![]() After 2 years at CSU Long Beach, I dropped out and eventually moved to New York where finished up my undergraduate at Juilliard. I also didn’t directly study with Jay Mason but took a saxophone ensemble with him. I was at CSU Long Beach for 2 years and studied with Sal Lozano my 1 st year and then Eric my 2 nd year. After Diablo Valley College, I decided I wanted to study at California State University (CSU) Long Beach because Eric Marienthal was on the faculty and I thought it would be cool to be in L.A. I actually wanted to be a psychology major at the time and wanted to do something completely different from music. ZS: What are your thoughts on music education and what was your experience studying at California State University Long Beach versus Juilliard?ĬB: When I finished high school, I stayed in the bay area for a year and studied at Diablo Valley College. If I could go back, I wish I would have also taken some lessons from Dann Zinn which I believe would have further helped my playing. At the end of my sophomore year of high school, my family moved to the (San Francisco) bay area and started taking a few lessons with saxophonist Mike Zilber. Throughout high school I took one-off lessons from various teachers (including Jerry Bergonzi). The first player I gravitated towards and still listen to is Gato Barbieri. I also switched to tenor because the players I was listening to were all tenor players. I switched to tenor in middle school as it was more of the soloist instrument in big band and I wanted to get more into improvising. At the time, I felt that I had assimilated a lot of information from Alan and the next step was to begin transcribing a lot and getting the material under my fingers. In retrospect, I should have continued to study with Alan for longer, but I have a thing in my life where I tend to want to do things my own way-sometimes to a fault. After studying with Nick, I studied with Alan Braufman for 2 or 3 years. I first started taking lessons from a saxophone player named Nick Falcone at the local music store. The feeling of connection with other people while playing music was something I really enjoyed. What really got me interested in music was going to middle school and finally playing in band. I was always good about practicing and would practice at least 15 minutes a day but it wasn’t something I was really into. My parents asked me if I wanted to take lessons, and I thought, “ok sure”. I would love to be able to say that I had some sort of passion or interest from the get-go but I really didn’t. I wanted to play trumpet like him, but he had a really nice trumpet (Bach Stradivarius) and a mediocre alto saxophone (Vito student model), so I was given the saxophone to start learning. He also doubled on saxophone, flute, Rhodes, synths and percussion in the different bands he worked with. I’ve also included the liner notes to ( A LIFE BETWEEN) which provides further context what went into putting this album together, as well the challenges and rewards of life in music.ĬB: My dad had been a semi-professional trumpet player when he was younger.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |