Music
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Proficiency in guitar, flute, upright bass, and music theory
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Songwriter and arranger
Music has been a passion for my entire life. From tinkering on my grandparents piano as a toddler and first losing my cool on the dance floor at age five in LL Bean boots (the rubber footed ones with the felt insert) to jazz theory and improvisation classes at University of Vermont, I've always felt the groove. I tend towards the danceable varieties, but have spent countless hours lost in Liszt and spellbound by Rachmaninov. I'm somewhat obsessed with African rhythms and endlessly charmed by hot jazz. When asked what kind of music I like I have a hard time not responding "good music," by which I mean music which doesn't betray its own potential, no matter the genre.
My primary means of composition is guitar, but classical flute was my first real introduction to music. I'm more widely known as an upright bassist, but hand drums are where I can really lose myself most readily. I studied piano for two years in highschool, as well as trumpet and tuba, but haven't become as conversant on those three as I hope to become. I've got a good instinct with recording software, despite lack of technical knowledge.
Acoustics is another major passion of mine in design. One of the few jobs I've had (aside from carpentry) was working for Crestone Acoustics doing installations of acoustic wall treatments. One class I took at University of Vermont was Physics of Music, which covered everything from instrument design to room acoustics to microphone design. For that class I led a team of two other students in the design and construction of an upright washtub bass in which the washtub formed the back and sides of the instrument. The belly was a layup of eleven pieces of spruce with a radial bell curve on the outside and a parabolic curve on the inside.
There was a historic commercial space in Burlington up for rent for years which for which I had schemes to turn the main space into a gallery with a deployable geodesic half-egg (lengthwise) which could be inverted to hang from the ceiling when not in use as an acoustic performance space.