News

By Sue Hodges

     Baltimore guitarist Tobias Hurwitz is something of an inspired madman, an electrified bundle of concepts and intricate motions cohesively melded into music, words, and machine.  You see, the musician's mission involves spreading the message of shred to the masses in multiple formats.  And his diabolical scheme of world domination includes the use of education, performance, and high tech gadgetry to get those nimble fingers feverishly flying along the fretboard.

Ohhhhh, this man is wily in his plan to Shred the Planet!

     Hurwitz's attack begins by teaching the necessary skills to willing followers by educating them in technique and form.  For three weeks in the summer at Baltimore's Roland Park Country School, the guitarist/educator molds kids ages 8-17 into future rock 'n' rollers and potential shredders through DayJams Rock Music Camp (dayjams.com)

According to the camp's director, Hurwitz, the creative day camp "takes anyone, even if they are an absolute beginner and we go through to advanced.  If somebody wants to come and they have never tried music before, within the week we can get them playing some simple song by the end of it and even recording the song."

     For 12 years, Hurwitz and other qualified musical educators instruct  the weekly 70 campers in the instruments used in a rock band scenario: vocals, guitar, bass, drums, keyboards, and even horns.  Forming bands of varying degrees of proficiency and ages is a difficult task, but Hurwitz explains, "We try and match the bands mostly in age groups.  We polled all the kids and we wanted their top priority in forming a band and they prefer kids their own age first.  Second on the list was having kids in the band who like the same music.  And then third was kids who are on the same level."  He adds, 'We try and construct a band where there is no more than a three-year age spread within the band, and we try to make it so the band contains some beginner, intermediate, and advanced players.  This way some can play simple supporting parts while others can tear it up on their instruments and then it's really a team effort."

     In addition to teaching musical skills, the young musicians learn the fine art of marketing and merchandising so they, too, can spread the shred in the future.  "We include an art program where they make a logo, stencil a band t-shirt, and sometimes we have them making Myspace pages too.  What we try to impress upon them is that when you are in a band, it's not just music and there is a visual presentation with merchandising and art being involved."

     Along with past local and nationwide performers such as drummer Dennis Chambers, guitarist and luthier Paul Reed Smith, and national shredders Michael Angelo Batio and Neil Zaza among others educating and entertaining the campers, the kids get to perform in a full-blown concert at Roland Park's Sinex Theater.  "At the end of the week, it culminates with a full line of Marshall stacks, smoke machines, lights, and it makes them feel like real rock stars on a big stage with nice equipment," says Hurwitz.  But what is truly distinctive about this rock camp is that the kids are instructed how to craft and perform an original song as opposed to banging out a cover version.  Hurwitz realizes this integral piece is the first step to creating long-term and avid shredders and musicians.  "What DayJams does that similar programs don't do is that it teaches songwriting.  A lot of the others imitating DayJams is that they have created programs where you tribute bands...like you do an album.  It's something like, 'We're going to teach these kids how to play Dark Side of the Moon,' or something like that.  Instead of working on creativity and building a scene that has integrity, I guess you could say in terms of songwriting, they have jumped on the copycat bandwagon." he suggests.

     Passionate about creativity in music, Hurwitz also brings his zealous message to the page by authoring 11 books on guitar techniques as well as a recent comic book.  His devious intent to create shredheads knows no bounds by appealing to the graphic novel aficiando!

     "It's the first thing of it's kind; it's the first comic book to teach rock guitar that exists anywhere," he gleefully admits.  "The idea came from a website I had called Shred the Planet and I was trying to make it the coolest place for shred guitarists to go and enjoy the culture of shred.  I thought , 'Well, a cartoon might be nice ,' and we started a cartoon called Shred Head, but it had no actual music in it...Then the artist (Jesse Smolover) and I made it into a physical comic book and we did it a special limited edition run.  Then the publishers of the company I legitimately write for (National Guitar Workshop) got a copy of it and said , 'Let's try this and make it into a guitar instructional book."'"So we made it into a comic book and when the characters start to play some notes and those notes are in speech balloons, you can hear those things on the CD.  That way when somebody is learning an example in the book, they will be like 'Hey, that guy in the story just played that, wonder what it sounds like? That's really hard, or that's really cool.'"

     The recently released comic, Shred Boot Camp, 'includes a cross section of male and female archetypical rock figures to identify with," Hurwitz admits.  It's kind of the Guitar Hero thing with an action hero aspect of brandishing guitars like light sabers."

     Also included with the book is fully typset music linked to tablature along with a CD of slow and fast versions of the music.  The guitarist states "the CD also contains a full length song called Meet the Master, which I am trying to promote as being one of the most - if not the most- challenging heavy metal songs ever recorded.  It gets faster and faster the whole time...The guys that I hired to play on it were contracted to play their wildest, most intircate, difficult stuff.  When you get Michael Angelo Batio playing , he's not just playing, he's playing his hardest, fastest stuff.

    I am playing on it, but I also hired five additional players (Dave Martone, Glenn Riley, Kurt Bell, Chris Rainier, and Batio) with the idea being that if you have a guitar superhero- well, no one person could actually have guitar super powers - but if you were to roll the abilities of six people into one guitar passage, for instance, maybe that would make a guitar superhero.  Nobody can play like Michael Angelo Batio, and maybe no one can play like me plus Michael Angelo, but certainly nobody can play like me plus Michael Angelo plus Dave Martone edited together so it sounds like one lick."

     So when he is not teaching, writing, composing or performing with singer/songwriter Terry Gourley (Terry Gourley Trio), Hurwitz invents shredometers! Yes, shredders, this is a speedometer to clock notes per second as you sweep the strings.

     "Guitarists seem to be concerned with who is the fastest," he laughs"...this is a machine you play into it and it documents how fast you are playing scientifically in notes per second.  It's a guitar speedometer, you plug a cable in and the faster you play, the higher the needle goes.  Very soon the shredometer will be nationally marketed and it's a brand new kind of technology that's more than a metronome, it's actually a speedometer."

Be forewarned: Hurwitz's well-planned scheme has been put into high-speed motion and guitar shredding and new shredders will be shredding your way! 

(www.tobiashurwitz.com, www.shredometer.com, or "Tobias Hurwitz" on YouTube)