Born and raised in a suburb of Chicago, IL, I live in the Seattle area now.
My musical education started when I was 6 with a local piano teacher.
In 7th grade I decided that I wanted a more contemporary musical education and studied with Hank Husen, who taught me not only piano notes, but theory, composition, and improvisation. It was about this time that I began to play in bands (mostly rock - what other music do most 12 year old boys want to play) with friends and neighbors. I played my first bar gig at 15 (no one would even think of giving me a drink at that age), and played throughout high school.
When it came time to go to college, I picked DePaul University, where I got a fantastic musical education. I did leave DePaul for a time to attend Berklee, which had a great pop/jazz curriculum at the time, but unfortunately I felt like one of the masses there and came back to DePaul. A lot of what I learned in my short stay at Bzerklee is still with me, and I'm very grateful for the experience.
I played professionally for a number of years. At one point I added up my experience and it came to something like 2000 gigs and 1000 sessions. I also co-owned a recording studio in Chicago in the late 80's, where I expanded beyond being a keyboard player to an engineer, producer, etc. Great experience, but bad industry timing... But alas, no regrets...
Eventually I moved away from making my living playing music to the software industry, where I worked for a number of companies (including A.C. Nielsen) before deciding to move to the Seattle area in 1994. I make my living creating software, spend most of the rest of my time with the most important people in my life; my wife Kelly, son Connor, and daughter Sydney; and still manage to eek out some time to write music (some of which I even finish).
I hope you enjoy the site, including the works (even those "in progress").
Love and understanding,
Pat