Like many of us, I grew up around music. As a kid, I would sit at our family's monster Wurlitzer organ and pick out tunes from TV cartoons or movies I'd recently seen (Star Wars, Superman I, etc.). My father was very musical, and genetics played a role in my inheriting from him a pretty good 'ear' for sounding out a melody and its associated harmonies. I joined band in the 6th grade and was always challenging or being challenged for the lead trumpet spot. I later switched to baritone/euphonium, finally settling on trombone... the instrument that I took into my performing arts high school. I spent my first year in college as a music major, but I switched to humanities my sophomore year and never really participated in any sort of formal music education program after that. Then I came across Mr. Charles Atkins' Blues Lab while attending graduate school at Florida State.