about your host
The short version: My name is Rob, I play the piano. I used to play professionally, but I went on hiatus when my first kid was born. I am not classically trained. I now work in the IT field, but I’m also not classically trained to do that (don’t tell my boss, okay?). I have been making websites for a long time now too (since 1994).
A year ago, I got a piano again and started the process of rebuiliding some of my skill. This has taken hold of me and I’ve begun to produce a fair amount of music, which I’d like to share. And I have a tendency to talk about music, so a blog is a good place to collect some of the stuff I’ve written elsewhere.
The long version: (This is in response to a question from a reader. You know who you are…)
As a kid I used to noodle around and pick out melodies on any instrument I could lay hands on. I remember my grandparents had a guitar that I’d fool with, but they also had this organ that had a matrix of buttons where each button played a chord. You could push the Fmi button. I listened to a lot of classical as a little kid and I could tell that certain sequences of chords sounded “right” and others were “wrong.”
My first instrument where I got lessons was flute, I started in 4th grade. I learned to read (treble clef at least). But my teacher was a jazzer. I was always playing my etudes or whatever with jazz articulation, and he just encouraged that, as well as exposing me to a bunch more cool music (like Spike Jones). I learned real early that there was joy in making music.
At 13 I took a few piano lessons from a church guy who was also a jazzer. He taught me how to read chord charts, and then I never even dreamed of doing classical. He also taught me enough ear training that I bootstrapped myself into playing stuff I was hearing on albums.
At that age I was playing in a lot of different situations. I played in church orchestra for a big church that did three services, one televised. My flute teacher was the music director (chart slave) and showed me how to transcribe stuff, copy parts and whatnot. Eventually I was helping with that, doing transcriptions for him mainly.
I stuck with flute through high school, studied that seriously with a decent teacher and played in high school band (ours was excellent) and youth symphony (our HS orchestra was strings only). I also was in the pit orchestra for a couple musicals (paying scale). I whipped my piano chops up to good enough to play in our HS jazz band, which was also excellent.
My beef with HS jazz band was that the director was absurdly competitive. I bailed my senior year after he started the year about how we had to beat the crosstown rival school no matter what (we placed second to them in state competition). I felt strongly that the adults should be teaching us to play with the crosstown players, not against them. I mean, we were doing gigs with them in some cases.
So I went to university after HS in pursuit of a music major. My piano skills sucked, so I want as a flute performance major. Played in a pretty decent college jazz band, but discovered playing casuals. As a rhythm section player, I was pretty in demand. And it dawned on me one day that no one ever asked to see my diploma before the gig. So I ejected from the band director factory conservatory.
I found a superb gig with a house band shortly afterward (playing keyboards for the first time–I was a piano snob). I highly recommend playing with people a lot better than you are–it is the ultimate development technique. I learned tons about theory, music, and being a musician from the people I played with. I was sad in some sense because I realized that my first long-running gig would probably be the best situation I’d ever play in.
I got to where I was playing seven nights and at the top of the food chain in that market, so I moved to a bigger city to take a gig with an established singer. I played a total of 8 years behind her, but along the way found a lot of opportunities to play in varied situations too. I tried on the hats of a music director, and briefly of a band leader.
Then at age 26 I decided I had better complete a degree. But I had no illusions about getting a music degree. I went for an engineering degree instead. the great thing about gigging is that it was te perfect job for a student–I never had to miss class for a gig or vice versa. I worked the summer of my senior year at a local company, and wound up building their web site (This was back in the day when web publishing was incredibly new–my school exposure to the web made me an expert among people who’d never heard of the Internet). That worked out well for me and I got a job there after graduation, and I am now a manager there.
When my son was born, I quit playing professionally at age 31. I estimate I had played between 2000 and 2200 gigs by then. I had made rent by playing for 11 years. I was nervous as hell that I’d lose my hard-won skills. But opportunities to sub abounded, and as soon as I convinced myself that I wasn’t forgetting how to play, I relaxed a whole lot. I decided that I was “on hiatus” instead of retired. I still actively listened to, studied, and analyzed music, I just wasn’t playing.
Then after a seven-year interval of not playing, I got a piano last year. Since then I’ve been in the shed. I’m still not gigging. I gigged more in a week at age 16 than in a year at age 39. But I’ve been taking my chops apart and putting them back together again, lather, rinse, repeat. I know I could gig at any time I want to in the market I’m in, and in other bigger markets. I’m wrestling with the “why do I play” question. Putting vids up on Youtube was a sort of dipping my toe in the water of public performance again without a lot of risk. I realy never suspected I’d put up as many as I did, but I realized I have a lot of music inside. And recording vids and putting them up helps me.
Then I started this blog a couple months back, becuase I like to hear myself talk I enjoy discussing the various aspects of music: performance, analysis, perception, communication, study. I take music very seriously, but I don’t take meself seriously at all. I just try to have a good time. If I can get the guys on the bandstand having some fun, it invariably gets the audience on board too, and magic can happen.
