Hi! thanks for visiting!!
My mini-life story is below--
I also have a website you can visit
www.tedfalcon.com
It all started with clasical music for me when I was 5. I loved playing Bach and Vivaldi on the violin until I was about 13 when i discovered none of other kids on the wrestling team thought the violin was cool. I succumbed to teenage peer pressure and switched to the bass. For 4 years or so, I played rock bass with my good friend Loren at his house in Allentown everyday after school..Just bass and drums. This was an important time---learning Rush, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, and other hard rock and jam band music by the Grateful Dead. Later, on the day I was leaving for college, my mom asked if I wanted to bring my violin..she said, "the girls will love it"...thanks mom. The girls did love it! I started studying classical guitar next--playing Tarrega, Villa-Lobos and the Sor studies.
While at the University of Pittsburgh, I heard a big band ensemble rehearsing. It was a huge sound. I remember walking in the class and watching, digging the jazz rhythm section of piano, drums, guitar and upright bass. After the class, I approached the professor, Nathan Davis, and asked if there was such a thing as jazz violin. I asked if he would teach me how to play jazz on the violin. He said "sure, man" "You ever hear of Stuff Smith or Stephane Grappelli?" He took me on...so I signed up the next semester under the pretext of a saxophone student---while really studying jazz violin. Nathan turned me on to Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Sonny Stitt, Duke Ellington and also taught me to play piano using the Mahegan voicings.
I continued with the violin and improvising through Pitt and then at Indiana University where I studied with David Baker and Marcos Cavalcante. Indiana was an intensive place to study. Bloomington didn't have many distractions as a small town...so I practiced like crazy taking classical and jazz lessons on the violin and Brazilian guitar lessons...It was here that I was first introduced to Brazilian choro music---which today, 12 years later has become my main focus.
I moved to NYC and delved into as many musical projects as I could including MICE, the Manhattan Improvisational Chamber Ensemble, and began playing more contemporary/ avante garde music. In addition, I formed my own groups playing jazz and rock violin and played around the city. I experimented with Indian music and formed a group called Red Planet that featured Angela Workman. We played in festivals in New York and Pennsylvania.
I had my first tour with Ringling Bros and the Kaleidoscape circus as a violinist. It was a great experience meeting people from all over the world. I relocated to Los Angeles, and continued playing jazz and was turned on to Latin music: Cuban, Argentine and Brazilian.
Brazilian music fills my heart. It has the beautiful melodies, the rich harmonies and the upbeat rhythms. I've been to Brazil 3 times in the past 4 years studying Brazilian music, learning Portuguese and soaking in the culture. Here in Los Angeles, I play choro and teach music to 25 people a week at the Silverlake Conservatory of Music, founded by Flea of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers
