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Howard Hart is a distinctive and adroit axe wielder currently based in Carlsbad, California (U.S.A.) who represents his playing style as instrumental rock/fusion (with lots of musical styles melting together), as a music fan can now experience on his most recent recording, "Dancing Madly Backwards".  His workhorse guitars consist of an Ibanez JS-100 and a his old 'mutt'; a Kramer body with a Performance neck. Hart has been playing guitar since 1970, and putting it simply, divulges his career objective, "To focus intently on writing and recording more instrumental music. It's something I really love doing, and it's my main focus right now."
When requested to let slip his favorite or most used effect for the guitar, Hart unflinchingly stated, "Nothing in particular - it depends on the mood of the song and what I'm going for," and then outlined his musicial goals, "I'm simply trying to get across emotion of all kinds! I believe music expresses itself and we kind of go along for the ride. If we can get inside the music, then the music speaks to all the different human emotions." He maintains a desire to, at some point, study with L. Shankar ("Stravinsky if he were alive!") , and is at the moment listening to anything and everything that grabs his ear ("The constant in my life is Indian classical music"). His principal gratification? "Writing a piece of music and seeing it through the recording process. The only thing better is getting out there and playing it live," he explains without hesitation.
Hart wraps up by noting long-term and forthcoming endeavors enthusiastically, by saying, "Since I founded my instructional company HHGI, my day is spent attending to it, playing live at least two or more nights a week, and writing new music. I'm currently recording material for the next CD, which will probably be a bit heavier. And I'm also making time once again to take on students for correspondence lessons."
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Vol. 17, No. 2: Feb.-Mar. 2012
