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So what's it like being a musician? Well, there's so many stages one goes through, and the music industry has so many varied aspects to it that you're not always sure you're on the "success track." My path probably has been less orthodox than most. Having grown up listening to and attending concerts of international and American folk and popular music, I was a great fan of artists like Dylan, the Beatles, the Stones, Joni Mitchell, Tim Buckley, Ravi Shankar and Stevie Wonder. I had a wonderful opportunity to study music, language, writing and photography in Mexico, Japan and India as part of getting my B.A. degree. In Hiroshima and Kyoto I studied the Japanese lute, called "The Biwa," the ancient Gagaku court "Koto," and Western Music Theory. I then studied Sitar and South and North Indian vocal music in Benares and Bangalore. That period was a singularly wondrous period of my life. Back in the States, I worked in Special Education setting up music programs for two private schools and continued my own training in Guitar, Classical Voice, Music Theory and Ear Training at the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, The Guitar Study Center, The New School and NYU School of Continuing Education as well as with private instructors. I was turned on to a more thorough appreciation and study of the Blues by some local NYC musicians. I also started performing blues and folk songs at coffeehouses in Brooklyn and Manhattan. Soon I was doing very late-night sets at Manhattan comedy clubs like the Original Improvisation on West 44th St. and starting to write my own songs. I also started developing a repertoire of international and American songs to get paying gigs at hospitals, libraries, schools, parks concerts, private engagements and colleges. Two trips to Europe to Italy (reuniting with my mother's Italian side of the family), France, Portugal and England enabled me to bolster my repertoire and eventually allowed me to pursue music full-time. I put out a demo cassette of this material called "WorldWise" which I was able to get aired on New York area radio stations in the early 90's. I was also doing some more serious networking at song critiques and workshops at the Songwriters Guild, NARAS, National Academy of Popular Music and ASCAP. A few years ago I decided to rewrite my best twenty songs and then go out performing them at open mikes with an eye towards recording my first CD. It was a very long and arduous process but I think it has paid off in making my material much stronger. At this point I've been cutting back on the open mikes while doing more regular gigs. I also co-wrote a few songs which we had demoed for shopping for film and television. The making of the CD has been a real story all by itself. I started about a year ago laying tracks down at my home studio. Changes were made based on feedback from the open mikes. I then started working with producer Ken Cedar on an R&B pop song and from my home tracks worked up a Brazilian-oriented dance tune. With Producer Mark Dann I started firming up the rest of my songs, which encompass the Folk, Blues, Pop/Jazz, Latin, Eastern genres. As to where my music fits from an A&R perspective, I'll just have to say that variety is my specialty. |
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