Fine-tune your performance skills!
Gain confidence with a deeper understanding of music!
Collaborate with your friends!
Lessons offered for: trumpet, trombone, French horn, baritone horn, flute, clarinet, saxophone, drums, bass, guitar, piano, jazz technique and improv, composition / songwriting, ensemble classes
Contact: Tim Byrnes therealmrbyrnes at gmail.com
In home, on-site, and virtual options are available.
The Language of Instrumental Music (TLIM) is a class for beginner adult musicians who have some knowledge of instrumental music, but may have been confined to traditional classical lessons, school band, or orchestra; or beginner adult musicians who have no prior experience with music-making or instrument-playing.
TLIM is designed to help musicians fuse the fun of performance, music theory, composition, and improvisation into a consolidated expressive package.
Class topics will include the basic principles of pitch, rhythm, instrumental construction, sound production, reading notation, improvisation, and composition.
We utilize the format of instrument-specific small group classes (keyboards with keyboards, violins with violins, etc.), and mixed instrument ensembles.
Tuition rates, schedule, contact and registration: therealmrbyrnes at gmail.com
Hello friends and visitors.
I have written a book.
A Century of Tough Love is a collection of one hundred short reflections on the life of love in Christ and my conscientious journey in how to both receive and give Christ’s love.
In theology, a ‘century’ is a collection of one hundred short chapters or texts.
The book is a deliberately challenging and sometimes offensive and explicit work, and in that way I have tried to capture somewhat the nature of Jesus Himself.
I believe this text will be useful and informative (and convicting) to both Christian and non-Christian alike.
A .pdf version of the A Century of Tough Love and be downloaded here.
Thoughts and feedback can be sent to therealmrbyrnes at gmail dot com .
The Winter Term at The Epouranios School will begin on Thursday, January 19th and will run for six weeks, until Friday, February 24th!
If you already know that you would like to register please follow this link to Eventbrite to register and make your payment!
The Winter Term will be offering four great music classes:
Thursdays at 5pm
The Guitar Circle – This is a fun, interactive, beginner group guitar class that focusses on practical approaches and great music.
Thursdays at 6:30pm
The Language of Instrumental Music (TLIM) – This is a group music class for adult beginners and amateur musicians who have both an interest in learning an instrument and the principles of music in general.
Fridays at 5pm
Decoding Notation – This is a class for the serious musician who struggles with interpreting notation and sight –
reading. This class is available to both instrumentalists and singers.
Fridays at 6:30pm
Harmony and the Hook – This is a practical music theory class that focusses on the principle that great music is a combination of the surprising and the inevitable. If you are a serious musician who has hated music theory, but knows that it will be useful to you, this is the class for you.
This six-week course is available for the promotional price of $150 per subject.
Classes will be held at:
The Chinatex Building
209 W. 40th Street
(Times of Refreshing Christian Center / Funkadelic Studios)
New York, NY 10018
www.hazel-rah.net
Also…
Private instrumental lessons are also available on most instruments for a promotional rate for six sessions (see tickets for pricing). Schedule subject to availability.
Kids classes are also currently in the works. Please email me ( therealmrbyrnes@gmail.com ) if you have children who would be interested in private lessons or a musical ensemble class.
Contact: therealmrbyrnes@gmail.com
The next term of The Language of Instrumental Music (TLIM) will be beginning at the end of the first week of March, 2022!
If you already know that you would like to register, please follow this link to Eventbrite to register and make your payment!
The Language of Instrumental Music (TLIM) is a class for beginner adult musicians who have some knowledge of instrumental music, but may have been confined to traditional classical lessons, school band, or orchestra; or beginner adult musicians who have no prior experience with music-making or instrument-playing.
TLIM is designed to help musicians fuse the fun of performance, music theory, composition, and improvisation into a consolidated expressive package.
Class topics will include the basic principles of pitch, rhythm, instrumental construction, sound production, reading notation, improvisation, and composition.
This term, we will utilize the format of instrument-specific small group classes (keyboards with keyboards, violins with violins, etc.).
This six-week course is available for the promotional price of $150, which is less than half of the price of my regular instruction rate. Some additional fees may apply, including a small space rental fee. Please get in contact if you have any questions about this.
The weekly class schedule will be determined by students and teacher once the small instrumental groups are formed.
Classes will happen at 209 W. 40th Street in Manhattan (NYC), either at Funkadelic Studios or Time of Refreshing Christian Center (TORCC-NY) (both establishments are in the same building).
Requirements: You must bring your own instrument (drumset and keyboards are an exception – let me know if these are the instruments that you are interested in and I will find a way to accomodate you). If you do not own any musical instruments, let me know and I can help you find one. Any instrument that can produce distinct pitches and rhythms will work! You might also want to consider bringing an instrument that you are not so familiar with, but can produce a sound on!
“Taking The Language of Instrumental Music was exactly what I needed to reopen musical exploration in my life. Tim does an excellent job laying the foundation of music theory in a way that brings it to life and is a lot of fun. There was a helpful balance between participation, information, and observation. I also have a better understanding of music beyond my instrument of choice after taking this class (just check out Tim’s instrument collection and music library!). Taking this class helped take the pressure off of returning to formal music study after a long hiatus. The open, sharing atmosphere and encouragement of collaboration between fellow students was my favorite part. Thank you!“
-Sonia, adult student
“[But God] raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” (Ephesians 2:6-7)
On Tuesday, November 30th, 2021, I will begin teaching The Language of Instrumental Music (TLIM), which will be The Epouranios School’s inaugural class. All classes will be held live in New York City until further notice.
The Epouranios School is a school for discourse, with a focus on music, history, and theology. Classes for all ages on a variety of subjects are currently in the works, and will be unveiled throughout 2022 and beyond.
In the meantime, check out the current offerings:
Flyer for The Language of Instrumental Music (adult course)
Flyer for private music instruction (all ages)
If you are interested in registering for TLIM, or have a general inquiry, please email me at therealmrbyrnes at gmail.com .
I have recently been utilizing Instagram to share images and texts that I think would be of interest. One day, these may form the basis of some of my classes and/or broadcasts (see below about my theory of discourse).
You can follow me @hhazelrahh .
Some of my series include:
The Instagram posts generally appear on my personal Facebook page as well.
I recently posted a rough cycle of poems that I wrote between the years 2005 and 2010, subtitled Christian Homesickness. I consider these poems a summary of the creative work from my twenties. Some of them became song lyrics through adaptation and transformation, and some were just meant to stand on their own. All express the experience of being in the crucible of Christian conversion, amidst a simultaneously skeptical and satanic world.
Train to learn to disappear and reappear
And be a type and be before the
All that’s meant to come and stand forever more.
These wishes poured out, deep upon the deep,
Upon the deepest places stored and tried,
He acted out of grief but by the end was
Well trained to make a person disappear and reappear,
And be a type, a saint.
I have also posted a transcript of some prayers that I prayed in 2015 from my home in Queens, which I think could prove useful for those seeking to communicate with God on the topics of the higher life and calling.
“And at this crossroads of my own life, I do indeed conclude that I cannot continue to be yielded to a fully relational grid of interpersonal activity that operates out of a fear of the other’s condemnation, but I must operate out of the knowledge of Your will.”
Finally, I have posted a very short essay that I wrote this past summer (2018) on my theory of personal discourse, which includes the following Venn diagram:
In the summer of 2017, I had the privilege of playing synthesizer on the wildly creative Stern record Missive: Sister Ships with my colleagues Chuck Stern, Toby Driver, and Keith Abrams.
M:SS was in large part a lament for and tribute to Chuck’s late father Peter Stern, who was a friend of mine as well.
The music is beyond description…I’ve often described it as Shostakovich-ian hardcore through a 1990s lens. It is compositional in the best sense, and I am still inspired by Chuck’s unique approach to harmony, after almost two decades of collaboration with him.
The album was released this past August on Sleeping Giant Glossolalia Records on a variety of digital formats and vinyl LP.
Selected Press:
