I began my guitar, electric bass, and percussion studies about 10 years ago with Troy Rexelle in San Jacinto, CA. My talents led me to pursue a degree in music at California State University, Fullerton, where I studied percussion/timpani with Professor Todd Miller and music composition with Dr. Lloyd Rodgers, and received my degree in music composition in the spring of ‘07.

During my time at CSUF I performed with the symphony orchestra and opera pit orchestra, wind ensemble, percussion ensembles, and DIE (diverse instrument ensemble). I also performed for two years with the Orange Coast College symphony orchestra as a percussionist/timpanist.

For two years I played with the Paul Bailey Ensemble, playing vibraphone and bass in numerous shows at bars, art galleries, and colleges in the Los Angeles area. The best description of the group is a “classical garage band” or maybe “alt classical”, thank you OC Register. I was also lucky enough to participate in two studio recordings with the group, which was a blast.

I have a particular interest in a style of tuning called just-intonation, where the notes of an instrument are tuned to pure harmonic intervals, which can be expressed mathematically as whole number fractions (2/1, 3/2, 4/3, etc…). Contemporary western musicians are almost completely ignorant of just-intonation, despite its supreme simplicity. Lou Harrison says it well: “It seems to me that children – when they come to fractions in their study of mathematics – ought to be allowed to tune these relationships; &, too, that they certainly might well learn the ratios for at least the two commonest modes of their own culture.”

It should not be too much to expect our professional musicians to do the same?

I moved to New York City three years ago after college graduation and currently live in the East Village of Manhattan.