About my music…

Music has always been an important part of my life. In the 4th grade, I was handed a trumpet to learn. I kept at it through high school, where I earned the solo first trumpet chair in our band. I bought an inexpensive guitar in high school and taught myself how to play it. I sang in the church choir. During high school I would occasionally traipse across a field and through the woods to spend some time on the church pipe organ even thought I couldn’t really play it – it fascinated me. I earned spending cash marching in parades playing the trumpet in the summers in a fireman’s band – that was great fun. I took music theory classes in college. I sang in the college choir and toured with them one summer.

When I started working, I stopped playing the trumpet, but I sang in local choral group and I kept active with the guitar. I joined a folk group and greatly increased my repertoire. I played a few evenings at a coffee house called the Thirsty Ear. Because my guitar was not great, someone in the audience handed me their fine instrument to perform with. I was well received there, and played with great enthusiasm – a very memorable experience. I began teaching guitar after work in an adult school program and then added a second level course. My students wanted to continue after the two levels, so we began meeting in peoples homes once a week. It was great fun for all, making music, drinking wine, and I was getting paid as well!

My playing continued to be heavily weighted with folk, but I also worked on classical, and a variety of other styles, including flamenco, and jazz. As much as I enjoy jazz, I rarely was able to do it justice. As I approached 80 years old, I sadly retired my guitars due to arthritis (save the classical which now serves as a wall decoration.)

Along the way, I picked up playing the flute. I did not attain a high level with it, but I enjoyed it. You can hear some of my better recordings with it below.

I enjoyed listening to electronic music when it exploded on the scene with Walter (now Wendy) Carlos’s Switched On Bach album. I found his/her virtuoso playing of Bach’s compositions on Bob Moog’s synthesizer thrilling! I wanted to be able to make those sounds myself. I started to learn more about electronics, and undertook making a my own version of Moog’s instrument. It took a few years, but it worked (mostly.)

In the last decade or so electronics and software have transformed the field. Hardware synthesizers have been replaced by software. Tape recorders have been replaced with digital electronics and inexpensive digital memory. A new field of music production called sampling had a huge impact. My powerful personal computer, and a music (piano-like) keyboard, many libraries of digitally sampled instruments and a decent microphone give me the ability to produce music essentially the same sound quality as a professional recording studio. For example, I have the complete BBC symphony orchestra available to me on my keyboard, from all the individual instruments and multiple articulations to the sound of the full orchestra playing. I have two different massive professional choirs. And, of course I have a large variety of other synthesizer “plug-ins” for creating a huge range of sounds that physical instruments can’t make. Each year the industry is upping the already stunning quality of the sampled instruments and the realism of their produced sounds. It’s fantastic!