About me...
I grew up in Ipswich, a small city in Queensland, Australia. Most
of my childhood was spent either reading, gardening or making
music.
I remember my first "garden"
- a tiny jam jar with a flowering weed that I plucked out of the lawn
as a four year old. Ten years later, my father started a huge
vegetable garden that quickly took over the entire suburban yard - plus
some of the adjoining industrial paddock (it's still going now).
I was allotted various portions of that, culminating in a 100m2
block of the said paddock that we "squatted" on and grew an abundance
of corn, cucumbers, mango trees and other larger crops. Nowadays,
I live in a tiny yard in Forest Lake (a master planned development in
Brisbane) and only have a large styrofoam box to grow veges in.
From reading grew writing.
One evening when I was about nine years old I discovered that I had
read everything in the house (it was nearly true) and decided that the
only way I was going to get more reading material would be to write it
myself. Instantly, I set about writing a short sci-fi
novel. These efforts continued for about three years, producing
three or four short sci-fi works and a few short stories. They
were mainly copies and amalgams of my existing books, but they kept me
very busy in "writing immersion" for weeks at a time.
When I was twelve, I woke up one night feeling like those stories were
all stupid, so I immediately threw them out and started again, but this
time with poetry. The result of the next ten years is mostly
documented in "12-21: A Celebration of My Youth". You can see how
my thoughts became more esoteric over this time, climaxing in the
ecstatic spiritual fantasy of "Asiana". (By the way, the opening
page of "Asiana" is actually based on a short, but very vivid, dream
that I had when I was about nineteen years old.) I am planning
more writings for completion in 2006-8, including a volume on music
theory and analysis, a set of essays on philosophical and spiritual
topics, and a volume researching and documenting world peace (as
differentiated from the wars that most authors tend to cling to when
regarding history).
This brings me to music, in
true "me" tradition, I've saved the best for last. I
started wanting to play when I was around five years old, I found
some volumes which had music notes and numbers on them,
which corresponded with the numbers on my mother's small keyboard, and
I (think that I) taught myself to read music from this. (If I was
ever shown, I can't remember, and I also can't recall a time when I was
unable to read music.) Real lessons (and a real piano) started
when I was nine. I got serious a year or two later, and started
practicing a couple of hours a day and composing regularly.
By the time I was twelve, I was struggling with Chopin's larger
Polonaises and Scherzi, playing hours of country and early rock with my
Dad (who played guitar by ear), improvising in the style of Liberace
(among others) and generally becoming a musician with a set of skills
that were simultaneously advanced and backward. Backward
technically (in terms of playing with a proper technical foundation),
but advanced in the areas of chordal improvisation, style imitation,
transposition and sight-reading.
During high school I really taught myself most of the time, and I had
truly outgrown my teacher (Julie Baldwin) in most respects. In
fact, I seemed to do better when left completely alone to figure it all
out. However, the turning point for me was entering the
Conservatorium (Queensland). Under the leadership of Stephen
Savage, I became quite obsessed with technical mastery and correcting
the myriad faults in my foundation technique. (The technical
obsession was mine more than his!) I think this obsession
actually stalled my musical growth in some ways, because I was unable
to just "let go", which is truly where good technique starts!
During the later stages of my undergraduate degree, I became more drawn
to contemporary works, and I premiered several local composers'
works. The main composer here was (and still is) Khai Wai
Choong. I found (and still find) his music to be a great
synthesis of transcendental classical technique at its (almost)
unplayable maximum, and pop music style aural approachability. I
premiered his first two sonatas in 1996-7 to great local acclaim and a
mixture of infamous admiration and distant fascination from my pianist
colleagues (who mostly couldn't even begin to get their hands around these
pieces).
In 1997, I decided that I wouldn't pursue performing as a full-time
career option (at least not just yet), and applied to admission to
post-graduate music therapy at the University of Queensland in
1998. This seemed to be a more socially relevant use of music,
and one that made use of myself in deeper ways that the piano virtuoso
role did. However, I did manage to also enter and complete a
Master in Performance Research (under the guidance of Eugene Geinger on piano and Dr Stephen Emmerson for my thesis) at Queensland Conservatorium in the same
two year period - even if my music therapy lecturer warned me
that this was possibly against University rules (to attend to separate
universities full-time simultaneously).
The topic for my Masters degree was Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji.
To most people that means nothing, but to those "in the know", they
would know that I had reached to end of the line. I had been
climbing the technical mountain for several years and had arrived at
Everest himself. I've played a lot of piano music, and I can tell
you that nothing compares to Sorabji - nothing. It's not so much
the sheer technical challenge (commonsense tells you this music is
impossible - but who said sense was common?), but more the total
immersion required - if you don't shift your awareness into a
tantric-like state, you don't "survive". But when you actually
"pull it off", the world is never the same again. I played
several of his smaller works, learned a few of medium size ones in
"draft" mode (including a fair chunk of the notorious "Opus Clavicembalisticum"), and
performed the Sonata One for
my Master's recital. On the night I played the Sonata a bit below
my best, however it's still a good rendition - and a well researched
and thought out interpretation. (Some people said it was a bit
too slow - I disagree - I had played it much faster in rehearsal and
found that the intensity was gone for me. I like to play Sorabji
in "bursts", and with a bit of a pioneering explorative spirit.
Just because there's torrents of notes doesn't mean that he wants them
played so fast that you can't hear anything.)
After completing my performance and thesis, and satisfying the grueling
requirements of the Music Therapy diploma, I was tired. Really
tired. Tired of studying, tired of practicing, tired of living at
my parents' house (I moved out in the last few months of my
postgraduate study). I took it easy for a few months just
teaching a bit and sleeping a lot. Early in 2000, I decided that
I would remain a freelancer, but go full time, starting my own music
therapy practice. Pretty soon I was driving everywhere
therapy-ing and teaching. From 2000-2002, I drove all around the
Brisbane area as a freelancer, meanwhile also getting engaged and
married to Jan in 2001 and moving to Forest Lake immediately after.
In late 2001 I decided to start my own business in the Forest Lake
Village Shopping Centre. A music school which Jan helped name -
Spiritt Music Centre. I wanted to make it a node for musical
people in the community. My main aim was to provide really good
and enthusiastic music tuition for people of any age, background and
goals at an affordable price. This is something that's vitally
important for Australian music right now (I'll write more on this issue
elsewhere), but by 2005 it was becoming clear that the Shopping Centre
location was simply too expensive, and I found myself not only
constantly short of ready cash, but also having to charge prices which
were beginning to seriously undermine the goals that I started
with. Many people were ringing in, but too many found it simply
too expensive to continue (or even start).
So in February 2005, the Spiritt Music Centre suddenly and sadly closed
- too many students either could not or would not pay (enough of) their
fees. Interestingly, our price rises of close to 100% over 2004
only resulted in about three students (out of over 100) actually
defecting elsewhere for cheaper prices. This would seem to be a
testimony to our quality of work, and our students' loyalty to us.
The period 2002-2005 also witnessed the birth of our two sons, Elijiah
and Mason. Actually Elijiah was conceived around our Spiritt
Music Centre opening date (28th January 2002), and Mason was born (at
home) the week that the Spiritt Music Centre closed it's doors (week of
Monday, 21st February 2005). It's amazing how your life can so
neatly fall into phases.
So, here I am (in late April 2005), again freelancing, tidying up the
pieces of the business, spending heaps of time with my family, and
deciding that the best thing I can do now is to re-establish a
performing career, write more words and more music, finish off the
music websites that I've been developing for the last couple of years
and perhaps get a position teaching in a university if Spirit wills it.
Life suddenly seems very slow and easy, but I doubt that it will stay
that way for too long!
See you later.
