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My mother had similar beliefs. She was from Hinesville, GA and loved Gospel, Elvis, R&B and Motown. She had me playing way back in 1975. I took piano lessons from 1975 to 1984. I suffered through what makes most kids quit lessons...uninspired, routine music training. I sometimes hated piano lessons, but luckily had a set of parents that pushed. I also was lucky to attend weekend sessions at the Philadelphia Academy of Music. I took a bus in each Saturday and got exposure to musicians and teachers from all over the world. Oddly enough though, it was a friend that knew 3 or 4 guitar chords that started the chain reaction that landed me here teaching your kids.
A childhood buddy of mine, whose dad got him a guitar for Christmas, showed me 3 chords and sang me a James Taylor song sometime around 1983. We did not really understand it fully at the time, but he inadvertantly showed me how chord progressions work and how a melody flows over and through them. I remember my excitement well. All my finger training was now actually useful. I used this new found power to start to figure out songs and to write my own. I was like a kid with a machine gun. I did nothing else. Beatles, blues, Billy Joel, Elton John...I was on fire. I figured out quickly that 95% of sheet music is wrong and arranged by people trying their best to represent a song, but not always getting it right. I found that if I thought like a rocker, I could do better. I remember figuring out "Unchain my Heart" by Ray Charles one night and I was so excited I called every kid I knew and they all could not have cared less. I could not understand this.
Well, on I went. I started learning Bass Guitar to branch out in 1985. I learned the power of blues, the joy of jazz and how to navigate and drive a chord progression. I learned bass in a chording style that really works. I still teach it this way. The bass guitar helped increase my understanding of the anatomy of a song. I found myself getting into more complex music with moving basslines and counter melodies. I liked the way the bass drove the rhythm and feel of the song. I really loved the power the electric bass gave my music and the idea of an amplifier was so cool!
I began intensely studying guitar shortly before college and while attending Villanova University received top notch musical instruction in piano, drums, guitar, composition and theory. The classes were very old school, but by this time I had an appreciation for the knowledge and was taking it anyway I could get it. Unfortunately, because I was on an Army ROTC scholarship, I could not major in music. I took every elective I could though in the music department and took on extra class loads in music whenever possible. I especially enjoyed the percussion classes and the various musical styles I came to know. I had natural rhythm from my dancin' momma and it was so much fun to use it.
I really dove into the guitar though and played non-stop. It became "my instrument." The guitar gave me another vehicle with which to write and express myself. Because of that "awful" piano scale and cadence chord training, I became a lead guitar monster and always understood how to get around a guitar. I saw it like 6 little pianos and man did it work. I still use that technique too. I also studied the guitar phrases of many famous rockers and bluesmen and tried to ingest them into my scale and chord techniques.
I played lead roles in a few pop bands during and after college. I had to work around a six month Army active duty tour and 8 years in the Army Reserve as a platoon leader and executive officer, but it all worked out OK. I always made time for the music! My biggest effort was "Jojo Pepper," a band that scored much airplay with a single called, "Hippie Jean." The band did real well in Pennsylvania and the surrounding area, and if you ever heard about the "red leather boots" on the radio....then you already know who I am!
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