Little things about me! I was born on August 16, 1986 in Leros Island. Why do I like music anyway?
Well… my father is a professional bouzouki player and he plays all kinds of Greek music, except Greek Pop and the New Wave Tsifteteli that sucks. He was grown in Belgium. He learned to play the accordion and he had been 3 times awarded in the European Contest of Accordion. When he came back to Greece, at the age of 13, he learned playing bouzouki by his own. He had knowledge of Theory of Music and he combined that knowledge with his ear to start playing the bouzouki. After many, many hours and many, many years of playing, he is now one of the best bouzouki players in Greece. I remember when I was 5 years old I was listening to my dad playing music sitting on his chair by listening to the radio. It was really strange to me! I was watching him playing the song from the radio just by hearing it… My father owns a restaurant in Leros and he plays bouzouki there. When I was young I was helping him as a waiter. I always liked music but I never had the chance to learn and play! In the age of 14 I said to myself: “I want to learn playing keyboards!†My first music lessons where taught to me by my Dad. He is a music teacher, besides running the restaurant. He showed me some simple scales and techniques and gave me basic knowledge of theory of music. The first time I played in front of crowd was in summer of 1999 at the age of 14. I remember it was Friday night and the guitar player didn't come to my father’s restaurant, where he had agreed to play. My dad said to me: "Take out your keyboards and let's play together because the customers are waiting for some music". I felt terrible! I knew only a few chords (C-D-F-G and Cm-Dm-Am). I had a Technics KN1000 keyboard. My father was telling me the chords of each song and which rhythm I had to load from the disk!!! It was a nightmare for me. Without rehearsing I played in front of audience for the first time in my life. What the hell was I doing?
Nobody knew!!! The guitar player didn't show up the next days too. My father said to me: "Come to show you some chords and we are going to play music together every night. The guitar player is not coming any more you are going to help me". WOW! Well, my dear friends, we were playing together every night and I learned the chords so well, because every song had more than one chord and I had some really good ear training! I was becoming better, as a player, every year. In the 3rd year of playing, some tourists from Switzerland came to my father’s restaurant to listen to us playing.
They where so excited! You know what? These people where professional musicians. Guitarists. Suddenly they said: "Would you like to play together?" and this was my first Jamming. All these 7 years, I've played with so many musicians and so many different kinds of music that I feel lucky. The good thing with me is that if I play a song for the first time, I will catch up with the chords and the melody really fast. That's why I love foreign music: You can put so many chords to improve a song. In Greek music you can't put e.g. FMaj7 or Dm7 before you go to Gm. In Rock music you can do anything you like. It depends on your imagination and of course on your music knowledge level. I've learned playing music just with by hearing and by reading music books. No teachers guys! No music school! It was difficult to me to learn how to play rock n' roll, but now it's a piece of cake! That's all!!! All thanks to my Dad, because he showed me the path of music! Cheers! real editor best profile tools real editor best profile tools
