Why did I start playing the guitar and bass guitar?

I knew at an early age that I wanted to be a rock star.

In 1976, I was 13 years old. I was playing basketball with my friend Andy in his driveway at his parents house, when his mom drove up in the family station wagon. Andy's younger brother Mark jumped out of the car and walked around to the back seat. He reached in and pulled out a huge case. I walked over to him and asked, "Is that a guitar?" Mark told me that he was going to start taking lessons from the nuns at his church. I stopped playing basketball and followed Mark into his house. We went into his room and Mark pulled the guitar out of the case. I knew nothing of the instrument. Then Mark showed me a couple of chords he learned, and I was hooked. I knew then that I had to learn the guitar too. About ten minutes later, I ran home and begged my parents to let me take guitar lessons. Pulice Music store was three blocks down the street from our house. My parents asked me over and over if it was something I really wanted to do. They weren't about to invest in finding a guitar and dumping money into weekly lessons, if I wasn't going to take it seriously and practice. I convinced them that I was serious and that I was going to practice. I even agreed to buckle down and get better grades in school...which never actually happened.

A few days later my mom's friend, Barb, came over with a guitar that had been sitting in the closet at her house. It was an old "Kay" acoustic guitar. She handed it to me and told me that I could use it for my lessons. It was the first guitar I would ever play. The only problem was, the intonation of the strings was really high off of the fretboard, which made it difficult to play. Well, beggars can't be choosers, so this was what I had to work with. My parents took me to the music store and signed me up for lessons. The owners of the store were in the music circuit in town and knew my parents from being local musicians as well. I started half-hour lessons once each week with Tony Collova. Tony was a sort of hippy throwback from the 1960's. He always looked disheveled as if he had just climbed out of bed after a long night of partying. He had a lot of patience with me. We started off doing lessons out of an "Alfred Guitar" book. I didn't really know any better. I thought that's how all rock star wanna-be's started...from a boring, note-reading book.

Those first few lessons were not really what I expected. I didn't want to learn how to read notes out of some tediously mind-numbing book. I wanted to be the next Peter Frampton. I liked chords. They came easy to me. I had no problem figuring out songs off the radio. So, instead of me doing the lessons Tony circled in the book, I played songs off of the radio. Tony eventually realized that I wasn't practicing the lessons from the book and asked me why. I told him that I was bored with learning how to read notes. I wanted to learn songs I actually knew. I showed him how I had already figured out how to play a couple of Eagle's songs and a few others. He must have been impressed enough to change his direction from book reading to song learning. I had a paper route, and I had my eye on this banana yellow copy Fender Telecaster electric guitar, hanging on the wall of the music store. It was $111.00. Somehow, I saved every penny and bought it. It was so easy to play. Much easier than the acoustic guitar I had been using. The only problem was, I didn't have an amplifier to plug into. I ended up taking lessons from Tony for about two and half years.

Mark and I got together and played the songs we learned. It was a healthy competition for both of us. We even found other kids around the neighborhood who also played instruments. I was a very shy, introverted kid. The guitar gave me a voice...and I haven't shut up since. The guitar gave me the confidence I needed as a growing young teenager. It gave me an identity, which is terribly important for a kid in junior high school to have. I liked to play football and basketball with my friends, but I certainly wasn't a jock. I wasn't someone who even went to school sports games. I wanted to be a rock star.

When I was 15 years old, I transferred to a different high school (Walden III alternative) in January, 1979. It was my sophomore year. This new school had a well-known reputation for having students who didn't quite fit in regular schools. I had also heard that the kids that came from this particular high school were really good musicians because of the music program there. When we met with the program director of the school, he took my parents and I around the school to see some of the classes in progress. Then he took us to Al Clausen's room. Al was having a smoke and drinking his coffee at his desk. I had no idea my parents knew Al from the music circuit around town. Al was a well-known musician and extremely good jazz guitarist. Al then walked us across the hall over to the band room. We walked in, and I knew immediately that I was home.

On the first day of the second semester, my first day at Walden, I couldn't wait to get to the band room. I signed up to be in the school jazz band. I didn't know the first thing about jazz, but I knew that I wanted to play with other kids who could really play. There must have been about thirty of us sitting on the risers as Al took roll call. Then Al went through his list to see who could play what instruments. He named off all of the horn players first. Then he asked, "Okay, how many guitar players do we have?" I raised my hand and took a look around to see that about nine other kids had also raised their hands. I felt the proverbial winds leave my sails. I knew that these kids were better than I was. I didn't stand a chance of getting in the band. I hung my head in disappointment. Then Al asked, "Does anybody play bass guitar?" I looked up and looked around to see that nobody raised their hand. Something inside me snapped my arm so fast to raise my hand that it almost pooped out of my shoulder. I answered, "I'll try it." That was the first time I would ever pick up a bass guitar.

I had no idea what to do, but I wanted to play in that band, no matter what it took. I put the guitar over my shoulders. It felt huge compared to my other guitar. It was much heavier too. I asked Al, "What do I do?" He answered, "You said that you played the guitar, right? I nodded my head. He then said, "You know how to read chord charts, right?" That was one type of reading I did learn well, from Tony. Al then said, "Okay, so all you have to do is play the name of the note that goes with the chord in the progression of the song, and just follow Jimmy's right side." Jimmy was our drummer. He was to my right. I didn't know him at first, but we became good friends for the next few years. Following Jimmy's right side meant whatever Jimmy did with his right foot and his right hand, is what I did on the bass. After about 15 minutes, I got it. Suddenly, it made perfect sense to me.

I practiced my bass every night. This was such a unique opportunity for me to finally be somebody in a world of nobody's. By the end of that year, I was collectively known as "Dave the bass player". I felt like one of the cool kids. I made sure that I earned my right to play that bass in that band, by practicing all the time. Jimmy and I started our own band in the summer of 1979. Mark and I would sometimes go over to Jimmy's house to jam. I saved up my money and bought my own bass guitar and small amplifier.

The very first day of my junior year, Al brought Kevin (keyboardist), Jon (guitarist), Jimmy, a couple of our better horn players and me into his office and sat us down. He then brought each one of us up to his desk to watch him write in straight "A's" across the board for each semester, for the year. He did this one the first day of school! Talk about expectations! This was Al's way of instilling the confidence he had in the select few of us, and he expected us to earn each and every one of those "A's". Nobody ever wanted to be the weakest link in the chain, and none of us were about to let Al regret his confidence in us. The bass guitar felt like an extension of my arms. Al loved that our rhythm section was so tight. He knew that no matter what the horn section did, the groove would never fall out of the pocket with his rhythm section. Jimmy and I were the tightest drummer/bass play combination you'd ever heard. We'd been playing together all summer long and had gotten in hundreds of hours of practice together. I had learned how to listen to the music like a drummer, but bridge the gap between the drummer and the melody. On the first day of my senior year, Al took us into his office again and gave a select few of us straight "A's" again for the year, and we earned them again. Nobody had ever given me such a confidence boost the way Al did. I wanted Al to know that I was doing my very best to be his reliable bassist for the band.

After leaving high school, I went to work. I moved out of my parents house and started my life. My band days were very limited, but I practiced my guitar and bass guitar religiously. I got into a few local bands and we played and rehearsed on my days off and before I went into work. I would go up to Milwaukee on the weekends and watch local rock bands. I wanted so badly to be in a rock band, playing in clubs and having fun staying up until dawn. Well, it never happened. In 1987, I quit my job, uprooted my entire life and moved with Mark to Orlando, Florida. We started working at the airport, and within a few weeks, we were already meeting other musicians. I played with a few bands around town. Mark joined a few bands as well. One of the guys I met was A.J. Johnson. This was the first bass player I had ever heard play funk. This guy was on a whole different level of playing than me. I was both inspired and a little jealous. I had never really had any sort of competition before. A.J. and worked together at the airport for a couple of years. Then, one night in the summer of 1994; me, my roommate and a bunch of her friends from the airport all went down to a dance club near Disney. As we were walking to the club, I saw A.J. walking through a parking lot with some long-haired rockstar-looking guy. I walked over to A.J. as he introduced me to his guitarist, Mike Walker. He and A.J. had a band called, World Wide Tribe. That night, A.J. and Mike were going to be playing at another venue across the other side of the parking lot. A.J. invited me to stop by. About a half hour later, I walked over from the dance club to where A.J. and Mike were playing. Before I even saw them. I could hear this amazing guitar being played. It was Mike. I had never in my life heard anyone shred a guitar like that. I wanted to put my guitar away forever.

I got to know Mike. He was not only a local musician, he was a guitar teacher. In 1996, Mike convinced me to try teaching lessons on my days off from the airport. Mike gave me two or three of his students to start. I honestly had no idea what I was doing, but somehow, teaching came naturally to me. I purchased a few music theory books and read every night. Mike inspired me because like Al and Tony, he believed in me too. He gave me a chance to try something new. That was 26 years ago.

I have instructed lessons for hundreds of students. I have played in dozens of bands. I've played countless gigs from Orlando, Central Florida to Los Angeles, from Colorado to Miami. I have played on stages, in front of crowds numbering in the thousands. I have loved being the closest thing to a rock star, many, many times. Music is the air that I breathe. Being a musician is my life. I love to teach my students how to become better instrumentalists. My rewards are when I see my students become musicians themselves.

I cannot imagine my life without music. I cannot imagine not being a guitarist. It is what I love. It is my voice. It is my purpose. It is my identity. It is my life.