Our School
There’s hardly anything unusual about the humble-sized music school that our association has been maintaining since the fall of 2022: weekly sessions, instrument classes, collective workshops, and many cultural events, mainly concerts and masterclasses. All of these are meant towards people of all generations and proficiency levels, including beginners (both adults and children).
For those in search of something more, our approach offers some rather unique teachings and methods.
Learning through creative and recreational activities
Express ourself by creating your own music! Improvisation or writing games help you grasp some techniques and musical rules, that you are invited to make your own.
Freedom and responsibility in your own learning
Our belief is that anyone should have the option of starting to learn music and art, or to improve their aristic knowledge. Therefore, we offer a first session entirely free of charge, non-binding and without any prerequisite.
If and when you wish to commit to a course, you decide of your individual teaching sessions’ duration, ranging from thirty minutes to an hour.
Moreover, you can decide for yourself as to the number and frequency of your teaching sessions, by using our unique voucher system, whereby you can plan a given number of sessions as often and as regularly as you want for up to a year. That way, only you are in charge of the assiduity and regularity in your curriculum.
Our French-American identity
Although our school is located in rural France and classes are usually taught in French, a rather strong English, and more specifically North-American, influence is perceivable in the repertoire we tend to teach (contemporary music, jazz and pop music, but also our thriving musical theater workshops), as well as in the fact that most people in charge of teaching here are fully bilingual.Tom Johnson and minimalist music
Composers in the 20th century have had to cope with the upheaval of previously established artistic languages and structures; rather than being part of a pre-existing school, most of them had to come up with a language of their own, as well as their own manner of organising pitches, rhythms and timbres. Where many have opted for ever-increasing complexity (and in that process making themselves hardly accessible to both the audience and the music students), a trend amog some American composers starting from the 1960s was on the contrary to explore music in its most simple and fundamental components, most often in deliberate and repetitive structures.
Tom Johnson found himself at the heart of that movement, that he himself dubbed
"minimalist" music (as a writer for the New-York magazine The Village Voice).
Both through his closeness with the most essential artists of that era, and through his
own musical output (such as his 1972 Four Note Opera), Tom became a prominent
voice in so-called "New Music", pushing minimalist aesthetic to an extreme and very
personal level of purity and abstraction. From the late 1980s after moving to Paris,
his music became nearly entirely ruled by logical and mathematical principles,
thereby evading (or masking) the inevitable arbitrary choices that composing implies.
There does remain, however, a constant playfulness to Tom Johnson’s style, allowing him to engage in complicity with his performers and audience, with always a healthy dose of good-natured humor. Rather than posing as an inapproachable author who would be the sole bearer of transcendental inspiration, Tom makes it a point to expose the inner workings of his compositional devices, gently guiding us to reach a full, demystified understanding of musical systems. That purpose transpires not only through the countless jokes that his score always come with, but also through numerous explanation notes and didactical books that he wrote.
There isn’t any deep mystery to music. Music is logical, comsistent and within reach of our understanding. Isn’t that precisely what makes it beautiful?
Learn more about Tom Johnson and his music by visiting his publishing house’s website: editions75.com.
The Tom Johnson music school
Our music school wasn’t founded by Tom himself, but by Valentin Villenave who was, in the last decade of his life, one his closest associates.
Working as an accompanist since age 11 and as a piano teacher since age 19,
Valentin was also trained in chamber music, harmony, counterpoint and
orchestration, and learned the double bass at a beginner level.
He has written hundreds of pedagogical scores as well as more ambitious
pieces, including an opera commissioned by the Montpellier national opera
house, and a whole catalogue of solo, chamber and symphonic music.
In addition to his musical training, he studied classical litterature
and has a Masters in art and science communication, as well as several
diplomas in art and computer teaching. His efforts to transmit knowledge
and skills have led him to produce many writings, videos and podcasts;
he also offers lectures, concerts and cultural actions in many forms,
as well as numerous masterclasses, academies and training sessions
encompassing music and computer teaching (aimed, among others, towards
disabled people).
The Tom Johnson music school is therefore intended for beginners of all ages and backgrounds as well as for experienced musicians; it regularly invites lecturers and performers from all over France, but also offers cultural actions in our whole region, including in rural areas.