saxophonists David Binney and Junior Cook, and guitarists Emily Remler, and Jack Wilkins with whom he remains close friends. * In 1992, Peter retired from professional music to focus on writing and book publishing, married and had a child though he continued to play the occasional house concert with Jack Wilkins and others and recorded with his wife, singer Melody Johnson. * In 2009, Peter returned to the music scene and a couple of years later picked up his studies along with occasional lessons with guitarists Larry Koonse and then Peter Bernstein, which continue to this day. * Peter can be found regularly playing around New York city in venues such as Dizzy's Club CocaCola, Mezzrow, Smoke, Cleopatra's Needle, and Smalls among other places. He also continues to play in England returning regularly to play gigs in London and elsewhere.

Clinic/Workshop Information

I teach one on one, and/or in group workshops. I aim for a holistic approach to playing and teaching improvisation, where the melody and the ear are foremost. I'm not a great believer in learning scales just for the glib sake of being able to play them quickly against chords. That's too mechanical and not musical enough for my taste, and other teachers do that kind of stuff better than me anyway. Scales and arpeggios are important in order to understand harmony, of course, but great improvisers can do more with creative rhythmic figures using a simple 3 note phrase, than the fastest technician's rendering of an obscure blues or eastern influenced scale. We learn scales so we can "hone" our ears, learn to "hear" music creatively so that our ears dominate our fingers, not the other way about, and so we learn to understand and explore the fingerboard. Many players looking for a teacher struggle, sometimes knowingly, sometimes not, with the one thing all great players have developed, and that is an instinctual understanding of the guitar fingerboard. My teaching is shaped by the Tristano approach that I learned from Peter Ind and Warne Marsh, and Larry Koonse and Peter Bernstein's holistic philosophies of the use of space and melody, and flow, flavoured by harmony. Improvising is — or should be — just embellishment of the melody. So ear training is important, musicianship, learning how to accompany another player, repertoire, jazz language, dynamics, etc. Topics include using chord tones, melodic embellishments, chord substitutions, rhythmic clarity and complexity, and composition. We can explore ideas about improvisation through an understanding of how harmony connects. The truth is that playing through the most complex and challenging chord sequence all begins with the map of moving through those changes — the melody the composer created for them. The harmony then becomes the palette of colors we can draw from in order to embellish that melody, and rhythm becomes the punctuation and phrasing of that story the tune is unraveling.

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