User:JKruse101

Musical Backround: My musical background first started when I was six years old. My grandma gave me a magazine and told me to look for Christmas gifts that I wanted. As I was looking I saw a six stringed guitar. I pointed out the guitar, along with some other miscellaneous items. Christmas came, and I was given an electronic guitar that played riffs with the push of a button. Not exactly what I had in mind, but a least the seed was planted in my head. A couple of years rolled around, and I was entering the fourth grade. I remember the entire class walking in single file line down to the school’s gym. The gym was full of band teachers each holding a different stringed instrument. This was the day each student was allowed to choose an instrument, and PLAY IT. I was incredibly stoked. I remember thinking: “Violin... girly, bass… too big, cello… nah, viola.” I loved the viola. That summer, when I went to visit my Father in Colorado, I brought the viola with me. I wrote a four bar melody entitled “Hot Sauce” I can’t remember it for the life of me. The summer was long and fun, but soon school would start again. Only this time we would be able to choose a wind instrument. I choose trumpet. I played in elementary orchestra and band, but in Iowa you weren’t cool unless you played football, or wrestling, also I didn’t want to join marching band. So in the 9th grade I stopped playing all instruments. Even before I stopped playing I would fall into these musical infatuations. These were periods of time when I only listened to one artist for an indefinite period of time. I remember meeting one of my uncle’s friends, and he played the guitar incredibly. This reminded me of how much I wanted the guitar as a young child. I remember watching his fingers and thinking if I could be half as good I would be happy. I wasn’t able to afford a guitar yet, but luckily my mom started to date a man who owned 4 guitars… problem solved. I began practicing immediately. I quickly fell out of my Tupac phase, and replaced it with a Metallica phase. “If it wasn’t heavy metal, it wasn’t music” I was attempting to play as fast and clear as possible. I realize now that the mind of an adolescent can be absurdly ridiculous. I formed a band, we gained some local fame, which doesn’t say much when you live in Newton, IA, but non-the-less I was motivated. I started falling out the heavy metal phase and expanding my music pallet to all forms of music: Jazz, Bohemian, Gregorian, Blues, Rock n Roll, Funk, Fusion, Classical, Minimalism, Electronic, etc. Everything was becoming beautiful. One thing continued to lead to another; I started to fall into recording and sound. So here I am today, at Berklee College of Music, studying to be an audio engineer.