I began taking music lessons when I was eight.  At first, practicing was just something that interfered with playing baseball.  It took time for music to become important. 

My favorite string instrument to play is the oud, pronounced "ood."  The oud is a fretless lute from the Middle East, the long-ago ancestor of the guitar.  Mine came from Turkey.  There are several configurations and tunings of the instrument; mine has eleven strings divided into six courses, tuned D-G-A-D-G-C. 

I'm still a beginner, but at times am able to produce something approximating music.  The fretless fingerboard has not been a problem; I've also played fretless bass and love the ability of both instruments to produce true vibrato.  The oud has a deep, full tone, low and resonant, an innately spiritual sound I think.  My Persian Bahá'í friends love it when I play at feasts or other events.  I'm not all that good at it, but I think it reminds them of happy times in the old country.

If you're curious about how the oud sounds in the hands of a master, listen to Hamza al Din, especially his excellent recording Eclipse.  He plays music from Nubia, a land in Upper Egypt that pretty much ceased to exist when it was flooded by the waters behind the Aswan High Dam on the Nile.  Sad and fondly remembered songs of life lived in the old ways by an old people on an old river, all now gone.

I've spent many happy hours playing the piano.  Although I worked professionally for years, to the point of giving solo concerts of my own compositions, I was never able to learn to read music.  This has long puzzled me; I think of it as a kind of selective dyslexia.  The effect was to train my ear and encourage me to improvise. 

I used to think of myself as a jazz pianist, but now I hear stronger elements of slack key guitar, Middle Eastern music and sea chanties in my playing.  Sort of tough to describe, but musical.  I'll try to do some recordings over the next few months and make them available on this site so that you can listen and form your own impressions. 

I've had the pleasure of playing with some great musicians over the years.  My first and best musical friend was Don Lee.  He was a fine acoustic guitarist; I used to play along on the mandolin or the organ.  In school, I often played with Jim Doney, an intricate drummer.  Later, in Seattle, performance artist Robert McGinley and I had a grand time as the Techno-Primates.  Our performances might include video feedback, poetry, amplified shock cord cages, bass synthesizers and taped ferry boats.  No doubt we had more fun playing than our audiences had listening. 

I've done work for film, dance and theatre, run a small recording studio, played in noise bands and been a street musician at various stages of the journey.  I'm happy now playing at home for my family and friends, creating music that really sings to me.