Joe Craven

Arts Education and Outreach

Joe is first and foremost a creative force of nature and, as a workshop leader or motivational speaker for the arts, he is without peer.

My Approach to Arts Education

I define and promote creativity as an organic, playful pursuit of possibility. My approach is an education process of connecting informally learned information to what one already does – more so than an introduction to music making based on a formal pedagogy requiring specific prerequisites.

It’s more an issue of believing you are music, rather than doing or playing music.

Whether in concert or in the classroom, folks often share with me that they feel refreshed in seeing the value of music making and artful living in their own lives. I help individuals take possession of what they already have and “demystify” art through self-expression as a daily ritual.

As a self-appointed and now recognized arts activist, my passion is to help folks realize the importance of seeing art and arts education, not merely as enrichment or enhancement, but as the bedrock of one’s life. It’s difficult to create the world as it might be if we have been required to memorize the world as it is; living out of imagination instead of memory is the way to a life in this previously mentioned pursuit of possibility. If art is approached – and taught – as a problem solving mechanism, people can embrace it’s application as valuable, if not crucial, to all individuals. Creativity not only instills greater confidence, flexibility, self reliance, and potential, it can also save a life. In the real world, these are the kinds of properties that propel us from a mindset of “How will I survive?” to “How can I thrive?”

Economic recession is a reality but allowing a recession in our ability to learn how to critically think, problem solve, and see possibility is a reduction that, more than money, we can’t afford in our lives. In challenging times, there always exists the opportunity of the “Mother of Re-Invention”.

I believe that anybody can learn to sing in tune, keep a beat, and make music confidently with other people.

I am dedicated to providing private intensives, workshops, assemblies, residencies, public speaking, and other outreach to help folks embrace creativity through music. Write to me about your situation. I am here to help however I can.

Joe and Hattie Craven jam along the banks of the American River.

Clientele

An award winning educator for over 25 years, Joe’s clients include primary and secondary schools, universities, juvenile, and adult detention centers, special needs facilities, medical facilities, civic organizations, music festivals, and music camps to name a few. Joe has paneled at the American String Teacher’s Association and Folk Alliance. He counts Goodwill, Wells Fargo, and the United Way among his clients as well as Enloe Medical Center. He is the Executive Director of RiverTunes Roots Music Camp, Vocàli Voice Camp, a Co-Director for the Wintergrass Youth Academy, and a keynote clinician for Delfest. Joe partners with Fine Arts Councils by creating and/or implementing grant funded proposals for arts outreach to communities. And no matter who Joe’s connecting with – a community workshop in Costa Rica, a university lecture and demonstration in Washington, or on stage in front of thousands of school kids in Scotland – Joe’s at home and loving every minute.

Online Learning with Joe

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Let me know what YOU want to learn. Email me today. playjoecraven@gmail.com

I am grateful that you are now offering online music lessons. Our recent songwriting sessions (lyrics and music composition) have been tremendously educational, productive, and most importantly – FUN! Your knowledge of the process, ability to hear and feel what’s inside me, and commitment to bringing my ideas to life in song has been truly rewarding. I would encourage anyone who is interested in progressing their musical skills to reach out to you and discover how powerful online lessons can be.

            – Randall Harris  / Harris Consulting Group 

PLAYSHOPS (workshops)

intimate and interactive presentations for music festivals, camps and community groups

I think that what you taught is applicable to any creative endeavor – not just music.
You are an excellent teacher. 

                                                                                                    – Pat Nelson / workshop participant

IMPROVISATION: In the Moment and Movement Without A Net!
How do you make better music in the moment, jam confidently with folks you’ve never met, and/or say something different every time you take a solo? This class for ALL instruments will help deepen one’s connection to spontaneity and flow through organized sound. Joe teaches musical improvisation more from a theater model rather than the requisite model of jazz. Therefore, this is not an ability-based class. If you’re an advanced player seeking a ‘theory & technique’-oriented foray into improvisation from a jazz architecture, this class may not be for you. Joe connects improvisation to what you already do and moves you forward from there. We’ll focus on ways to think differently about sound, embrace fearlessness, and address the connection between spoken-word language and the language of music. Showing up empty-handed, mimicry, mistakes & metaphor, sending/receiving and the value of losing control are just some what we’ll apply to our music making in class. Lots of exercises and opportunity to play with others in new ways. The class will stretch you and may well change some of your perceptions of what music is. It’s a fun and enlightening romp!

PUTTING A NEW DRESS ON THE PIG
Take an old tune and make it new; take a new song and make it old. Looking at things differently is part of a long, great tradition in Folk Music! Bring any instruments, ideas and challenge Joe and the group!

THE CREATIVITY OF “FOLK PROCESS”
This fun class focuses on creative problem-solving in your music with both old and new approaches. The concept of “recycling” in music is explored as; 1) Object: innovative uses of conventional and found objects as instruments 2) Idea: reinterpretation and re-composition (new music comes out of old music).

This is open to all instruments and all folks wanting to deepen their connection to their own creative voice. Joe’s critically acclaimed CDs, CAMPTOWN, MO’JOE, FOAKEE and DJANGO LATINO are testimonies to his folk music philosophy. Come with tunes, songs and objects that you wish to musically alter.

IT DON’T MEAN A THING (IF IT AIN’T GOT THAT SWING)
Ahhh…that “lilting” swing time rhythm – what is it? It’s a sound, a rhythm, a dance and something that lifts the spirit every time it comes around. In this all instruments session, Joe will not only show you how swing lives as style, (including a gateway to Jazz’s popularity), but how it is the “feel” of bounce, sway, roundness, elasticity and “pocket” in vernacular music.

“JOEJAM”; THE ART OF THE JAM!
Joe loves giving people ideas & tools to make connections with informally made music. He starts with the basics; listening, using whatever is in your toolbox, rhythm, solos, singing, good manners, and then so much more! Its fun and encouraging to play music informally and spontaneously with folks from duos to large gatherings; learning to fit in and what to contribute are part of the etiquette.. Everyone has a space…and a place….in music making. Joe helps you find yours. Your table is waiting, so come take possession of what you already have!

THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX…AND PLAYING ON IT!
An adventure open to all folks who wish to deepen their connection to self-expression. Explore the joy of organized sound by learning to think differently about it all. Challenge Joe by bringing objects to his “Alter of Found Sound” that you wish to see musically defined. Explore the joy of spontaneity, improvisation and self-expression in music making. Heightened listening, observation and imitation, and rhythm are touched on. As Joe puts it, “If you want to live an artful life, you got to find ways to bust through the box of normality, category, mediocrity. I try to mix the discipline of being an adult with the wonder of a child… Staying open to things, focusing, listening deeper, looking longer and letting go. It’s about passion and that means sometimes you’ve got to quit thinking… just close your eyes, do it, feel it…and learn.

RHYTHM! INSIDE THE ENGINE ROOM
This workshop or playshop, as Joe likes to call it, is open to all instruments. Even If you’ve never picked up a string or percussion instrument, Joe will briefly demonstrate how anybody can play music right away by simply organizing sound! Everyone moves rhythmically through every day of their life. Through rhythmic phrasing you can say powerful things with just one pitch (note) or chord. There are always new ways of deepening your connection to your music through it’s most fundamental element…RHYTHM! As Joe puts it, “You’ve got the time, so why not make your music?”

SHAKE, RATTLE AND ROLL
Discovering and furthering the “Life Drummer” in yourself with the organic, intuitive way that Joe himself learned. Connecting your daily movements to the movements of organized sound along with awakening to most anything in your immediate environment as your toolbox of expression, can make you more musical than you ever imagined. Joe can give you great ideas!

UNDERSTANDING THE BLUES
The blues are truly a foundation and inspiration for most traditional and contemporary vernacular American music. This adventure is open to ALL instruments. We’ll listen to historical references from early recordings to the present. And yeah, we’ll learn some technical stuff; basic forms, a few scales and stompin’ on the groove. We’ll also tackle how to translate the “feel” of the grease, the groan and the growl of the blues to your instrument, and importantly, we’ll address learning how to take your time sayin’ a bunch – without playin’ a bunch – of notes. After all’s said and done, playin’ the blues ain’t a math problem and it ain’t rocket science – it’s about intuition and release of emotion. The more you surrender to the feeling, the better you’ll do it! We’ll have a great time.

FIDDLING THE FIRST DAY! BEGINNING YOUR JOURNEY…
Have you always wanted play the fiddle? For first timers and beginners, Joe jump starts your desire to play in this fun playshop. Boldly bow where no bowing has gone on before! Joe shows you how to comfortably and confidently bow in different keys and even play a simple tune er two! You will be able to join and support a jam after this session! BYOV* (*bring your own violin – borrowed from a friend or your own).

WHAT IS FOLK MUSIC? THE UNCOMMON MUSIC OF COMMON PEOPLE
In this presentation, Joe introduces the concept of teaching students folk music as a way of expressing, documenting and preserving their everyday life experiences, thus creating “personal music diaries” for themselves.

A copy of the brochure from an exhibition Joe curated on folk music in 1981 (available on request), highlights the “ballad” and is a model for this presentation.

Joe demonstrates how the process of folk music works which, for him, are pieces learned from the aural tradition of observation and imitation – handed down person to person and generation to generation. Tunes and songs embellished and altered with different versions through time ultimately create new music altogether. Music doesn’t belong to individuals so much as it belongs to cultures and to humanity. When learning other people’s music, you magically discover your own!

• Spontaneity and improvisation in composition
• Percussion and voice / “being in the moment”
• Call and response
• Examples of everyday topics for writing lyrics

Keep this going and give people the freedom and mandate to be musical. It was fun, valuable and needs to be expanded. Adult psyches are so fragile, you deal very well in that realm. I see you as a musical psychologist. 

                                                                                                                         – Mike Hensen / workshop participant

RIVERTUNES ROOTS MUSIC CAMP
– Begin Your Beyond

RiverTunes isn’t about showing us how to do something better, as much as RiverTunes is about showing us what we didn’t realize what we capable of in the first place!

RiverTunes Student Body

What We Are

RiverTunes is a small community-based volunteer assisted Music Camp, whose purpose is to validate, encourage and promote the creative music abilities of all people with informally learned American Roots Music.

From anyone never having “given it a go” with learning music, those having previously experienced genuine struggles or negative experiences learning music, and from never before beginners to folks wishing to progress to the next level, RiverTunes provides a really fun opportunity for anyone with a desire to explore learn and grow musically in a supportive and safe environment.

We are three and a half days of acoustic music instruction, performance opportunities, evening activities, jamming, and more in a breathtaking outdoor setting at Rancho El Chorro Outdoor School on California’s beautiful Central Coast just 6 miles from Morro Bay to the west and 6 miles from San Luis Obispo to the east. It’s an opportunity to study with a variety of string, voice, percussion and keyboard-based instruments in a variety of genre. Traditional and Contemporary Folk and Americana, Blues, Pop, Hawaiian, Tin Pan Alley, Bluegrass, Old Time and Swing are just some of the styles delved into. Improvisation, Rhythm, Songwriting, Theory, Performance Craft and Jamming are other popular topics.

Camping out under the stars, making new friends and reuniting with friends of RiverTunes past, eating delicious/nutritious catered food, tons of laughter, very little sleep, enjoying the platypus races, feeding the elephants, and so much more…make for one of the highlights of your year.

Where We Are

RiverTunes is now based on the Central Coast at Rancho El Chorro Outdoor School, just west of San Luis Obispo, California.

Visit our website rivertunes.net

RiverTunes Student body goodbye

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Vocáli Voice Camp

You will leave touched by the experience in ways that are difficult to quantify, but which will make you want to go out among the people of the world and make it a better place. 
–  Janine Elich, Vocáli Student

What We Are

Vocáli Voice Camp is a very small family owned & operated volunteer assisted education retreat. Our purpose is to validate, encourage and promote the creative abilities of all people with their voices through music and spoken word. As our Director Joe Craven puts it, “Your voice is the most portable, versatile, amazing musical instrument you’ll never buy!” Our voices are reflections of who we are. We also explore and promote the idea that your voice is also the expression of content of your view of the world. We help you learn to become more of who you already are – through your voice – and how that is a gift to us all.

There are two voice platforms that Vocáli teaches from; Music and Spoken Word. Sounds, music and songs, dovetail to words creating language that become stories. It’s how to use the unique and personal blueprint that is your voice – expressively and compellingly – that we pursue. We also cover care and feeding of your voice and how general good health prepares you for success in using your voice creatively and effectively.

This is not an ability based camp; the Faculty of Vocáli validates where you are with what you know – and moves you forward from there. Anyone can come to Vocáli and leave changed for the better, both creatively and with greater confidence.

We are four days of voice instruction from Thursday afternoon till Sunday morning. Our sessions cover a wide range of topics combined with performance opportunities and evening activities. We learn as one large group, so we all move through the same experience together, uniting as friends old and new. You’ll also experience a cosy, home-like feel of comfy accommodations and an artful bouquet of wholesome organic foods, teas, coffee and wine at dinner. Learning with lots of “ah ha!” moments, laughter, and so much more, will be waiting you at Vocáli.

Where We Are

Vocáli Voice gathers in Northern California at Tokayana Cottages in Colfax, just up the road from Sacramento. We’ll be in the beautiful foothills of the Sierra Nevada with the smell and freshness of Springtime’s warm days and cool evenings.

I’ve been testifying and reflecting since my return down the mountain, mostly remarking on the place, the company, the food and the teaching/facilitating which was as good and better than any I have yet experienced. And that’s a lot!         

– Vocáli Student