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I first picked up the guitar when I was thirteen. My father bought me an Aria nylon string guitar, and I started taking a couple lessons right away. I was having a somewhat difficult time getting into the habit of practicing regularly, mainly because I wasn't thrilled about practicing Yankee Doodle, or Twinkle Twinkle Little Star for hours on end. That's where my cousin Richard Kimzey comes in. Watching him play got me really interested in the guitar, he can pull off all the Eddie Van Halen riffs you've ever heard, and I thought it looked like so much fun. I acquired a fairly cheap electric guitar after that, and started to take lessons from Ronnie Fields, an excellent local guitar teacher. I would bring a Joe Satriani or Eric Johnson CD in to my lesson every week, and Ronnie would write down the music for me to practice at home. It wasn't much later that I stopped attending my school classes and started staying home all day, practicing guitar. I wound up getting my GED when I was 16 so I could focus on what I knew I wanted to do...PLAY GUITAR! On my 16th birthday, my cousin Richard took me to see a guitarist who was performing a clinic in town. His name was Preston Reed, and that night, I was amazed at what I saw. I had never seen or heard anyone play the way Preston did. I knew I wanted to learn how to play in that style, it looked like so much fun! After buying an instructional video by Preston, I started to learn the techniques and tunings. I bought Preston's CD's and started to learn some of his tunes by ear, as well. When I was 17, I was stumbling through all the old Guitar Player magazines my cousin had given me when I found a transcription of Michael Hedges song The Naked Stalk. I started to play it, and I thought it was so beautiful, I ran out the door to go buy the CD. I think it was around 9 p.m. when I headed out the door, but I knew it couldn't wait. On that night, I realized I really wanted to be an acoustic guitarist. I was hearing so many great new things. All the altered tunings and percussive hits and slap harmonics, it was beautiful. I spent the last 5 years learning so much from Michael, Preston, Don Ross, Billy McLaughlin, Pat Kirtley, Tommy Emmanuel... It's only been recently that I have come into my own as a musician, and feel ready to let music flow through me and out to the listener. In a way I feel like a channeler, the music just arrives of it's own accord, and completes it's journey when the musician shares it with the world. I feel like it's an exciting time, I hope you all will enjoy the music that makes it's way through my fingers.

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