_As a kid I took "classical" piano.Like many musicians these days; it was pretty clear there was a good chance I'd end up as a musician... Starting in Junior high, I started playing rock and roll organ, piano, and synthesizer-- culminatiing in a couple of years with the "classy rock" band "Maw Brown" in Akron, Ohio, during which time I started playing classical piano (there was a baby grand piano in the "band house" we rented)-- thus we subsequently moved up to Cleveland when I got into the conservatory (Cleveland Institute of Music) there. That was a crazy time- 6 of us crammed into half a duplex and played gigs in Northern Ohio by night, while I slept through classes by day....
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_A couple years of that was all I could take-- so my last couple years at CIM I concentrated on "classical music", started playing jazz, and also learned some mathematics- thus finding something else I had to chase down. After playing jazz around Cleveland (with local jazz bands and the jazz/rock combo "Without Feathers" (named after a song our singer wrote- the name is actually comes from the title of a book, I think, though I never read it....), my usual prowess (lack thereof) in keeping groups of people together soon came through.
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_So before long I found myself in grad school in Mathematics, first at Ohio State, then at Cornell. But I still played music-- soon I was playing jazz professionally here in upstate NY, and after some illnesses and crashes in or with ef-fing cars generated some serious "pauses" in THAT path, I was back doing mainly music. And got back into "the academic thing"-- studying music composition at Binghamton for a couple years.. Now I'm back playing (and teaching....). That leads us up til this day....
One thing that is a big factor for getting me through all of this is my practice of Nichiren Buddhism, without which I never could have stayed on the musical path- in fact, without it, would almost surely be dead. Or worse. (not playing enough music!)
Strange day. After watching a documentary about streakers suffering from over exposure, I took a nap. It was a short one. I woke up a midget. At first I was freaking out, jumping around, trying to reach the wall phone. It tired me out. So I sat on a foot stool and placed my face in my hands wondering why this had happened to me. In the middle of self-pitying I started noticing how much fun it was to kick and swing my feet. I was smiling again, and found myself running through the house at full speed... wrestling with my now giant puppy. Oh, the joy! I hadn't had so much fun in years! We laughed and played and laughed until we both fell asleep exhausted on the living room floor. Then I woke up and ruined the whole damned thing.
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