About TresMambo Latin Music School
Anyone with a website can present themselves as anything they wish these days. So I thought you might like to know, hear and see the story of how I came to be who I am and doing what I do best which is teach music.
1974-76: Began to play guitar
Ever
since I could remember, I wanted to play music. When I was 5 or so, I used
to see the Beatles on TV and think to myself "I could do that". I probably
would have played piano but my family could not afford one, let alone any
lessons. In fact they were dead set against music as a career. They had it
in mind that I would be a doctor/lawyer/scientist anything, but not a
musician.
I had to wait till I was 11 and I got a job as a paper boy. After a year all I had saved was about $40 and bought a cheap acoustic guitar. My physics teacher at the time was a really cool part Maori guy from New Zealand. He (like most Maoris) played guitar and sang. He was appalled that there was no music at the school and started a FREE guitar class after school. What a nice guy!
His lessons were straight to the point. He'd say "what songs have you heard on the top 40 lately?" and some one would suggest something. He'd write the words up on the board right off the top of his head, and the chords above them (complete with shapes). In about 3 months I not only knew all the chords but I could sing and play about 40 songs. Man I was so proud of myself. I kept on practicing and went out to look for a band to join!
1976-78: Covers bands
I was still at school when I did my first gig. I earned twice the rent money on a 2 bedroom flat in North Sydney on that first night! I thought to myself "why would anyone want to be anything other than a musician? I sang and played rhythm guitar. My main claim to fame was that my voice had not quite broken hence I had the job singing all the high harmonies! We covered all those vocal heavy groups like Boston, Kansas, David Bowie, Elton John etc. and all the top 40 stuff that was from OS. Here I was, working 3-4 nights a week, still going to school, getting bounced out of my own gigs for being underaged!
1979-81: In the jazz woodshed
The late 70's were a unique and fantastic time for music in Sydney. There were so much jamming going on. Myself and all my crazy friends were devouring music. We would get records, slow them down, work them out and then get together and jam on them. There was no thought of getting a band together-it was our own university. We shied away from NOTHING. Jimi Hendrix, Deep Purple, Muddy Waters, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Archie Schepp, John McLaughlin, John Luc-Ponty, Return to Forever, Miles Davis, Freddie Hubbard. We did not care if it was Free Jazz, Bossa Novas, Blues, Rock anything- if it made us go "holy shit" then it was worth learning. (ah such is the optimism of the young!) Needless to say we spent most nights out on the "Jazz Scene". We would often be found at the Paradise Jazz Cellar, The Basement, Jenny's Wine Bar, The Muso's club, About this time I started teaching guitar and found out that I was not only really good at it I LOVED it.
1981-85: New York and the "horse's mouth"
By
the end of 1981 I was hooked on bebop and decided I would move to New York for a
real jazz education "from the horses mouth" so to speak. Well those were the
best of times. Everything was so easy. I had a place to live, lots of part time
work in computers, child care, cleaning and a wedding band I went to jazz
sessions every night of the week. I enrolled in Jazz Mobile in Harlem.
I
bought hundreds of records and wore out the grooves transcribing them! After a
year I was bitten by the bug and really wanted to play the trumpet. There was no
shortage of excellent trumpet teachers in the Apple and I made fast progress.
Everyone was so supportive. It was definitely the right time and the right place
for me. During this time I took up composition the study of many other
instruments-piano, bass, drums and the violin. I could not calculate how much
money I spent on music lessons. It was well spent though as I discovered that
the playing of many instruments helps your teaching and composing immensely.
Needless to say I began to teach a lot of what I had learned. My multi-instrumentalism made me quite desirable to most music schools. However things began to change in the Reagan years. The economy went really bad really fast, crack got invented, and all of a sudden there were people everywhere sleeping in doorways and needing a hand out. After a while I just could not take it anymore and hankered for a more egalitarian life back in Australia, and also to marry a child hood sweet heart.
1985-88: Sydney is everything except jazz
When I returned to Sydney things were very different. The jazz scene was in serious decline so I committed myself to playing other sorts of music in an effort to build up my trumpet playing and well as my diversity. The 80's was the decade of "fads". African music, Latin Music, Funk, Blues, all came and went in waves. It was a wild time. I played in lots of bands that I really loved like Nahbenzi, TangoMambo, Music Liberates Feet and Melodious Thunk.
All my trumpet students from this period were just people who saw me play and thought I had something to offer them. I would sometimes do 3 gigs a night with different bands and completely different styles of music. It was great but very hard. The trumpet is very demanding, all those loud bands and long gigs and band politics, ass-hole club owners etc. , started to take their toll. I would not have survived except for my teacher, mentor and friend Mike Bukovsky now professor of trumpet at ANU. My first marriage did not work out, nor my venture into music retail. It was definitely a time for a change.
1989-93: Wanderlust
I
took a break from bands entirely. I began to "play the street" and travel. I
found I could do three sets a night around Sydney and would make just as much
money as on a gig without the hassle or the pressure. I then embarked on this
crazy "busking tour" of the Earth.
In the next four years I busked my way around Australia, England, Amsterdam, Germany, France, Korea and the US. Man the people I met, the stories I could tell. All things though burn out eventually and so did my wanderlust. I had to do it. I got my head all sorted out and felt really calm and focused with a plan for the future.
1994-97: University at last
During this period I decided to "settle down" I returned to Australia to stay, go to Uni, make a life with the woman of my dreams and have a family, all of which went surprisingly according to plan! I completed a double degree in Composition and Music Technology at the University of Western Sydney. I graduated top of the class and did lots of really interesting things with computers, programming, fractals, composition and music education.
1997-2000: Post Uni
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Jive Kayana Kris Gudu: Vocals and Bass Luke Dubber: Keyboards John Pease: Guitar Ed Hughes: Drums. Peter Kartu: Trumpet Bruce Allen: Saxophones More about Jive Kayana including Sound bytes |
I began to do a lot of new things in the period post - Uni. Lots of teaching, composing for orchestra and film. digital recording, Mac IT support and so on . I returned to music retail working as a trumpet consultant for Sax and Woodwind in Sydney and began teaching sight-reading ensembles and teaching primary school music.
I became part of a very wild musical collective known as "Total Harmonic Distortion" and the African Band, Jive Kayana.
2000-2003: Education4music.com & El Zumo
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EL ZUMO SALSA 2003 Peter Kartu: Keys 'n' Bass Rinske Geerlings: Congas Ric Reyna: Vocals Jeff Crawley: Trumpet Pierre Bousquet: Trombone Claudio Cartegena: Timbales. |
As an extension of my teaching I began programming music education software and set up an on-line business to sell and promote this. Concurrently I got into SALSA music and dancing in a BIG way. I had missed all that playing with bands I had in the 80s and so I pulled out all the stops trying to promote my Salsa band "TresMambo" and later "EL ZUMO". Though we got to do a lot of gigs we still were losing money. The live scene is just not what it used to be.
2004-: TresMambo Music School
Another sea change is upon me now. Both the on-line software business and EL ZUMO have come to and end. I have become all fired up about the new educational projects listed in this site, which will be promoted in toto as the "TresMambo Music School". Through all the years and all, the changes since 1979, I have come full circle. In that I love teaching music and am excellent at it in all it's many forms. The time has come for me to embrace my destiny and this website is the first step. These educational projects will offer the fruits of almost 30 years of love, study and communication about music!