David S.

My formal education is mostly from my 5 weeks spent in Berklee College of Music 5 week program. In addition to that it would be my music theory classes in high school and Lone Star College.

The most impactful teacher I have ever come across was a music teacher in Tulsa, Oklahoma. His name is Joseph Glaude he helped flourish my interest in music and taught me all by ear. I learned from then on at the age 8 to this day by ear. I am a musician who is mostly intuitive. I know chord names and certain aspects of theory but nothing compared to a classical musician. My forte resides in creativity and ear training.

My performing experiences started around the age of 8. My brother, and close friend, and I had a punk rock band we started and we performed live in my families garage on a halloween night. Once my family and I moved to Houston it wasn ' t long before my brother and I found band mates we began playing at a bar in 1960. I was only 15 ! at first they refused to let us play but one day they did after marking our hands with Xs indicating we were underage. Once we played we had are way in. We played public events in The Woodlands as well, and certain downtown shows. Years went by and the old band fell apart. I started playing in a band with local musician Jeremy Carswell while playing cover music with The Trips all around north Houston with The Trips. At this point I had already played innumerable concerts. At one point in my early 20s I was playing in 4 projects at once. I had also been teaching music around the age of 17 - 18. I eventually started my own project and my album is soon to be released. I ' ve played in bands such as Cosmic Bug Loaf, the Dead Sea Scales, Grand Antler Teeth, Tony McCurdy solo music which was along side professional Berklee graduates. I still play live music but not as much. These days I have been focusing more and more on my album, and starting new projects with a close friend. I also have a soundcloud account with my own side project music under the name C ' est La Vie. I have performed multiple times in Austin, and I was blessed enough to play a wedding gig in Wisconsin with my best friends. My favorite thing to do is play and or record music with positive productive individuals.

I began teaching around the age of 17. I had 5 students including a child with autism. They really enjoyed my methods but only a few were really into the idea of learning with a disciplined mind set. I hada way of teaching that helped train the student for intuitive playing. I would ask them what they sing they wanted to learn and i would teach them while also teaching them technique, such as the importance of bass drum control. The drums are centered around the bass drum. So I would single out the bass drum hits and have the student practice those isolated from the rest. Some were naturals. If the student began to get frustrated I would say." ok free form, play literally whatever you want" and I would see where they had strengths and weaknesses. With this method they could let out energy and feel free. I often would join in with a drum and it would turn into a drum circle like sound. Very fun! Once that was done I would go back to the goal in mind.