About

I’ve spent most of my life designing and building things, both while working professionally in science and technology, and in my workshop. The Gallery page shows some of the things I’ve made and describes a few of the processes I’ve used. The story below shares how a chance purchase and an offhand conversation led to music becoming central to my life.

About Learning to Play Music

I was hitchhiking during the summer between my freshman and sophomore years of college and got stuck in a small desert town somewhere west of Reno, Nevada. After standing on the shoulder in the hot sun for several hours, I walked across the road into a music store to cool off. I had almost no money but thought I would see if I could afford anything I might want to learn to play. I didn’t have enough for a harmonica but I did have enough for a soprano recorder, so I bought one and took it back to try out while waiting for a ride.

I had enjoyed playing trombone in high school. but only played from sheet music. I learned the skills to transform what I saw on paper into what iplayed, but I never learned to play by ear and stopped when I graduated. Once I started to work out tunes by ear on the recorder, I began to connect what I was hearing with what I was playing in ways I never imagined. I soon bought the instrument shown here and still play it.

A couple of years later, a friend I met working at a summer job told me about the Fox Hollow Folk Festival in Petersburg, NY. My girlfriend Betty and I went and found it nothing short of magical. We heard all manner of traditional New England and Canadian music, and everywhere we went there were people playing and singing in impromptu jam sessions. It’s no exaggeration to say that that weekend changed our lives. We fell in love with the music and started playing in informal sessions in bars and people’s homes around Albany, NY, and into Vermont and the Berkshires.

After I finished my masters in mathematics, I got a job at Fermilab in Batavia, IL, where Betty and I started the Fermilab Folk Club and Barn Dance. We met a number of very good musicians at Fermilab and through the Fox Valley Folklore Society. I played briefly at the first annual Fox Valley Folk Festival and we were soon getting together with people to play a few times a week. Over time, I played gigs with a number of bands.

Recorders sound different than tin whistles and some musicians disapprove of them in traditional sessions. Nonetheless, I like the way they sound and I played  Celtic, old-time, and bluegrass tunes on soprano, alto, and tenor recorder. While I had a good time with that, I wanted an instrument I could sing with.

 Everyone we knew played guitar, mandolin, fiddle, or banjo, and I wanted to add something new. I really liked the sound of the English concertina in music by the Boys of the Lough and the Deseret String Band so I decided to buy one. I didn’t know anyone who played the instrument so I bought Alistair Anderson’s Concertina Workshop book and started learning to play tunes. The concertina fit well with the music I was playing and I later added hammered dulcimer and a few other instruments to the mix.

I kept with the concertina, mostly playing tunes one note at a time. I occasionally worked out chordal arrangements, but it was tedious and time consuming—nothing like the intuitive way my guitarist friends played. I finally made a commitment to learn to play chords and it’s one of the most rewarding things I’ve done.

In retrospect, each way I learned to play enriched how I approach music. Playing trombone from sheet music taught me how to transform what I saw into sounds and rhythms. The sheet music showed me what to play and I used what I heard to confirm and adjust what I was doing. It’s a valuable skill that I still use, but it’s very limiting if you rely on it exclusively.

Learning to play the recorder by ear taught me to guide my playing by what I want to hear, instead of by what I see. It made music fun and I wouldn’t be playing now if I hadn’t learned this skill.

Developing the physical skills to play chord progressions gave me access to a new world of harmonies and musical relationships I didn’t understand at all when I played tunes one note at a time.

I’ve never had an opportunity to spend much time with other concertina players to talk about different ways of learning and playing. I didn’t think about it much when playing tunes, but I was very aware of it when learning to play chords and writing my book. It took me a long time to develop the physical skill to play chord progressions and during that time, I fell down several very deep rabbit holes discovering how chords and harmonies work in traditional music. I hope that sharing some of the things I encountered on my journey will spark a few conversations and make it easier for others to learn.