life of a musician
Mood:  chillin'
Now Playing: my story, by Johno
I am a professional musician. I have been playing guitar since 11 years of age. I am now 54. I was a guitar teacher for 27 years. I started out self-teaching myself to play things off of the radio when I was a youngster. I taught myself chords and single notes and before long managed to play many songs that I heard on the radio. I got together with other guitar enthusiasts who were also into learning to play the guitar. We would exchange ideas and jam for hours.
Back in the late 60's and early 70's I was tremendously influenced and impressed by guitar players Jimi Hendrix and Jimi Page. I quickly decided that I wanted to play blues and rock guitar. I practiced many many hours and after several years I dedicated myself to playing the guitar professionally. I became proficient at rock and blues guitar playing and played in many rock bands in the 70's and 80's. There came a point where I decided I needed to grow into more complicated guitar playing that was more of a challenge. I then took up jazz guitar and continued my musical journey as a jazz guitarist. My influences are the great Wes Montgomery and Joe Pass. My style of playing reflects many hours of studying, practicing, and listening to these 2 highly gifted artists. Since there are no shortcuts to playing the guitar professionally, it is essential that one spends many hours a day practicing long and hard . I have played to the point where I feel that the guitar has become an extension of myself and what I am all about. I play a Guild T-100 Jazz guitar most of the time. I also own a 70's Fender Telecastor, a 1930's National silver guitar, and a Fender Jazz bass (I also play Bass guitar, which was actually my first electric guitar that was bought by my grandparents for me.
I am also a professional piano tuner. I have been tuning pianos since 1984. I learned the trade from a very special friend who was a piano tuner for many years. He was kind enough to show me how to become a professional tuner. I started out teaching myself how to tune. It was one of the most difficult and challenging endeavors of my life. It is a very difficult process to learn to tune pianos even when having perfect pitch, especially if you want to learn to tune by ear as I do. With the assistance of my mentor I learned all of the fine points on becoming a piano tuner. When I started out professionally, I worked at Hollywood Piano, Burbank Piano, and Ebony and Ivories Piano in Canoga Park back in the 80's. I've tuned for many different people including some well known artists such as David Crosby, Graham Nash, Stephen Stills and Ray Charles.