If you want to know, then I might as well tell you. Here is a very brief history of how I got to where I am today with my music and my life:-
I am born and raised in Leicester, and I have always had a passion for music.
One of my earliest memories (from perhaps age 4) is of putting my mother's Beach Boys record on the turntable and playing around with the bass and treble controls to get the perfect sound.
It was immediately clear that I was never going to be without music in my life!
At the age of 8 I began searching for an instrument to play, feeling that I'd already grown out of the recorder. Being a young boy, the violin was too "girly". Being a shy & retiring type, the brass instruments were too "blokey". And so I looked to the woodwind. I signed up for a trial on the Flute, but came down with an horrendous cold the day before the audition and failed with flying colours. Little did I know how fortunate this would be.
After a few weeks of feeling sorry for myself, and a birthday, I heard about a music teacher coming to the school with a most unusual instrument called the Bassoon. I'd never heard of this before and was intrigued, so I signed up again and this time remembered to keep away from anybody who might be harbouring any germs. A very kindly man who looked just like Willie Thorne sat through perhaps 2 hours of aural torture auditioning the musical hopefuls of the school. Fine judgement on his part and luck on mine, he chose me.
At the time, the bassoon was taller than I, and I was a considerably taller than the average child! Undaunted, I persued 9 years of training with Mr Turlington. These years saw me achieving all of the major practical music Grades, music theory Grades, an A-Level in music and performing as part of wind quartets, chamber orchestras, full orchestras and big bands across the UK and Europe.
At the age of 16 (when else?), I could not resist the urge to follow my primary musical passion, rock music. With a bunch of equally misguided misfits, I attended the LSM Rock School and took to the bass guitar. Just under 7 weeks later, we took to the stage as metal band Meltdown and harangued the school's inquisitive students with 45 minutes of howling noise in a 16-track set (which was actually 8 tracks played twice each). Over the next three months, I took to the bass like a man posessed. I learnt to play every single track from every Iron Maiden album then released, which caused no end of damage to my fingers and to my parents' eardrums.
In the next year, I began my first teaching role on the bass. I had a couple of students who took to the instrument with varied dedication and success. I also played in innumerable bands, most now lost to the mists of time.
In the years between then and now, I took up the guitar, made hip-hop and drum 'n bass music and took up DJing. At one fabled private party in London, I DJ'd for 8 hours straight - after already having been out at an all-night club!
In the 21st Century, I have taken my music more seriously than ever before. I took a year-long position playing bass with The Moth Lantern, continue to play regularly with Leicester's own Zappa (and only slightly less hairy), Dr Evil Dick and have found myself fortunate enough to be chosen as a front-line member in ist, Leicester's answer to The Divine Comedy fighting with Elvis Costello over the best bagel.
In 2007 I returned to teaching on the guitar after some years off. See the links to Bass Tuition and Guitar Tuition for all details.
The sharp-eyed amongst you will have noticed that I also have a keen interest in science and particularly scepticism. Here is a secret page all about it. Shh, don't tell anyone!
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