When I was 6, I was acting out in school because I was bored, so my first grade teacher recommended to my parents that they put me in music lessons. My parents took me to the local music store and signed me up. I had a really great teacher who made the lessons fun and even encouraged me to write a song based on a little poem I liked about a wolfman.
I didn’t really like practicing for my lessons, but I did love the feeling of being able to play a song that I had heard on the radio.
Over the years, I changed teachers many times and still mostly didn’t like practicing, but really, really enjoyed playing pop songs. They grounded me and healed me and made me feel more human. I loved the emotional magic of music and stories together.
Inevitably, as I was approaching graduation from high school, I was faced with the question of what I would want to study in college. I had an interest in music and an interest in electrical engineering. I eventually decided to choose music because it seemed the bolder choice — harder in some ways, but worthy.
And it was right around this time, when I was 16, to be precise, that my father died. And then my mother died when I was 19. Obviously, this was devastating for me and honestly one of the main ways I was able to survive and to process what was happening was to play the piano and sing songs.
I’ll give you an example: one of my dad’s favorite songs before he died was Billy Joel’s “Piano Man,” so after he passed, I would sit and play and sing that song over and over again and cry out loud. Playing and singing songs like that one or songs by the other great songwriters I loved was how I grieved during that time.
So then, flash forward a bit.
I got married and after years and years of study and hard work I built a pretty great career as a full-time freelance musician. I did everything from music directing on cruise ships to conducting choirs to composing music for major choruses and for the Tony award winning Denver Center. And I taught music at every point in that journey, starting actually at the very same music store where I took lessons when I was 6.
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