I started playing the piano around age 6, discovering each musical story of John Thompson’s ”Teaching Little Fingers To Play” with a local teacher. Lessons stopped soon after the book (?), and then I taught myself using my stepmother’s “U.S. School of Music Home Study Course”.
At age 10 I began volunteering as the church organist for weekday Mass, but it turned into a regular gig at age 13 as the organist for Sunday Mass. About that time my brother let me play his electric bass and after playing it for a few days he gave it to me. By age 14 I was gigging in bands.
I earned a BM in Piano Performance in ’93 from U of M, where I was OBSESSED with 20th century music; I was honored to be a featured soloist at the ’93 “Collage Concert” (playing Stravinsky’s Piano-Rag Music). I’m told I did something extraordinary when I performed Charles Ives’ Concord Sonata from memory; it’s not a virtuosic piece per se, but it IS extraordinarily ‘complex‘ music and a monster to memorize. I have complete photographic memory with musical scores once I’ve studied them analytically – weird, huh?
At 20 I taught bass at Washtenaw Community College in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and performed with the W.C.C. Jazz Orchestra and Afromusicology Ensemble. Professional highlights with Dr. Lawrence’s Jazz Orchestra include performing for President Reagan, opening for Dizzy Gillespie, and playing at the Montreux-Detroit Jazz Festival.
I owe my ENTIRE musical life to:
- Dr. Morris J. Lawrence, Jr. – My Musical Mentor, who led me to…
- Lynne Bartholomew - My Piano Mentor, who led me to…
- Arthur Greene – who led me to Ives’ Concord Sonata.
I have been teaching music in some form (piano, theory, bass guitar) since I was 20, and become extraordinarily passionate when discussing Piano Pedagogy, Music Learning Theory, and Early Childhood Music & Movement. I owned and operated a piano studio from my home in Kirkland, WA between 1996-2004, and to this day considere teaching young children music through the piano to be an awesome responsibility, privilege, and joy.
I briefly had 24 piano students in 2008, until my P.T.S.D. was severely triggered on 11.05.08. In my lifetime I have performed at over 200 weddings and/or wedding receptions, but I have had to stop because the irony has LITERALLY killed me.
I have been on welfare and/or disability since 2006 due to some serious health problems caused by the United States’ refusal to treat its LGBTQ citizens as human beings who deserve the SAME protections that all of its other citizens enjoy with limitless freedom.
