Rick Vandivier:
Jazz Techinques for Classical Guitar (clinic)
Sunday, Mar 11: 1:00 – 1:50
Evergreen Valley HS: Room F114
Rick Vandivier learned to play piano as a child in Ohio. "Then came The Beatles and rock flowering of the '60s. By 13, I started to feel the draw of the guitar. My brother had started to play, so there was one around that I could get my hands on. And I just found that it was more my instrument. It spoke to me and I could say more with it, even in the early stages. And it was just clearly way more cool."
As his tastes matured, Vandivier became fascinated with bands like Yes, The Allman Brothers and Emerson, Lake & Palmer. Jazz eventually moved to the foreground.
"It was the combination of the more interesting harmonies and the improvisation that got me interested in listening to jazz. And I had a friend, who was a drummer, who had developed a really serious record collection, an interest in jazz and an ability to play it. So I listened to his records and we began our own forays into experimenting with it.
"When I got to hear jazz live, that was what really did it, the combination of the spontaneity, the energy and the interplay really appealed to me."
Gradually, Vandivier developed his own guitar style. "It's something that I worked at. It filters out of our life experience, as much as it does our musical experience. There's a distilling that happens over time."
He studied at Berklee College of Music, where his teachers included Pat Metheny. There he honed both his composing and guitar skills. In 1979, Vandivier moved to California.
"I had made a couple of trips out here and really liked the music scene. It seemed like more freedom in the way people were writing and playing, more elbow room musically than I was experiencing in Boston, at the time. And, of course, I loved the area for everything that Northern California has to offer, in terms of the weather, the scenic beauty and the people."
Upon relocating, Vandivier wanted to make use of the California State University system. "At Berklee, I focused entirely on music courses. So, I wanted to fill in my education with things like psychology, English and art, but was really happy to find that they had a thriving jazz program. San Jose State was the first CSU to have one. It was started by Dwight Cannon. I met some very good players and teachers. So, even though I'd gone for the academic, the music was my primary focus."
He completed his studies at San Jose State in 1981 and has been teaching there ever since. He has also taught at Stanford and at Gryphon Stringed Instruments in Palo Alto.