The Contemporary Violinist

Learn how to play in sixteen styles!

With the support of audio backup tracks on iTunes, Julie Lyonn Lieberman will guide you through exercises and tunes designed to help you capture the style for playing Latin, Flamenco, Gypsy, Tango, Klezmer, Cajun, Blues, Rock, Swing, Bebop, Country, Irish, Old-Time, Bluegrass, Franco-American, and Scandinavian.

Each style chapter provides you with the appropriate left- and right-hand ornaments, warm-ups, an overview of the style (including its background), as well as a quote from a key player of that genre. The front section of the book covers numerous topics, as does the resource section at the back. This book can keep you busy, informed, and entertained for a long time. Each style chapter provides step-by-step practice techniques, a unit on its history, and a tune in the style.

The book gradually steps up in level of difficulty and is self-explanatory. In digital form, it can sit on your desktop or digital reader with the audio available to play from your computer or iPod. You can even burn the audio to CD. A comprehensive learning tool, The Contemporary Violinist includes a glossary of chords in all twelve keys, step-by-step details regarding how to capture stylistic elements, cool tips on technique, instrument maintenance, jam sessions, practice tracks, a glossary of double-stops, 13 paradiddles, a ground-breaking new section on rhythmic and pitch permutations, and a full section on pedagogy for improvisation in all styles. There’s even a fun section called “Fiddle Horror Stories” supplied by fiddlers from around the world, a Playing Healthy section, and quotes from a myriad of key players in the field. The Contemporary Violinist also includes inspiring advice from some of the most famous players in each style.

JULIE LYONN LIEBERMAN is a multi-style improvising violinist, fiddler, vocalist, clinician, author and composer.  She has performed throughout the United States as well as in Canada and Europe, and has played on and off-Broadway, in folk and jazz clubs, as well as on radio and TV. 

She is the author of twelve music books and six educational DVDs, as well as over two-dozen string orchestra scores in American and world styles (Carl Fischer, Kendor and Alfred Music). She has also co-written and co-produced two National Public Radio Series: The Talking Violin, hosted by Dr. Billy Taylor, and Jazz Profiles: Jazz Violin hosted by Nancy Wilson with famed radio producer Steve Rathe. She is the recipient of the 2014 American String Teachers Association (ASTA) Kudos Award, over two-dozen ASCAP Plus Awards, eight Meet the Composer awards and three American String Teachers Association's National Citation for Leadership & Merit awards. 

Ms. Lieberman has been on faculty as an adjunct at The Juilliard School, The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music, William Paterson College Jazz Department, Manhattan School of Music, New York University's Gallatin Division, VanderCook College of Music, and Mercy College. In addition, she has worked as a guest clinician at the Eastman School of Music, National String Workshop, International String Workshop, Stanford Jazz Workshop, and many other schools and programs across the United States, in Canada, and abroad.

JULIE LYONN LIEBERMAN is the Artistic Director for the summer program, Strings Without Boundaries, and has played an active role in the promotion of American and world styles in music education for over forty years as a performer, clinician, author, composer, radio and concert producer, and recording artist.

Ms. Lieberman is also an NS Design Performance Artist and a D'Addario Premiere Clinician.

RESOURCES by Julie Lyonn Lieberman

Books:

A Festival of Violin & Fiddle Styles [for violin]
A Festival of Violin & Fiddle Styles [for viola]
A Festival of Violin & Fiddle Styles [for cello]
Planet Musician
You Are Your Instrument
Creative Band and Orchestra
Rockin' Out with Blues Fiddle
Improvising Violin
The Contemporary Violinist
Alternative Styles: The New Curriculum
How to Play Contemporary Strings

DVDs:

Vocal Aerobics
The Violin in Motion 
Violin and Viola Ergonomics 
Techniques for the Contemporary String Player 
Rhythmizing the Bow