DiJoseph's More-Than-a Piano Blog 7-17-10

Now if you came here expecting to here more about the "Dan's" (MTAP blog 1) there will be a delay.
Albeit a worthy one. I need to mention that I showed symptoms of Tourettes Syndrome way back at...age 7. One year before the Magnus organ ... same year I started drum lessons (CORRECTION here: started drum lessons at age 7 not 5...) Kind-of a blue-plate special: "one order of musical drive with a heaping side order of Tourette's please!"

In the April 13, 2010 edition of the Washington Post I read " [TS] is also associated with creative personalities: Composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, writer Samuel Johnson and jazz great Thelonious Monk may have had it."
Well... I for one, will not argue with that possibility since being creative has been an obsessive urgency with me ever since I popped out! I mean.... I clapped out a rhythm while the delivery doctor slapped my hand-sized posterior! ....now at age 5, I FORCE-FED my parents ( and ALL who came across the threshold of our front door) a veritable variety show in which I played MC ( dressed like Mitch Miller including the diablo-like Go-tee ) and performer ( lip-syncing to recordings.. playing air guitar and air keyboard).

OK so, back to Dan no. 2..Desiderio. He was very wise in that he demanded I practice what he gave me. You see..well..I kept getting ideas for compositions every time I would work on a piece of music.... a piece of course that I DID requested, but NEVER-THE-LESS...I COULDN'T resist what I heard! I did however still manage to learn the pieces: Bach, Beethoven, DeBussey , Mendelssohn, Liszt ...IN fact I was seriously working towards the classical concert stage...with frequent foray's into
creative urgencies mind you. Dan and I would argue about whether or not a successful pianist could ALSO be a composer. He was thinking classical, while I was thinking Rick Wakeman and Keith Emerson. My thinking won out. I felt that there were enough classical pianists in the world but there was only one me...
besides... I couldn't stop the ideas! : )

Here is a video I quickly put together in order to share my first recording tittled
'Journey of A Soul' JOAS was recorded in 1978 on a reel to reel 4 track at 15ips
in one take. It's a bit dramatic, but hey...hope you get a kick... as I did!