User:MrSparkle847
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[edit] Basic Info
My name is Alex. As of this writing, I am 18 years old; I hail from Hopatcong, New Jersey and am a freshman currently attending Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
[edit] Music
My earliest memories of music lessons begin at age 6, when I began violin lessons (though there are toddler pictures of me investigating an electric keyboard). I gave up violin at 7 in favor of piano and took 10 years of lessons, mainly with one Joe Fobert, a jazz musician from the area. I covered the major genres: jazz, pop, and classical. In middle school I joined the school band and was a percussionist (mainly keyboard percussion like xylophone or glockenspiel, though there were drumset parts on occaision).
In my junior high school year I began school choir as a tenor and in my senior year I auditioned for, and performed in, the All Sussex County Choir; throughout primary school I also was part of some of the vocal groups. In January 2002 I officially began playing guitar, having procured a cheap Stratocaster imitation and Pink Floyd's album The Wall as material to learn from. People tell me I have considerable skill with the guitar, though I like to downplay this as much as I can because I am very afraid of egotism. Most of my guitar skill is self taught, though there are a few exceptions in which my father or guitarist friends would teach me random techniques.
I currently consider myself proficient in guitar, bass, piano/keyboards, and vocals (between Tenor II and Bass I)
Given that I received a substantially better Schecter electric guitar (black and named Lucifer Sam after an early Floyd song), I felt that the old Strat copy, whose intonation seemed beyond repair, was ripe for a touch-up; Joe Pickerelli, a talented local guitar repairman, converted it into a lap steel guitar, something I have taken a liking to since hearing many Floyd albums up through Wish You Were Here (album)
