I began taking piano lessons from my Grandmother before I turned 5. I didn’t have much to say about it, but for some reason I liked the piano, parts of it, anyway. I liked playing passages that were loud and fast, and if the lesson we were covering wasn’t loud enough or fast enough I’d make up something of my own. And my Grandmother didn’t hesitate to tell me that it was awful and a complete waste of time to make up your own music. I didn’t pay any attention to her, and I’ve been paying for it ever since. Anyway, I used to annoy the neighbors by going over to their house and practicing the same thing over and over and over again…I was laying the groundwork for my future career as “Mr. Ostinato.”

As I became older I began learning the electric guitar. This enabled me to continue playing the same thing over and over again, only now I could play it over and over again and louder and louder. This allowed me to annoy the neighbors without actually going over to their house, although from time to time I would still venture into peoples homes and pound on their piano til they sent me back outside.

I was in a couple of bands in high school. I also played trumpet in the school band. I never played in the orchestra, because the intonation of the violins used to drive me bananas. I was never a spectacular trumpet player, but I could play loud and in tune.

I got into The University of Michigan, where I planned to major in Economics, so I could be like my idol, my uncle Woody Creason. Woody is the most profound and evenly tempered person you’re ever going to meet. But I got into a band called “All Directions” and we would play in Detroit sometimes as many as 6 nights a week. This made it difficult to get to my 8am microeconomics class. So I began taking classes up at the music school where I could struggle to get to an 8am music theory class. For some reason this made alot of sense at the time. College life is great, playing in a band is great, meeting a lot of interesting people is great, teaching guitar to augment your nightly income is great, but doing it all at the same time can be stressful. Still, within a few years I’d already forgotten more about music than most people will ever know. Honest. I think….or did I dream it?

Once I got my degree I decided to move to California. Why not? I moved to Oakland and played in bands in the Bay Area and toured the Greater Northwest. Met my great friend and musical collaborator Jeff Chin. While playing for a living I also earned my Master of Arts degree in Music Composition. My cd, “Uncle John” is dedicated to Henry Onderdonk, one of my teachers at SFSU, a great guy who understood that I was working and going to school, but never let me settle for easy answers. To anything.

Once I finished my class work at SFSU, I enrolled in a film scoring program at USC, where I met the tireless and irrepressible Buddy Baker. I also met some great friends, like John Allen, who needs to finish up his gospel project, and the excellent composer Mark Krench, the riotous Arthur Shane and a bunch of other guys. Played on a few film projects, scored some low budget things, but the student loans became due and payable, so I began teaching.

And that’s where I am today. I teach, I perform, I compose and I write.

And I write bios for my web page.

GO PISTONS!

The Dude Abides…