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This video was filmed live at Kulak's Woodshed in North Hollywood on Christmas Day, 2006. I'm improvising lead for Peter Kosenko with one of his tunes.

This video was filmed live at Kulak's Woodshed in North Hollywood on 03/27/2006. It's a rendition of my piece called "Downhill Racer". I was accompanied by a very talented, natural born musician on electric violin by the name of Trevor Lloyd.

I play and compose fingerstyle acoustic guitar folk music. I've been playing guitar since I was fifteen or so, and I first started messing around with one when I was five years old. I started out playing the electric guitar and bass in a couple of garage rock bands when I was in high school.

Ever since my Dad gave me Leo Kottke's Armadillo Album CD for X-mas a few years ago, I've changed my style mostly from rock ..... to folk instrumental acoustic guitar music. I love to play this music now, and I'm a big fan of many guitarists in this genre. Some of my compositions are solo fingerstyle guitar, and some are accompanied by guitar leads and mandolin. I play all the instruments in my recordings, many of which are improvisational performances.

One thing that I have figured out over the years about music, is that it doesn't neccessarily always have to be written ahead of time. Why? Because actually, the music is Already There. It's an open language that you can speak freely with your voice or any instrument that you spend enough time learning to master. If you spend time practicing prewritten music, you will learn a lot from it, and be inspired and trained by it. But it's also important to practice speaking the language of music freely, because when you do, you will master it. You should practice Both, and Both mixed together.

Music is indeed Already There. It's like a beautiful set of Wind Chimes. In this world, the Wind Chimes are everywhere. Being a musician is like being The Wind.

I have a very small but effective collection of guitars. They're NOT really expensive, but rather mid-priced instruments that have been set-up very well for fingerstyle playing. The Six-String guitar I use is a real gem. It was around 1000 bucks, and it's a Martin Sustainable Wood Series. The reason why I say it's a gem, is because all of the wood used in it's manufacturing was aquired from rescued trees and forests that have been maintained in an ecolocigally responsible way. In other words, the guitar was made in an environmentally responsible way. I really don't want to sound overly "politically correct", but let's face it, these are exponential times we're living in! But don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you should throw your Brazillian Rosewood guitar in the dumpster!

The 12-string guitar I use is a great mid-priced Taylor 455CE that also goes for around 1000 bucks. One of the reasons why it sounds so good is because of the fact that I use 11 Guage Thomastik Infeld strings on it, which have a superbly wonderful tone, and also because of the fact that they're heavier than standard 12-string sets, and the guitar has been set up for it. And also, I use Laurence Juber True Medium GHS strings on my six-string. The string guages on the Juber strings have been cleverly modified so that they still retain the excellent tone of a medium guage set, while lightening the three problem strings for fingerstyle agility. I highly recommend these strings to everybody! (Dr. J, you're a GENUIS!) I also use a mid-priced Japanese George Benson Signature Series Ibanez Jazz Guitar for lead playing.

Some people say that my guitars sound very, very expensive, but that's not true. The reason why they sound so good is because I use heavier strings which have a better tone -- the guitars are set up very well -- I'm a very good guitar player -- and a lot of care and expertise have gone into recording them.