Post Your Music Biography Here

Gandalfe

Gandalfe

Striving to play the changes in a melodic way.
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Having heard Phil Woods talk about his road to becoming a musician, I am interested in the music biographies of my friends here. Maybe starting with the top ten best memories would be the way to go. I'm not emotionally connected to that format, but I did want to encourage those who participate to synthesize their story to keep it under 25 pages. ;)

Note, I use this definition of the word Synthesize for those word mavens:

~ verb (used with object) 1. to form (a material or abstract entity) by combining parts or elements ( opposed to analyze ): to synthesize a statement.
 
1. I was born to a musical family where mom sang in the church choir and dad listened to country music. Yep, listened--he was sooo tone deaf. I sang in choir before I even knew it wasn't cool. I took piano lessons for a year in first grade but never really got into it. I was known to hum along to and enjoy the music found in the Looney Tunes.

2. In fifth grade I remember being tested on various mouthpieces to determine what instrument I might select for band. I was so excited and loved the trumpet but when we got to the instrument fair, my scorecard indicated that with my overbite, I might want to go with woodwind. So as we wandered away from the trumpet section I was unhappy... until I saw the saxophones. They were gorgeous and I had made my selection. I don't know how my parents (poor with five kids) managed to swing it, but I got a used Buescher Aristocrat that I used all the way through to college.

3. In seventh grade I met my first really demanding teacher. I wasn't practicing much, never could afford lessons, and was the last chair in a band of 18 or so alto saxophonists. Fortunately in this Jr. High School each chair (one through three) got face to face time with Mr. Oppenheimer. He made us play our parts alone in front of the other five fellow in the third chair where I found myself. Oh the horror. So I started practicing; it never occurred to me that I could quit. With in a few months there came a time when as we played our Rubank selection, I was the only one left playing. So after a bar or two of soloing, my first ever in an ensemble, I quit. The teacher said, "If you had kept playing, I would have moved you up to lead of the third chair." I was stunned and bummed. Shortly thereafter we moved to another school district.

4. In eighth grade I was sitting first chair out of five alto saxes. We had a concert coming up and the two of us were called upon to play the solo to Mr. Lucky. The girl who I shared the stand with was a better sight-reader and counter than me and she played first (which helped me to not totally blow it). Then it was my turn and I was so frickin' scared that my tone shook like crazy. I was so embarrassed but (see three above) played on. Afterwards I couldn't even look at the director as he announced that I had the solo because I could... wait for it... vibrato. That was my first introduction to the concept of vibrato.

5. In my senior year of high school I had 4 solos including a alto sax feature piece. My teacher decided that I would benefit from a newer instrument than my Buescher so he lent me a Mark VII. I had it for a week and then played it in the concert. It is from that experience that I learned to hate Selmer saxes. My dream sax at the time was a Couf Superba I, but who could afford that. Oh BTW, there was this cute clarinetist in front of me in that band. I got lucky and ended up marrying her.

6. I finally sprung for some lessons the summer before my freshman year of college. I wanted to prepare a piece for auditions for the University of Minnesota concert band. That Fall I arrived for marching band auditions (As a Freshman you had to be in the marching band to be considered for the concert band.) to find more than 15 alto saxophonists in competition. As I warmed up, I noodled around on my prepared piece and I heard someone behind me say, "wow, we might as well leave now." When I walked in, the judges handed me a piece to sight read, which I did very poorly." I didn't make the band.

7. Speed ahead five years, I sat in with a community band. There was a band teacher on first and me on second. During the concert we had a number of sax soli parts. The first chair said I really had a great sound and ensemble skills. After that season, I joined the Army and didn't touch my sax for 20+ years.

8. 2002 found Suzy and me experiencing the empty nest syndrome. I purchased a Couf Superba I alto from Quinn the Eskimo, start taking lessons, and am reminded how poorly I count and sightread. I join a local community band where I sit in on the bari sax. After the first practice the guy playing bari sax quits the band; I now have the chair for the rest of the season.

9. It's 2003 and the community band director has retired. The big band is down to six folks. I take over the recruiting and start to bring more players in. A young Jr. High kid wanders in to sit with the band. I audition him and he does better than many of the existing concert band members. His teacher is there and takes over directing the rag tag group who are playing Jr. High level music that I pulled together out of the Warner Brother green books. We offer him the unpaid position and he accepts. That band grows into the Eastside Modern Jazz Orchestra under his tutelage.

10. I create the Microsoft Jazz Band, Dissonance, a jazz xTet, and the Professor Gadget Sax Quartet. I still play in the Woodinville Community Band and sub for some other Big Bands. I also play in three pit orchestras for local theaters to have experienced what that is like. Sometimes I get paid for my gigs. I am currently taking two lessons a week with an emphasis on sight-reading, developing internal pitch, improv, and mastering the clarinet. At 55 I see years of music ahead of me.
 
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I went to a really rough school in the North East of England. Don't get me wrong - I really enjoyed school and I emerged all the richer for the experience. But it did have some pupils with challenging behaviour to say the least.

I was 13 when I was loaned an instrument from school, and very soon after, a disenfranchised pupil took it upon himself (could have been herself) to burn the entire school down. It was build in the 1960's with what was called the Clasp System. I know nothing about the building materials of the Clasp System, other than the fact it they are a joy for the aspiring arsonist.

By chance, most of the string instruments the school owned added to the flames. Brass instruments seemed to have been at pupils' homes. The school cut its losses and turned an orchestra into a brass band.

And I had many happy years after that playing...

the trumpet...
(and tenor horn, and tuba)

When I stopped vibrating my lips at the age of 18, it would take another 20 years before I took to vibrating a reed.

Chris
 
1. Learned a bit of recorder in grade school
2. took a couple of flute lessons in high school
3. 18 years later taught myself to read music and studied up to music theory II.
4. As a reward for learning music theory I bought myself a flute and started teaching myself.
5. 1 year later I started going to an instructor and that was a year or two ago.
 
1. My father was a farm boy who escaped by playing square dance piano - 3 chords, 2 keys. He took up the tenor saxophone at the perfect time in popular music history, and found out that learning clarinet after saxophone was harder than the other way around.

2. I started on clarinet (Thanks, Dad!) at age 11 or 12 and studied with a friend of my father's. I showed no unusual musical talent, but I worked at it harder than most other school band members.

3. In high school I began to study with the local symphonic clarinet player. I also started to play alto and then tenor saxophone in the high school dance band.

4. I began to experiment with improvisation by playing Dixieland clarinet. I am an entirely self-taught improviser to this day.

5. I made spending money in college by leading the college big band and by playing in a Dixieland band and an R&B band. I played in the concert band and marching band.

6. After college I worked 6 nights a week with Marvin Smith, Nelson Calloway and "Cold Sweat." No further explanation necessary.

7. I went on the road with Wayne Cochran and the CC Riders for five years. It was my most valuable and thorough musical education. My room-mates and friends were some of the greatest musicians ever, including Jaco Pastorius and Dick Oatts.

8. I spent a year on a cruise ship gig, mostly polishing my abilities on baritone sax and flute. I still suck on flute and piccolo, but it helped my baritone playing.

9. I played several years with the Peter Graves Orchestra at the Sunrise musical theatre in Florida. We backed Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Liza Minnelli, Mel Torme, the Temptations, Four Tops, and too many others to mention. We were Sinatra's own band for 2 years around 1984, and we did U.S. and Japanese tours with Jaco Pastorius around 1982. This band gradually morphed into the Jaco Pastorius Big Band, which still performs and records today, but I only play in it occasionally.

10. Today I am a South Florida free-lance woodwind doubler. I play with whoever calls, and I still work a lot. I have anticipated the end of my career for the last 20 years because of the decline in the American economy and the intellectual decline of our society. There are many better jazz players in my area, and specialists on clarinet, flute, and saxophone often play those instruments better than I do. I am hired because I play all styles and I am capable on most woodwinds. I also repair woodwinds.
 
1. When I was a kid, our official school curriculum required one learned the recorder as a starting point into a musical career. Easy to play (and hard to play well, as I quickly learned), I played it for two years.

2. After that I moved on to Alto recorder, I still have it. But I seriously (with every fiber of my body) disliked our teacher, so I dropped the stick after a year. I had my class on Mondays which meant practicing on Sundays, and if there's some baroque music like minuets or rigaudons on the radio, I still remember those ghastly Sunday practicing torments, 35 years later. I don't know if there was a youth band in my village, that never was discussed.

3. In the following 30 years, I plucked a tiny bit on bass guitar, found out that I suck at brass, excelled in grammophone. Apart from that, my musical life was that of a listener.

4. Six years ago, with wife and kids out of town, I spotted a clarinet in one of those online auction sites. It was an Albert system, yes, with red threaded tenons and red leather pads, and reached my home within a week. Although it was a bad instrument with a horrible mouthpiece, I quickly got the hang of it and boy did I like it! Those $35 literally opened the door to another world.

5. I quickly got me a better instrument, found a teacher in the local conservatory and diligently practiced every day. Maybe I was compensating for the last 30 years.

6. Two years later I felt it was time to join an ensemble of some sort; I checked the local concert bands, found two who had their rehearsal evening on a suitable day (kids were still very young, and parents need to get organised re social life, hobbies and the like), visited one and was caught hook like and sinker.

7. I'm still with the same band but meanwhile sub in two others, mostly for special occasions. Contrary to popular belief there's always demand for clarinet players here...
 
[following on from post #3]
It is very interesting reflecting on mine, and others stories!

2. A little over 10 years ago my grandfather died. He was a carpenter and I grew up with the joy of the sight, feel and flexibility of wood, and what it can become. He left me some money. It coincided with a time when I wanted to start making some music again. Taking pity on the neighbours, I decided going back to trumpet was a bit harsh, so though I would try clarinet. I borrowed a plastic one for a few months to make sure (from my, then divorced from, first wife!) and then went into a music shop, tried out a number of clarinets (remember, only a few months of playing behind me - the guys in the shop must have thought I was bonkers) and left with a beautiful, wooden, unstained Leblanc Opus. The largest single payment for an instrument I have ever made to this day (and I have over 30 instruments lying around the house now including a couple of bari saxes).

So my first, beginners, clarinet was a beautiful professional model, wooden - inspired by my wish to buy something of wood from my small inheritance from my grandad.

3. I took lessons and enjoyed making music

4. My wife got breast cancer and life got rearranged for a while. Music stopped. She is well now

5. Normality resumed, and I found another teacher who also taught sax and flute

6. About 4 years ago I took a friend's alto sax to one of my clarinet lessons - it took about 10 minutes to get hooked.

7. About 3 years ago I realised that my collection was getting too big to have a tech maintain them. So I approached my tech (Stephen Howard) with a proposal. Taking an old, bent and unplayable Buescher TT soprano, I wanted to buy his time to teach me to repair it, rather than he repair it. He took the proposal to heart and cleared his bench ( I have never before or since seen it looking so tidy) and taught me a huge amount in 3 days of one to one concentrated tuition. Tone hole levelling, swedging, key fitting, padding, springs etc. He wrote about it on his web site: http://www.shwoodwind.co.uk/Notes/sax_doctor.htm

It was at the time when he was considering writing the Sax Maintenance Manual for Haynes, and he was kind enough to acknowledge me in the book.

8. Having spent years playing for relaxation, but only by myself, I mentioned in a yearly appraisal related to work (a requirement for doctors in UK) my interest in music. We finally agreed that a suitable goal within my appraisal (work life balance etc) was to aim to play with others.

9. I found a local Concert Band, joined playing tenor sax (rather too many clarinettists already...)

10. Last month I was voted in as chairman of the band!

So my music has been reliant on, and shaped by, the death of a grandparent, cancer and a work appraisal. Funny old world.

Chris
 
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In Short ...
1 I started playing piano when I was young. Though we did not have a piano I would play on any that I came across. The first time I sat down on a piano I actually played independent left and right hands and played “King of the Road.” I started just by someone showing me where the keys were in relation to the printed notes. I think it took me all day to get it sounding right. My mom, when young, was a trained church organist.

2 In 1974 in elementary school they have a “pick your instrument” day. No real tests. My mom loved the saxophone (and Elvis). But that day I decided not to go and pick something until the urging of my teacher and plus I was bored. So I went looked at the brass (trombone and trumpet are neat) but picked a saxophone. My parents rented and bought a Couf Royalist II which I still own today.

3 In 1978 I expanded my instruments and bought a Normandy 4 clarinet from Mr Couf at his store. He hand picked it for me. Retail price back then was $400. My band director got me some semi/pro free instructions for the clarinet I guess to make sure I was playing it right.

4 Also in high school I picked up the French horn (cousin played), xylophone and other percussion. Also at the end of my sophomore year I was approached by the director and asked if I would like to learn how to play the cello and play in the orchestra. So over that summer I learned how to play the cello. It only took me a couple months to make first chair after school started. In marching band I actually played the alto horn for a year or two and latter parades I mostly played percussion. I played significant number of Solo & Ensemble events with various instruments and thanks to my private teacher always excelled. I played some difficult French stuff back then. matter of fact, here is my senior high school solo on alto sax http://www.ClarinetPerfection.com/Steve/SS_Concertante.mp3

5 Also, during my sophomore year I got a call to join the State Honors Band. They needed a bari sax player. At this point the director and Mr Couf had an interest in me as I was provided a brand new Couf bari sax just for the Band. That was the only time I actually played bari for any amount of time. The following years I would play 1st alto. I also played in other state, regional bands/orchestras.

6 While still in high school I was also asked to participate at the Wayne State school of music in which I took classes on music composition, conducting, theory and all the regular stuff in regular classes. At this time I also started fiddling with home instrument repair.

7 Off to real college was UM. Great music facilities there. Marching band was fun, basketball and swimming band !! But I also realized that I was allergic to cigarette smoke and thus one could not have a career playing in wedding, bars, concerts, et all so the music aspect of things were dashed (everyone smoked everywhere back then) plus the music industry took a gigantic whack in the mid 1980s.

8 I still fiddled with instrument repair, mostly saxophone and clarinet. But in the late 1990s I came across a friend who we ended up playing duets together. And he further continued on and became an excellent saxophone mouthpiece “guru”. This reignited my passion. He got me intro’d into some big bands and I played in several pro, semi-pro bands. We also both got more heavily into repair with generous support from Gary Ferree.

9 Today, even though I have extensive family responsibilities I still play in jazz bands; teach clarinet (mostly) and sax; do occasional competition judging for piano, woodwinds, strings and brass; repair work; and am trying to get a quartet/trio, etc going for odd ball playing initiatives. I still sub in jazz/big bands as I have shown some excellent sight reading skills including sight reading a concert as 1st tenor though I lack time to do subbing or a regular player.

10 Relearning the French horn. Looking for someone to donate a xylophone/marimba too.
 
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1. Took up violin age 9
2. Gave up violin age 9 1/4
3. Heard Lee Allen and Ornette Coleman, took up saxophone age 18
4. Failed A levels age 18
5. Became a roadsweeper and self taught bad saxophone player but practised 8 hours a day
6. Scholarship to Leeds College of music and got married age 20
7. Left Leeds and wife age 23, became professional musician age 23
8. Touring with rock & pop bands, session musician age 27
9. Became composer of TV/film music age 45
10. Still learning
 
1. Grew up in a mostly non-musical family but got to listen to Sinatra, Dean Martin, Mitch Miller, and my favorite - Spike Jones.
2. Started on Tonette in 4th grade. Played trumpet from 5th grade through Sr year of high school until I split my lip and had to take a break. I was a good player but never really got comfortable with reading music, especially sight reading.
3. Found a cheap flute for sale and started noodling around with it - drove my college roommates crazy jamming along with Ian Anderson/Jethro Tull, The Rascals, Chicago, James Taylor, Stevie Wonder, and King Crimson records (how's that for a range of influences?). Stumbled across Hubert Laws and the CTI label and my love of jazz began.
4. Played in coffee houses and top 40 bands, added tenor and soprano sax to my arsenal and also played trumpet and flugelhorn again - inspired by Ira Sullivan. Other than the years of school band, I was self taught and played almost entirely by ear (one of my biggest regrets was not forcing myself to read better).
5. Entered the Navy and spent the next 20 years fiddling around mostly on flute (submarines are not very sax/trumpet friendly
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), playing in public whenever the opportunity presented itself. Started playing for church as well.
6. Landed a corporate job and found some other like minded musicians that thought it would be fun resurrecting latent talents to perform for our unsuspecting co-workers. We tried to replicate the soundtrack from The Commitments and I dusted off the trumpet. It was just too hard keeping 13 people in line so the guitar player and I broke off and started a duet (acoustic guitar/flute) working on original compositions (brazilian style jazz based) we had both been developing over the past 20 years. Added bass and percussion and recorded a couple of cd's which received local radio play on our jazz/blues station. Played locally for about 12 years then the guitar player decided to take a break from music about a year and a half ago. I decided to dust off the saxes after 25 years to see if it might open up some other playing opportunities. Not much call for flute (only) players in the type of music I wanted to pursue. Brass has been retired as I found the transition from brass to flute too difficult anymore.
7. Now playing flute/alto flute, tenor/alto sax in a small group doing jazz standards from the Real Book and have also started subbing in rehearsals as 2nd tenor in a local big band to try and improve my reading skills.
8. Music has been one of the few constants in my life (other than my wife of 33 years and 2 amazing daughters) and I can't imagine not playing. It provides an amazing creative outlet, does wonders for relieving stress, and, at least for me, is a source of constant learning. Thank you all for providing a community that validates these interests.
 
I wrote a thread awhile back: http://www.woodwindforum.com/forum/index.php?threads/the-saga-of-pete.20770/page-2

Copying and pasting my part:

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I started playing clarinet in the 5th grade, or so. I initially wanted to play trombone, but I failed the rather stupid test for it: the instructor gave me a mouthpiece -- no instruction, mind you -- and asked me if I could make a noise. I couldn't, but could on the clarinet.

From that point on, I began a love/hate relationship with the clarinet, which switched back to "love" in about the 8th grade, when I found out a different mouthpiece made playing easier.

At the start of 9th grade, I found out that the HS band had 25 clarinet players. I asked to switch to bass clarinet. I did this for a couple months, until I was asked to switch to bari sax. Additionally, at that time I got my first paying job: assistant to the director at my church. This job eventually became two part: a) computer work, from transcription to fixing computers and b) playing whatever part wasn't covered on one of my various instruments.

This position not only allowed me to get fairly skilled on a variety of things (including MIDI and electronic instruments), it also allowed me to play in a variety of different groups (jazz, small ensemble, etc.) and with some very interesting studio and pro musicians, most of whom you wouldn't know, so I won't belabor that point.

I also started singing. I was told I sucked. That's ok, though: from about age 12, I was a bass. They needed basses, even those that couldn't sing.

Fast forward a couple years, to graduation day (or somewhat before it). I had been offered a full-ride scholarship for biology at $school in $far_away_state, but I really wanted to pursue music, so I got myself accepted at SUNYC at Fredonia to study with Dr. Wyman, a 1st-gen student of Sigurd Rascher. Unfortunately, he didn't have any openings in his degree-classes (i.e., I wasn't quite good enough to get in), so I had to do a different major. I practiced for 6 hours or so a day. I got incrementally better, but realized: I have no talent at this, I just work hard and I'm not getting much better.

And then I got married (for the first time). I needed real money. I got a job as the head of a music department at a church in Tucson -- which promptly went bankrupt a year later. I did get another music job, as a director at a different church, but no pay. Hey, I worked as an accountant: it paid the bills.

About 6 years after this, I was no longer married to wife #1 and I was working as a computer tech. My techie job required me to learn HTML to get stuff posted on the intarweb. Fooling around with that led to the creation of my old website, saxpics.com. I also moved to Phoenix, AZ and started attending another church -- the music director of which said my voice wasn't half-bad, but I could use some lessons. I got them, from two different pro musicians (one toured with a gentleman named Larnelle Harris, the other was formerly Miss Arizona). I got pretty good at voice, but had no real need or opportunity to play sax or clarinet, so hung those up.

Throughout all of this, I've also been on TV hundreds of times and played at least that many gigs with dozens of different groups. I've also recorded two CDs, one singing bass and one singing tenor (yes, I have a rather extended range). I'd call that a fairly "successful" music career. Not extremely profitable, but successful.

What was the point of all this? Perhaps that if you've got a goal, do what you can to attain it, regardless of what others think, but you need to define for yourself what "successful" is. Another might be that talent may be able to take you farther than hard work, but even with talent, you need to do the work (which my college roommate, a talented singer, didn't realize: he ended the year with a .36 average). Or maybe I just wanted to up my postcount.
 
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Sounds like Pete was competent at a lot of musical skills and was willing to deliver what the ensemble needed. That's what I do, and I work when a lot of really great specialists stay home. Surprise! After a few years in the trenches, you start to offer better skills than the specialists. I wish I could sing.
 
Gandalfe said:
I loved to sing in church and in Jr. high but it always makes my throat hurt. I know, I am doing it wrong.
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Yup. It means you're doing it wrong: could be breath support or you're just trying to sing way out of your range. Both are equally probable. Elsewhere, I've likened singing to having my voice perched on a column of air. Playing? I'm just a big bellows. Those analogies work for me, at least.

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Groovekiller said:
Sounds like Pete was competent at a lot of musical skills and was willing to deliver what the ensemble needed.
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Not necessarily competent, but at least I was there. That's more than half the battle.

I definitely covered a lot of stuff. I still remember transposing and playing parts for things as (somewhat) esoteric as alto flute and the more common "play an alto sax to fill in for the French horn." You can get a lot of jobs if you don't confine yourself to, "I will only play first clarinet parts!"
 
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