Guitar Guru – Offering students lifetime of music wisdom

Today Online
Feb 28
5 min read

Updated: Mar 6

• Roots Run Deep at Valley Music School

This story has received an SPJ award and was originally published in our monthly Today Magazine

By Bruce Deckert

Today Magazine Editor-in-Chief

Music schools abound around the country, across Connecticut and in Greater Hartford. A recent online search — for “Music School Farmington Valley CT” — resulted in a list of 13 links before the Related Searches section of the Google webpage.

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Yes, a baker’s dozen of apparently viable options for music education in the Valley. Yet what if you’re looking for a music teacher who has four decades of experience? A local luminary by the name of Paul Howard is on this short list.

By the way, according to Google, the above search yielded about 8.29 million results — yes, million. However, if anyone actually believes there are 8.29 million music schools here in the Valley, can we agree that such a literal Google interpretation isn’t exactly accurate?

So much for the consummate credibility of high-tech search solutions and the reliability of so-called artificial intelligence. Sure, computerized high-tech applications have value — this is a digital news platform, after all — yet to naively buy into such 21st-century technology via carte-blanche acceptance is, shall we say, unwise.

Now, without further ado or asides, let’s turn our attention back to the stars of this particular story — Paul Howard and his music school.

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Paul Howard's Valley Music School, based in Avon, officially debuted in 2009, but his career as an independent music instructor started while Jimmy Carter was president.

“I began teaching at Clavier Music in Avon in September 1979 [but] I was not an employee,” says Howard, who lives in West Simsbury — previously, he was a resident of Avon and Goshen.

After teaching at Clavier, yet more than two decades before launching his own school, Howard likewise served as a music teacher in conjunction with Valley Music, owned by George Sullivan — who had managed Clavier’s band-instrument department for music industry maestro Tony Hulme.

Hulme co-founded Clavier Music in 1967 and soon became Clavier’s sole owner, and he has been the majority owner of West Simsbury-based Hulme & Sweeney Piano Service since 2003.

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Howard was not a formal employee of Sullivan or Valley Music but instead taught music independently as a sole proprietor.

“I never worked for George,” says Howard. “I sublet space on the second floor from George and [we] had a close working relationship for 30 years.”

Sullivan died in 2009 at 64 years of age.

“When George passed I renamed my business as Paul Howard’s Valley Music School,” Howard notes, “as the Valley Music name had always been associated with both my teaching business and George’s repair business.”

After Hulme sold the Clavier Music business and brand name in 1982, Clavier continued operating at its Route 44 location in Avon — the street address is 176 West Main — in the same building that is currently the home for Paul Howard's music school and Carpetland of New England.

Hulme maintained ownership of this building and leased it to Clavier’s new owner until he sold the property in 1986. Sullivan managed Valley Music at the same location until his untimely death 23 years later. Carpetland ultimately replaced Clavier as the site’s featured tenant — for further details about Clavier’s fascinating history, see the Hulme story link below.

Many music theorists and mathematicians affirm that math and music are inseparable. Naturally, music and math and language are likewise interrelated. In this case, the math is clear-cut and can be reduced to a single independent clause, one of the building blocks of language: Howard has taught music for over 40 years in the same Route 44 building in Avon!

His perseverance has paid dividends, including consecutive Best of Avon Music School honors in 2021 and 2022.

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“The National Guitar Workshop had some of the world’s most famous guitarists as master-class teachers and clinicians over the years” — Paul Howard

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Howard’s resumé contains some rare musical gems. For over 30 years, he performed in a duo with Grammy-winning resophonic guitarist and fiddler Stacy Phillips — a Dobro is one notable resophonic guitar brand.

A longtime quasi-legendary figure in Connecticut music circles, Phillips grew up in Manhattan and died in 2018 in Hartford’s Saint Francis Hospital. Besides his partnership with Howard, Phillips was part of a half-dozen other unique groups at the time of his death, per the New Haven Independent online news site.

Further, Howard was a founding member of the National Guitar Workshop and served on the faculty for 15 years with a staff that included some of the country’s top guitar gurus.

“The National Guitar Workshop had some of the world’s most famous guitarists as master-class teachers and clinicians over the years,” he says.

Over the years, here are some of the guitarists who appeared at the workshop: Pierre Bensusan, David Grissom, Jim Hall, Michael Hedges, Pat Martino, Mark O’Connor and Zakk Wylde.

In terms of performing these days, Howard is a member of Last Fair Deal, a veteran Connecticut acoustic quartet. The group has recorded four albums.

He has produced six guitar instruction books via publisher Alfred Music — the books include a CD, DVD or online audio component, per the Alfred website. His two rock-guitar books have been translated into Spanish.

Paul Howard’s Valley Music School offers private lessons for students of all ages — from beginners to advanced musicians — in acoustic guitar, bass guitar, electric guitar, autoharp, drums, piano and voice. Lessons can last for 30, 45 or 60 minutes. Guitar teaching styles include bluegrass, folk, jazz and rock.

For about 20 years, Howard offered a popular summertime Rock Band Camp for area youth that hasn’t convened since COVID hit in the spring of 2020.

Beyond these nuts-and-bolts of teaching, Howard is glad to talk shop about his fruitful tenure in the music realm — and to offer “expert advice on all things musical,” as his Facebook page says. +

• Four-Decade Music Teachers?

Paul Howard has taught music in Avon for over 40 years — do you know of other Farmington Valley music teachers who have taught for more than four decades?

• If you have inside info — or time for the research required to answer this question — email newsroom@TodayPublishing. net

Today Publishing defines the Farmington Valley as these five towns — Avon, Canton, Farmington, Granby and Simsbury

Today Publishing features community news that matters nationwide and aims to record Connecticut’s underreported upside — covering the heart of the Farmington Valley and beyond

Guitar Guru – Offering students lifetime of music wisdom

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