My story and goals for this blog

This first post is going to be just one introducing myself, letting you know how I started my musical journey and got to where I am now, and kind of laying out my goals for this blog. 

First off, my name is Jeremy, I am 38, and live near Daytona Beach, Florida with my wife and 5-year old son. I work at a grocery store as a baker in the morning, and usually get home in the afternoon and get a little time to do what I would rather do for a profession and play piano for a little bit before everyone comes home. 

I don’t really get to play outside very much, just at church on Sundays when I am off, and random stuff I post online. I have a few songs I have written and want to record decent tracks to (maybe you will hear them eventually), and have a working idea of a Christian band with my brother-in-law which is called ‘Resiliency from Obscurity’. If we ever get our act (and schedules) together, we would like to release some original music through that avenue. 

My journey to where I am now has had many twists and turns, and wasn’t the path everyone else took. I was homeschooled from the middle of kindergarten to the middle of 2nd grade, and again from the middle of 5th grade through the end of my sophomore year in high school. I have 3 younger sisters, and somewhere in my 3rd grade year, the oldest one started taking piano lessons from a teacher at the private school I attended, named Mrs. Hammond. After a week or 2, I decided I wanted to try it, and soon it was a competition on getting ahead of my sister. A few weeks of taking 2 lessons instead of 1, and I had passed her. Mrs. Hammond could read music very well, but she also taught me what I believe are the fundamentals to being able to play anything, the major scales and most of the chords. I had 1 song from the John Thompson Modern Course for the Piano 1st Grade book every week, and more importantly, I had assignments from 2 other books, John Thompson’s Scale Speller and Chord Speller books. She basically had me start learning major scales, practicing going up and down the scales 2 octaves with both hands. I started with c, then g, d, f, Bb, Eb, a, e, Ab, b, Gb, and finally Db. I didn’t start doing all of them at once, but when she saw I was ready, she added a different key. With the chord speller, she had me practice the major 1, 4, and 5 chords with both hands. I would play major 1 chord in root position, then play the 2nd inversion, and the 3rd inversion. I would repeat with major 4 and 5 chords, as well as the major 5 7th chord. After doing these drills for 2-3 years, I had all of the major scales memorized, I knew what chords were in which key signatures, and although I didn’t know it, that would be the framework for everything I know now. God bless Mrs. Hammond for teaching me this way. 

After 5th grade, we got taken out of the school Mrs. Hammond taught at, left the church she attended, and we got another guy to teach me. He would’ve probably been a decent teacher, but soon, he left the new church we were attending to teach music at another, and I was left without a music teacher, but the basic knowledge that Mrs. Hammond gave me. 

I was having trouble fitting in and finding friends in the 5th grade. I didn’t really listen to secular music, and the only people we really knew were either people from church, or home schooling families with kids. Not a wide variety of people. I listened to whatever songs were on the Christian radio station at the time, and was a fan of Carman, as my parents had his tapes. In the youth group, I was introduced to Christian bands like DC Talk, Newsboys, and the popular ones in the mid ‘90’s, but hadn’t really found ones that I enjoyed. Somewhere between 1995 and 1999, when I was about to attend public school, I decided that I would become popular by knowing a lot about music on the radio. I learned a ton of Christian bands over that time, and even had a few songs that I enjoyed. One year at camp, I purchased my first CD, Michelle Tumes’ first album ‘Listen’. I really enjoyed how her songs sounded. I won another CD, ‘Remember This’ by Out of the Grey, and I listened to those albums nonstop. While not exactly carbon copies of those 2 artists, I can definitely hear some things in my songs that I picked up from them. 

I also had the scales and chords down enough and had played enough songs in Thompson’s book that had some chords to go along with it, that I was able to try to put some chords together with some songs I had heard on the radio and try to replicate the song. I tried to replicate some of my favorite songs that way. Some times I was successful, other times, I was a minor or accidental chord short. 

In high school, I got introduced to PfR, a great Christian rock band, and I had friends who were starting bands of their own. I desperately wanted to be accepted by them, and wanted to be in their bands, but nobody gave me the chance. I wasn’t ready, but I didn’t know it then. On the night before I went to public school for the first time, I tried writing my first song, using what I knew from chords to accompany the melody. A kid in the youth group who had learned guitar wanted to form a band with me, so we came up with a few songs, but never got to play them together, as he moved shortly after we started hanging out. By the time I had graduated, I knew a lot about music, but never did get into a band. I somehow ended up going to a college in Alabama, and finally got in my first band. A guy named Steven accepted me and let me join him and 2 other guys. We played the popular worship songs back then, as well as 1 or 2 originals. We practiced a few times and never had a gig. 2 semesters of D’s and F’s, and I was back home in Florida, and the band was done. 

Me and Steven in 2007

I reconnected with some old friends in Florida and met some new ones when I came back home in 2002. New friends Jason and Chris taught me a number of things on the piano. Another new one, Joe, started a worship band, and he let me get the lead spot on piano/keyboards and let me kind of do whatever I wanted. It took a bit of learning of when to not play at times and to gain the confidence in trying different rhythms with the chords, but I learned a lot and gained a lot of confidence in the 1 year I was with that band. Joe moved and that band broke up, but Jason stayed and let me play string effects on my keyboard while he led worship on piano every Wednesday for the youth group. I learned a good amount of things from Jason, and he is definitely a better piano player than I am. I took over leading worship for the youth group in 2004, and also was enrolled in a worship leading class at college that year, giving me some great experience. 

I took a trip back to Alabama in December 2005 to see some old college friends, and that really started things. While up there, I reconnected with my old suite mate JT, and while at his piano talking about writing music, he suggested I write a song about liberating penguins (long story short, we were in a club that was devoted to liberating and saving penguins). I played a few chords, and he kind of sung over them. This led to me writing that song a month or so later when I was back in Florida. 

I really wasn’t satisfied in Florida, and after networking with JT, decided to quit my job and try to move up to Alabama in April 2006 to write music with JT and try to start a band. Bad move when I look back at it, but I did it. Shortly after moving up, we recorded the basic piano, synth, and vocals to our penguin song. I got plugged in with a college aged Bible study at a local church, and there played with the amazing Ryan John. For 2-3 years, he took me under his wing, and I learned so much from him and others in the band. At the time, I was kind of a wild stallion on the keyboard, just playing what I felt like, and trying to incorporate crazy runs into the music, even if it didn’t fit or caused me to hit wrong notes. Ryan patiently allowed me to do this, and offered me a chance to play in his touring band if I calmed my wild ways. Never one to take advice the first time, I kept playing like I did, and never played with his band, but am still thankful for the opportunity had I listened. 

Playing with Ryan in 2006

I did many things while in Alabama from 2006-2009. I played my first solo gig, first paying gig, recorded a few songs, let worship by myself at a weekend construction retreat, played an original song at a talent night, purchased a digital piano, and played at a number of retreats and weekends with bands that friends were in. 

1st solo gig, 2008

Performing an original at our church’s talent night

JT took a traveling job about 8 months into my stay, so the band with him never really took off. I decided to move back to Florida in March 2009. From 2009-2012 or so, it was trying to find jobs and bands with varying degrees of success. I tried out for a metal band called ‘Everything New Band’. Didn’t get the part. Played with some guys called ‘Hooks for Ladders’ for 6 months or so. We had real potential, and played like 4 shows together. I had my digital piano, a keyboard for effects on a dual stand, and a keytar plugged into my laptop with a midi controller. Allowed for me to do some fun things while performing. One of my favorite shows was when we played at a bar in Ybor City, Florida, the same one where I saw one of my favorite bands, MuteMath, play a year before. Hooks lasted until our lead singer moved to North Carolina. 

Playing with Hooks

My setup

Playing on the same stage as MuteMath

A few months after that, my friend Daniel introduced me to his older sister Kim Grieves, who lived in Tallahassee. Kim had recorded a solo album and Daniel and I accompanied her for a few shows (Daniel on guitar and me on piano). We played at their old church in Lakeland, for a camp in Georgia, and at a battle of the bands at Wet and Wild, a pretty decent water park in Orlando. The battle of the bands was called Waves of Glory, and was for Christian bands, and was held for a few years. With the speakers going throughout the park, it was probably the most people who have heard me play.  

1st gig with Daniel and Kim

Waves of Glory

After playing with Daniel and Kim, I got with a Christian band called ‘His Vessel’. Their lead singer had some killer songs, and challenging chord progressions (which I enjoy) and we played a few different gigs. We played at a water park/resort in Orlando. That one was memorable because it was a battle of the bands and our lead singer saw that there was a keyboard already set up there, and I insisted on bringing mine. He won, and we got ready to play our 4 song set. Whomever played keys before me messed with the keyboard and it was tuned a few steps up, so I had to quickly figure out what key it was in, and transpose on the fly. Wouldn’t have happened if I would’ve been able to bring mine. It was a fun time, though. We played at my old church for a fall festival, and that was fun because I got to play in front of old friends like the previously mentioned Chris and Jason, and my dad also came to that one and brought my boxer dog Evie. Only time I’ve had one of my pets at a gig. 

Playing someone else’s keyboard

The only gig my dog attended

About 2 shows into His Vessel, I went on a few dates with this girl named Karen. I knew I liked her a lot after just a few weeks of knowing her. That turned out to be a whirlwind, and after a date she was my girlfriend, after 2 months we were talking marriage, 4 months were engaged, and 13 months were married. While all of this was happening, His Vessel broke up, and I still did a few gigs with their bass player Nick. Karen lived in DeLand, FL, and I was in Lakeland, about 90 minutes away. I was working overnight at a warehouse in Lakeland, driving to DeLand to hang out with Karen for a few hours, catching a few hours of sleep at her place when she went to her nursing job, and then driving back to Lakeland for work every day for a few months. Totally worth it. With Karen in my life, I kind of realized that the band days were coming to an end. My kind of farewell ‘gig’ was with Nick, as he needed a keyboard player for a concert he put on for his youth group. 

I started going to Karens church in DeLand, and met some really great people there. One of my first times in DeLand was around Christmas, and her church had a float in the towns Christmas parade. Their band set up on the float, and while they already had a girl playing keys, the let me bring my keytar and laptop and play in the parade. 

That brings me to 10 years later and where I am now. My old college suite mate JT met my youngest sister Michelle, and now they are married. JT and I still shoot musical ideas back and forth, but so far, nothing has come from it, although both of us would love to our our a CD. Karen sings in the worship band at church, and I have been holding down the keys. We’ve played in a few Christmas parades and have some great people in the band. The best thing that happened was 5 years ago, we had a son, so hopefully he will learn some music stuff in the future. 

I decided to creat this page to try to add tips and tricks that I have found while playing piano and share them with others. It is so easy to play piano when you break it down to numbers and patterns, and that’s kind of what I do when I play. I enjoy playing the piano so much and I want to share that with others. It is easy to learn to play and no matter what you think, you can learn how to. I hope I can communicate clearly and show how simple it is to play and pass along some runs and riffs you can do to add more fill to what you are playing. Any questions or tips, please let me know. 

-Jeremy