Hi everyone and welcome to my latest passion in my musical profession – the art of blogging : )

First off, here is a little bit about me and my experience in this fine art we call lutherie and musicianship.

I started my musical career when I was 12 years old and I took up guitar for about 6 months. My father fell on desperate times financially and I had to give up on music for a while. That was a sad time because I loved it. I had no idea why it happened until a few years later.

The passion was lit three years later on my 15th birthday. My dad took me to Montgomery Ward Department store and bought a great “Airline” guitar, which I found out later was made by the old Harmony Music Co. I did like that guitar and it served me for several years. In the meantime I practiced on my lesson materials all summer and zoomed through 2 years of the Mel Bay 7 book series in 6 months. My then music teacher/music store owner asked if I would teach. What a God Send that was. My family was poor and I had no idea how to put myself through college, until now that is.

During this time I got heavily into Classical Guitar and took lessons from Guillermo Fierens, who was an understudy of Andres Segovia. At the same time I was really into the music of Merle Travis, Jerry Reed and Chet Atkins – odd combination huh?

I remember one time I ripped off a great rendition of Jerry’s Breakdown for Guillermo, thumb pick and all. He got up and gave me a great round of applause – I got tears in my eye’s over that one.

From the time I was 20 to about 32 or 12 more years I did extensive guitar repair and construction. I still have some of the guitars from that period in my life, including the first guitar, and I think the best one that I ever made. That is the one shown in the photo on this page.

Anyway, I gave lessens for 12 more years and stopped after I got married, as a result, most of my music learning came to a screeching halt as my career as a registered architect took over and I started by own architectural firm. My firm was very successful until 9/11 when the building industry took and hard hit and then an even harder hit with the financial breakdown in 2008.

So, I am back to my first love, and they always say your first love is the best don’t they? Yep I’ve taken the plunge to get back into music full-time. I felt I wanted to share my experience with others, because music was always a big part of my life and some of the best times of my life.

What I play:
Electric Guitar
Classical Guitar – yep the long haired stuff too (+classical gas)
Acoustic Guitar – Bluegrass flatpick and Travis fingerstyle
Fiddle
5-String Banjo
Mandolin
Bass