About

My name is Henk Frans. I live in Enschede, the Netherlands. I was educated as an electro technician, philosophical engineer, and guitar teacher. For a lot of people there is hardly any connection between these three disciplines. However there are a lot of tangent places as passion and transparence. Without passion and transparence, music, electro technology and philosophy will not evolve. On this site I will not bother you with the interconnections between the three disciplines. The aim of this site is to share you my passion for jazz guitar music, and Brazilian music in particular.

Classical influences
A lot of musicians and musical styles have inspirated me. My first conscious experience with music was, when I heard my grandfather playing organ as a little child. Seeing their enthusiastic child, my parents decided the little boy should be given organ lessons. I started them on an old harmonium. When I was about 13 years old I was educated in playing churchorgan, which in the beginning I liked a lot, but gradually my awareness grew of the fact that organ was not so popular, and I finally stopped.

My first band
Some years later I met a friend who played blues- and rockguitar. Wow! A girlfriend of my sister lend me a spanish guitar for about a fortnight and I learned to play a D chord. That must have been in the summer of 1982. In december of the same year I bought myself a western guitar. Ronald learned me some more chords and to play blues and rock 'n' roll solo's using the bluesscale.With him and a drummer I had my first band. Imagine: a band without a bassplayer! Anyway, we had a lot of fun! We mainly played blues, rock 'n' roll and some Pink Floyd songs.

Blues influences
About the year 1985 I saw the bluesguitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan playing on television. I bought some records, turned them grey in the meantime soloing, soloing, and soloing over it. Some time later, at a session, I saw Hans Hooijer playing "Red House" from Jimi Hendrix. He played jazz too. Astonishing! He became my second guitar teacher and stimulated me listening to jazz records, especially records from Kenny Burrell, Wes Montgomery, and Wim Overgaauw (a dutch jazzguitarist).

Jazz influences
My first guitar teacher, Stefan Mooibroek, recommended me listening to the Belgian guitarist Philip Catherine. In 1987 I heard his record "Transparance" and it turned me upside down. It must have been the year 2000 when I enjoyed the honour of playing "How deep is the ocean" with Philip Catherine, while he was giving a masterclass at the Conservatory of Music in Enschede. Imagine playing with your heroe that some ten years earlier turned your upside down! Other guitarists I'm fond of are the incredible guitarist Pat Metheny, John Scofield, Jim Hall, John McLaughlin and Robben Ford.

Influences of Brazilian music
In the year 2001 I started listening to Brazilian music. Especially the music of the singer/songwriter Djavan was something I thought of renewing. This I had never heard before: an interesting mix of samba, pop, jazz, fusion, and african rhythms. Also the exciting manner of playing a samba by João Bosco astonished me. In the field of arranging Ivan Lins and Sergio Mendes catched my special attention. Their respective albums "Jobiniando" and "Brasileiro" ought not to be missed in the collection of the jazzlover/jazzmusician. "Jobiniando", an homage to the great António Carlos Jobim, combines the arranging-talent of Ivan Lins with the composing-talent of Jobim. Other great Brazilian musicians I would like to mention are the guitarist/singer João Gilberto and singer/songwriter Gilberto Gil, nowadays the Brazilian minister of culture. On my download-page you can find midi-files from Brazilian music. I made them by transcribing records from Brazilian musicians.

Curriculum Vitae
After my childhood I followed the highest level of Dutch secondary education "Voortgezet Wetenschappelijk Onderwijs" (VWO), which can be translated as "Continued Scientific Education". In august 1983 I continued studying electro technics on Windesheim, a University of Professional Education located in Zwolle, the Netherlands. In 1988, after obtaining my diploma as an electro technical engineer, degree of ing., I continued studying Philosophy of Science, Technology and Society on The University of Twente, the Netherlands. In 1994 I obtained my diploma as a philosophical engineer, degree of ir., a degree somewhere in between Bachelor's and Master's degree. After I graduated there was an economic recession going on. After one and a half year of fruitlessly applying for jobs, and after some jobs as an unpaid volunteer, I decided to do what I felt in my heart: to study electric guitar. In 1996 I passed the entrance examination and started to study electric guitar on the Conservatory of Music in Enschede. In 2000 I received my baccalaurean degree (bc.) as a Teaching Musician in Electric Guitar. This study gave me a profound knowledge of popular music after 1900. During my study I gave guitar lessons on several schools of music in Germany and the Netherlands. Now I'm giving guitar lessons just on a very restrictive scale. About five years ago I decided to apply again. I wanted to do something with the knowledge I gained in my previous studies. There was an economic boom and quickly I found a job as a case manager at the social service section of the municipality of Hengelo. I'm still working there but nowadays in a more technical job as a functional application manager.