Eventually there came a point on the piano when I was able to start playing some harder music. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy all of the piano lessons I’d had up to that point, but it was as if all of a sudden playing the piano became really fun! I actually enjoyed what I was playing.

When I was 12 years old I remember watching the old classic movie “Anchors Aweigh” with Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra. There is a scene in that movie where they sneak into a rehearsal at the Hollywood Bowl, and there are about 17 grand pianos on the stage.

All 17 of these pianists were simultaneously playing Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody #2. I got so excited and decided I wanted to play that piece of music. After a lot of pleading, I finally convinced my mom to buy the sheet music for me – which didn’t come without her forewarning of how hard of a piece it was.

Okay, and so yes, it was quite difficult to learn. It took me a very long time actually, but I did learn most of it. If you could take a peak at the sheet music now, you would see it all marked with scribbles from a 12 year old. Some of the music was in the key of E# Major (4 sharps), and so I had to write into the music which notes those were.

In a nutshell, it was during this time in my early life when I really started to become more interested in the piano more than the violin.

Me, around age 9 or 10? playing in a talent show

That's me, the goofball, with my 3 brothers at Wallowa Lake, Oregon -
probably somewhere around 10 or 11 yrs old. Not sure.

My small high school didn’t have an orchestra program, and so I actually didn’t even pick up the violin for about 4 years. I tried to get involved in some community orchestras, but most of them required us to drive a 2 hour round trip – and we eventually just gave up on those orchestras.

But it wasn’t by default I concentrated on the piano more, it was my own desire.

I practiced a great deal in high school, usually a couple of hours a day. I was heavily into classical music – I wanted to play anything and everything that allowed me to play loud and fast (Rachmaninoff, Beethoven, etc.). As you can imagine, this drove both of my parents a little mad. If you know how loud a piano can carry in a house, especially on a 7 foot concert grand, then you can imagine the headaches my family had. By that time, my mom also had a full studio of piano students, as well as my three brothers taking lessons.

Needless to say, the piano was constantly being played throughout the day.

During some of my teen years, my mother finally got burnt out on teaching me and so she outsourced me to a different piano teacher for a couple of years, which was the first time I had ever taken lessons from someone who was not my own mother.

By the time I had finished high school, I had been the choir accompanist, the school musicals/plays accompanist, participated in talent shows, earned blue ribbons at Solo & Ensemble festivals, was nominated as one of the “most talented” students in the school, and performed a piano solo at my graduation ceremony.

Me performing a solo for Solo & Ensemble, at Portland State University (9th grade, age 14)

High school graduation - age 17

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