Piano Lessons in Portsmouth, VA

Instruments: Guitar Drums Bass Guitar Electric Guitar Acoustic Guitar

What is your favorite style/genre of music to play and why?
The Blues. I love a lot of genres, especially classic rock from the 1960s and 1970s and I enjoy writing songs in that genre. I absolutely love The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, The Doors, The Beatles and those are probably my favorite to listen to, however nothing compares to playing the Blues. It flows out of me naturally and puts me in a meditative like state. Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Mississippi Fred McDowell, and perhaps most importantly, Robert Johnson, those Bluesman created what was to become Rock and Roll. Chuck Berry sped up the 12 bar blues, added cool lead guitar parts and loud guitar solos and boom! You have Rock and Roll. I love playing the Blues and I am in it for life. Even if it's on my front porch with my dog, I'll be playing the Blues for however much time I have.

If you play more than one instrument, how did you decide to start playing the second? (Or 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc)!
Well, I started off on saxophone while in 4th grade for the school band. My grandfather, who is a professional drummer heard that I had rhythm, so under his tutelage, I began playing the drums and became an exceptional drummer. While I was playing drums for a band that started while I was in 8th grade and lasted through high school, I started picking up the guitarists guitar and learned a few things from the two guitarists and kept going with it and began teaching myself and even started to write songs for the group. I was lucky to have a first band like I had, because we were all versatile and we all wanted to learn all the instruments. Later on in life, in more serious bands, I had to learn how to pick up any instrument while in the studio. A lot of experiments go on while recording, so if a song needed a little of this or a little of that, I was usually the first one to give it a go.

Does music run in your family? Tell us a little about your musical family members.
I only know my family's musical history starting in the 20th century, but the word is, my family goes back further than that, particularly on my maternal grandfathers family. In the early 1900's, practically right off the boat from Europe I know of my grandfather's great uncle John and his son were jazz bassists and reached professional status, playing on records and were members of the Musicians union. My grandfather also had another uncle who was a professional saxophonist and he too was a part of the union. My grandfather was a professional drummer and landed his first big gig in 1955 at the 500 club in Atlantic city, owned by "Skinny" DiAmata and played alongside legends like Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and many others. He was there for about 5 years and continued to play professionally into the 1990s. Although, my uncles can play the drums, they never did anything with it, but along came me. It's important to me to keep my family's musical legacy alive by passing on the gift of music by teaching it to the younger generations (or older, for that matter,) and keeping the spirit of real music played with real instruments alive. As well as being an experienced music teacher, I was in a few gigging bands, one of which wrote songs used in BMX movies sold all around the world.

When did you decide to become a professional musician? Was it a gradual decision or was there a defining moment for you?
Well, I kind of stumbled into it as a teenager. It was my first band and I was the drummer. I had Doug Sabolic (A Life Once Lost) on guitar and vocals as well as two other very talented and versatile musicians. We all knew how to play eachothers instruments to a pretty high degree and that's how I got into playing guitar. I started writing songs for that band and when we split up, I kept playing more and more guitar while still practicing the drums. I was basically just a musician and really didn't take part in the financial side of things until later on. For instance if I put X amount of dollars into t shirts and we sell out, than I get this much back. Same with the cover charges at the door. If you see 200 people that came out for you, make sure you get paid what you're owed. My most successful band had a following right away because the rhythm guitarist/vocalist was a major professional BMX rider and I was also professional, but not as high profile as he was. The BMXers loved us and we did very well, packing the Khyber in Olde City Philadelphia PA. We also composed songs for BMX movies sold all around the world.

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