About Me I come from a family of musicians; my Dad was a very good musician (and has been in a related field for over 40 years), my brother is a guitar player, my uncle is a bass player, etc. When I was 3 or 4, I got an acoustic guitar, though I didn't do anything with it (except for make a lot of noise). When I was 6 or 7, I got an "air organ" and started to write melodies and play old ballads. I started to play violin at 9 as part of an orchestral program in elementary school. Shortly thereafter my parents signed me up for private lessons. I really didn't enjoy these lessons. I am a good self-studier, but do not excel as a student in a more formal environment. During this time I also started to play a bit of mandolin, as it had the same string layout as the violin. I was really wanting to play guitar and play in a rock band. When I was 11 I started to play bass guitar and my uncle gave me a couple of lessons, such as showing me how to play triads over chords. I got my first electric guitar when I was 13. It was really a sad instrument, but none-the-less this was really a defining moment in terms of inspiration. My first major influence was Jimmy Page, and I would spend countless hours trying to play Led Zeppelin songs. As time went on, I started to expand my horizons, and got into Steve Howe, Jimi Hendrix, Eddie Van Halen, Alex Lifeson, Randy Rhodes, Vivian Campbell, Jake E. Lee, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Mathias Jabs and Ritchie Blackmore. I would try (often very poorly) to play material from these musicians. I also went through a period of listening to Blues players, such as BB King and Muddy Waters. As I was getting better, it was getting time to upgrade the axe. I bought a wine red Gibson SG, dropped a Kahler tremolo and upgraded the lead pickup to a Seymour Duncan with a coil tap. Somewhere around this period I also bought a black Ibanez Concord acoustic. When I was around 15 I bought an Ibanez double-neck, as I desperately wanted to play Stairway to Heaven and the Song Remains the Same the right way (LOL). Looking back, I really can't understand nor rationalize this obsession, though a couple of my friends were also doing the same. Shortly thereafter I acquired a Kramer Baretta. I still have this instrument, though it is safely locked away in its case. It was a good axe for 80's style metal, but not really a versatile instrument. At 16 I heard Yngwie, scrapped the doubleneck and bought a 62 reissue strat. I also started listening to others players such as Alan Holdsworth, Al DiMeola and Garry Moore. When I was 17, I heard Vinnie Moore, and was completely wowed. When I was 19 or 20 I started listening to Jason Becker, Greg Howe, Marty Friedman, Steve Vai, Nuno Bettencourt, Paul Gilbert and Ron LeTekro . During the next couple of years I really worked on technique. When I was 21, I had just graduated from college and got a "real" job. At this point, I felt that I had two things converging and had a decision to make. The question was; Do I concentrate on my career or concentrate on developing as a musician. I chose to concentrate on a more formal career, because I felt that it provided much better odds of giving me what I wanted out of life. Having made this decision, I essentially stopped trying to improve. I regret the fact that I felt that this had to be an "all or nothing" proposition, that I could not have found some sort of moderation. By the time that I was 29, after having been playing in a cover band for about 6 years, I had pretty much given up on playing. There were a couple of occasions in which I would take the instrument out of its case, but it would soon go back in its case for long periods. In May of 2006, at the age of 37, I started playing again. I don't know why I decided to take the guitar out of the case and it has been out of its case since.