My Story in detail if you want to take the time

My life started on October 12, 1989 in the small and historical town of Plymouth Massachusetts. Like any parent that tries to help their children succeed my parents encouraged everything that I attempted. When I was about 5 years old I started draw everything that I could find so my parents got me paint brushes and colored pencils. I had a relatively average life with no real determined direction until I reached 7th grade. This is when I first learned to play a musical instrument. Every morning in 7th grade I would talk to the people that monitored the breakfast area. More often than not the monitor position was fulfilled by the middle school music teacher. He was a rather large middle class citizen trying to make a living. I enjoyed talking to him because he had an opinion on every subject, and it was usually one that I had not considered. During one of these in depth conversations one of my friends joined in and mentioned that he needed a bass player for his newest rock band. I volunteered even though I had no experience, no bass, and no teacher. I looked to my friend the music teacher for some advice on the subject, but I think that the only thing he heard was that I was going to learn to be a bass player. It turned out that the school band and the school jazz band needed a bass player. I decided to take on the responsibility of learning all the songs for the school bands and my friend’s band. The music teacher allowed me to borrow the schools bass for the weekend so I could get to know the instrument. I fell in love with the way that it felt in my hands and the low rumble that was produced every time I plucked a string. I was more than just in love with it, I was completely obsessed. I practiced compulsively the entire weekend. I had to reluctantly return the bass to the school on the following Monday. I needed to get my hands on my very own bass so I called every music store within an hour of driving from my house and became educated on the process of buying an instrument. I learned that I would have to be very careful when selecting an instrument because I would have to make a bond with it. I looked in music stores for 3 months unsuccessful in finding the perfect instrument. I was sure that I had tried every model of bass that had ever been made, I was wrong of course. A few days before my birthday in October my mother decided that it was necessary that I stop using the school’s bass and get my own. She took me to a music store that I had been to a few times before, but this time they had a few new instruments on the walls. One of them was a Fender Precision Bass. I had heard many positive things about Fender basses so I thought that it would be worth my while to at least give it a try. It was absolutely the perfect bass for me. It sounded both bright and warm at the same time. The physical balance of the bass guitar was very even witch is very important for a player that will be using it to practice for many hours every day. I told my mother that how perfect this instrument was and she bought it for me to honor my 12th birthday. I don’t think that I have ever gotten a better present on any occasion. I was immediately enrolled in private lessons so I could properly learn the instrument at a reasonable pace. Much like the instrument themselves, the bass teacher needs to be chosen with extreme care. I first tried learning from a college student, but I noticed very quickly that I was not progressing as fast as I felt I could have been. I left him for another teacher. This new teacher’s previous students are known for being some of the best players in the area. After 10 minutes of the first lesson I knew that he was not right for me. I met him for the first time in the lesson room because he is blind and could not come out of the room to meet all his students at the front of the music school. I sat down and introduced myself to him and he answered with “play 5 choruses of a jazz blues in F using flat five substitutions on 1 and 4.” I had no idea what he was talking about at the time, but I still remembered it because it made me feel like I was very far from where I needed to be knowledge wise. There was one more very credible bass teacher to try to contact. I found that he taught at a music school within walking distance from my house. I enrolled with very high hopes that he would be able to teach me a lot of things very quickly, but not so quickly that I don’t understand any of it. I can remember my first lesson with him as well. It was a much different experience than any other teacher I had ever had in school or out. The first thing that he did after he casually introduced himself was take his bass out of the case and instructed me to do the same then he quickly tuned both of them so the lesson could really start as soon as possible. He began to play a song that I had never heard before then he instructed me to take a solo. It was an awful start to something beautiful. His “plays first, learn later” technique worked well for me because was very eager to play all the time. I continued to study the electric bass guitar with him until the end of my junior year of high school. I had been learning more than I realized there was to know under this teacher. I also acquired a taste for jazz music. He helped me for my first real band, which happened to be a jazz trio. I had so much fun learning and playing with this band that I decided that I would dedicate my life to music somehow. I had always looked up to teachers especially eccentric music teachers. It did not cross my mind that I had the potential to be one someday, but with a little help from my father I decided that being a music teacher is my true calling.
Music teachers have been some of the most important people to me, I decided to become one myself.

Day 1

This is my first posting on my first blog, hopefully someone will be curious to check this out. I guess I should start by telling you all about me; I am a 20 year old Bass player that has grown up in a small town called Carver (It is right next to Plymouth Mass.). I am a dedicated apprentice to the genre of jazz. My goals for this Blog is to help me branch out to other musicians, learn about new music from all of you, push some of my favorite musicians onto you guys, and to document my progress for you to follow.
I have been hooked on this one recording that I feel that everyone should hear. I feel that it has single handedly changed my improvising and composing style in a drastic way. The band is Deep Blue Organ Trio the song is “Goin’ to town”. If you do not know this one already then check it out on freenapster.com or limewire or any one of those other online programs. The organ melody is just so cool it makes me stop and think about how cool I am making my music thus creating a drastic change in my playing. Music, such as this can be greatly enjoyed by the non musician as well because it has that same “yea, we bad” attitude that James Brown’s music. But in a very different way that you will soon see. Technically this song is not terribly high on the scale but the pure feeling of it makes it greater than most of the other music I have in my collection. Check it out for free at (http://free.napster.com/player/tracks/24021101)