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Living Musical Projects: My musical history
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You chose to look at this web page, and in doing so have stroked my swollen ego more than you could possibly imagine. Thanks! Too bad I don't have much to say at this point in the evening. Someday I'll revise the following: It all started with my security blanket which I called "oing-oing." Every night before bed I would clutch my oing-oing, suck my thumb, and improvise songs with each note sung on the syllable "oing." My mother disposed of my oing-oing when I was three years old, as it became too moldy. I graduated to playing the piano my parents had lying around the house, immediately taking to composing impressionistic epics. At age 5 I began piano lessons so I could learn how to write these works down. At age 8 I began taking lessons with local genius Arthur Cunningham, composer, pianist, bassist, and zany philosopher. Each week I'd go to his house (which he built himself) and get a brain full of bizarre anecdotes, metaphors, and philosophies about music and otherwise, all while various members of his huge cat clan jumped up on the piano or into my lap. Of course, learning the rudiments and the classics were included in these lessons as well, but he focused his energies on converting me to the religion of music, a passion strengthened when I tought myself guitar and bass around age 13. Thanks to my uncle Alan, I was born and bred on progressive rock, which, as many musicians know, has its few strengths and many weaknesses. To this day I still struggle to unlearn the tenets of prog rock, and due to the support of many friends and fellow musicians I no longer have the blind-faith respect of such bands as Gentle Giant, ELP, et al. which we all know and loathe. Anyway, during high school I participated in every musical production possible, including: "Kiss Me Kate," "Fiddler on the Roof," "The Pajama Game," "Gypsy," "Carnival," "Anything Goes," and "Little Shop of Horrors." I became heavily influenced by these scores, and my compositions during this time (and to this day) all have a showtune-ish lilt. In college I majored in music, surrounding myself with dim-witted guitarists, diva singers, and keyboard-scarf wearing pianists. My real education, though, came from the campus radio station, WHRW, which happened to have the biggest record library of any college in New York (or at least it did at the time). Within this library I found amazing bands that weren't British and didn't release their best work in the early 70's. My best recommendation about anything in life is: if you have any interest in learning anything about modern music, go hang out at a college station right away. The only catch is you must avoid about 90% of the people populating this station because they are truly annoying. But the remaining 10% are a real treasure. That's all the babbling I can deal with right now. |
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