Re: What got ya to where you are...

[improv@peak.org (Dave Trenkel)]

Hmmm, too many years of classical piano lessons. Discovering pot, prog
rock, and synthesizers in Jr High, without any of which I would not have
survived. My friend Bernie Edl's 4-trak Norelco reel-to-reel (this was in
the late '70's, pre-4-trak), learning to splice, loop and reverse tape.
Building a few PAIA kits. College: discovered punk rock and bass guitar
while ostensibly learning to program. Read too much Cage and Eno at a too
impressionable age. Bought my first analog delay in 1980, still have it.
See an Ornette Coleman gig that blows my mind, but takes several years to
come to terms w/it. Drop out of college to tour with a new wavey haircut
band, almost get signed, band self-destructs. More bands, more
self-destruction. Clerk at a used record store, buy too many records.
Return to college late-80's, study jazz composition w/ Rob Blakeslee, jazz
piano w/Steve Christofferson. Help build an electronic music studio at
school, later dismantled. Start a recording studio with a partner,
recording lots of punk bands on the cheap. Buy a mac, finally find a use
for all the programming shit when I pick up Max. Acquire several digital
delays along the way, still have most of 'em. More bands, less success. See
Pro-Tools in action, immediate light-bulb in head-I gotta have that!
Intense free improv sessions, swear off of composition "permanently". Start
Minus w/Henry Franzoni/Mark France. Buy a better mac, and Deck. Assemble
Minus CD in Deck. Get current job developing educational multimedia, buy
more gear. Early JamMan adoptee. Gig around NW doing free-improv. Get bored
w/free improv after a few years, return to composing. Slowly work on 2nd
Minus CD. Acquire a boomerang. Return to building my own electronics,
slowly assemble modular synth and some effects. Spend too much time on the
Internet. Write message to hip maillist explaining what got me where I am,
leaving out too many important experiences, gigs, records, movies, books,
yadda, yadda...

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Dave Trenkel : improv@peak.org  : www.peak.org/~improv/

"...there will come a day when you won't have to use
gasoline. You'd simply take a cassette and put it in
your car, let it run. You'd have to have the proper
type of music. Like you take two sticks, put 'em
together, make fire. You take some notes and rub 'em
together - dum, dum, dum, dum - fire, cosmic fire."
                                            -Sun Ra
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