Volunteers

Jeff Muhr – Jeffrey earned two bachelor’s degrees with three majors in biology, psychology and anthropology from Wayne State University in Detroit and pursued graduate study in developmental psychology at the University of Chicago, before he realized the sinful error of his ways and abandoned academia in favor of a five-year stint with the environmental organization Greenpeace. An incurable music addict, Jeff has aspired to follow the maxim “jack of all trades, master of none” with limited success. Hit with a ruler while taking piano lessons as a child, Jeffrey made himself a moving target, picking up a guitar and flailing on a drum kit in his parents’ basement as a teen. He has studied with two Indonesian gamelan ensembles in Chicago and Ann Arbor, MI, collected cassettes, and recorded musical performances in Malaysia, Java and Bali. After being given an oud as a gift by Yemeni friends in Detroit, he learned how to tune it after several years, and received lessons in Middle Eastern technique and maqamat from Josh Humphrey in Eugene, OR. Jeff has taken classical and flamenco guitar instruction from his infinitely patient friend Berto Boyd and jazz theory from Eugene’s Bill Harkleroad. A lover of folk baroque and blues, Jeff has attended guitar workshops with steel-string luminaries such as the Jefferson Airplane’s Jorma Kaukonen and Stefan Grossman. He has squandered countless dollars and hours obtaining stringed instruments, oddball vinyl records, books and CDs. Jeff currently plays rhythm guitar for Corvallis’s Balkan dance ensemble Ziveli.