Fortunately for me, Mom was persistent. She wanted me to be able to play a musical instrument and coaxed me toward the piano. Both she and my father played the piano but I did not have the patience, at an early age, to stick with two different teachers who wanted to start with notes and scales. I just couldn’t relate. At various times, there were also disappointing ‘false starts’ with the accordion, the violin and the clarinet.

Finally, the third piano teacher, Mr. Sawicki, came along. On the first piano lesson, I was given the task of learning, “Around the World in Eighty Days.” Within a week, I knew how to play a song....that was the magic ticket! After about a year of lessons, when I was in junior high school, some friends announced that they were forming a band and asked me to join. I got an electronic keyboard (thanks, Dad) and started playing gigs with them. After less than three years, I quit piano lessons to concentrate on playing "rock music."

During junior high and high school, I was sequentially a member of three different groups. I progressed from the smaller keyboard to a big Hammond B-3 organ (thanks again, Dad) with two furniture-cabinet-like, wooden Leslie speakers (thanks again and again, Dad). I acquired a set of “piano dollies” and rented a U-Haul trailer to move the equipment by myself to each gig. The state police and I got to be familiar with each other, since they would stop me frequently in the wee hours to see what I was hiding in the trailer!

After the summer following my first year of college, my days as a traveling ‘rock star’ ended. I had no voice for singing [I tried singing back-up: “Barry…please stop!”], so I knew a career in music would not be a good choice. The idea of becoming a doctor was planted at a very early age [I once traded two chemistry sets for a microscope!] and I realized that, although maybe not quite as much fun and easy-going, there would be more security with a medical career.

For years, I avoided anything serious with the piano and would do a lot of what I call “doodling,” just making stuff up. I had an old beat up, generic upright piano [not all the notes would play] and, later, bought a secondhand Yamaha upright [wow....all the notes worked]. When I finally had enough money to buy a grand piano, I happened upon a brand new, red mahogany Bösendorfer 7’4” piano at a local vendor. My comment to the store owner was, “Wow…..this piano makes even me sound good!” It was way out of my original target price range, but it became an obsession and I had to have it. Once I got it, it was an incentive for me to become a better pianist.  I was even inspired then to start writing songs. The keyboard artists that influenced my composing the most were David Lanz, David Benoit, Suzanne Ciani and, later on, Enya and Keiko Matsui.

Several years passed and I finally had enough material for a CD. The problem, however, was that my playing was not accomplished enough for anything worth recording. That gave me the added incentive to start to take lessons again. I was blown away when I heard my future teacher, Ted Howe, who was playing at a local concert with amazing expertise and playing the type of New Age music that I wanted to learn. A fellow doctor who was there told me that he was taking lessons from Ted. I could not contain my excitement! Although Ted was playing New Age music at his concert, I found out later that jazz was Ted’s predominant passion. doing. It was serendipitous that Ted was doing a concert of New Age music when I first heard him and he was doing it solely because he had recently recorded a couple of New Age CDs.

I took weekly lessons from Ted for about seven years. I stopped when my schedule got too hectic to keep up with his demanding requirements. Half of the lessons were devoted to the New Age material and the other half to basic classical and jazz technique. It was great learning from Ted; he was very accomplished, having taught at Berklee College of Music in Boston, and he had considerable playing and recording experience. During that time, I recorded my first CD, Hand Over The Keys, and Ted’s input to accomplish that was invaluable.

More recently, it took me quite a while to become proficient with the Cakewalk Sonar software and get that new direction going. There was a steep “learning curve,” but, after months of 'false starts,' I finally learned the software well enough to pursue the recording process. After months of work, there were enough songs with added “virtual instruments” for an entire CD, appropriately titled, Being Instrumental.