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| - Playing guitar (& other instruments) & composing original songs since age 12, I also enjoy writing, cooking, studying web design, & creating multimedia artwork, in digital, painted, pasteled, penciled, video, & other forms...
 - Born in Cedar Sinai Hospital of Los Angeles, CA, I moved w/ my parents to Washington Heights (upper west Manhattan), NY when I was 1 year old. Some of my earliest memories were of attending magnet school in New York City, & enjoying the music of "Rabboni", a Broadway-style musical by my dad Jeremiah Ginsberg. I was interested in learning to make music myself, & my dad showed me how musical notes were arranged on the piano. When I was eight, we moved to the Ft. Lauderdale area of South Florida, where I finished elementary & middle-school @ Sar Shalom Academy. I started playing guitar & writing songs in 6th grade w/ my best friend from school, & we soon had our 1st gig @ a school lock-in! | |
| - Advanced High School Training: I began high school in 1998 @ Coconut Creek High School in Coconut Creek, FL, where I trained for writing in Honors English 1 & 2, & AP English 3 & 4 classes, which covered Creative Writing, Essay Writing, & Literature (non-fiction, plays, poetry), as well as grammar, spelling, & vocabulary. I joined the staff of our school's monthly newsmagazine, "The Coconut Creek High School Harbinger", as a staff writer, & I soon received the position of Entertainment Section Editor, where I contributed articles on the arts (concert reviews, local events, etc.) & edited articles written by the other staff members. Soon I was given a monthly editorial column on the back page, where my writing style really shined! I also joined the German club, where I eventually tutored beginning German students on basic German language skills -- my German teacher was Mrs. Anne "Frau" Humphreys, who I met in her Honors World History class. Later, she introduced me to her husband, Richard Humphreys, who I taught basic guitar to, & who's been a close friend ever since. He runs a South Florida storm shutters installation company. | | - My First Bands: When I was a freshman @ CCHS, I joined the school's jazz band on electric guitar. There I gained experience playing a few jazz standards in a big band setting, & had fun using my wah-wah pedal on the funk tunes! I met some older students in the jazz band who admired my guitar-playing style, & they invited me to join a rock band they were forming called "Eat @ Joe's", on lead guitar. We began working on original songs together, & soon, 1 of the members left due to heavy work constraints, & I agreed to become the lead vocalist & also take over rhythm guitar responsibilities. Soon we started gigging @ places like a local donut shop, a rehearsal studio, @ Young Circle in Hollywood Beach, FL. @ an evening gig in front of a jeans shop in Young Circle I met Juergen Kerth, a talented blues-rock guitarist from Germany, who really enjoyed our music and invited me to join his trio on bass guitar for gigs in the area. I had fun on these gigs & learned a lot! While in high school, I also played bass for a local progressive rock band, "The Vovniks". Later, I formed "The Bark The Dog" w/ my bandmate from Sar Shalom and members of Eat @ Joes, & often jammed w/ friends @ the local rehearsal studios, & @ after school parties! We even played a gig @ the 94.9 ZETA (local rock radio station) BBQ! | |
| - College Years & Beyond: After graduating from CCHS in 2001, I began college studies @ Florida International University in Miami, FL, less than an hour south of my home in Tamarac. My tuition was fully covered by the Florida Bright Futures academic scholarship, which awarded me based on my excellent high school grades. My chosen major was Jazz Performance, w/ guitar as my principal instrument.
My curriculum @ FIU included Music Theory/Ear Training, Class Piano, Jazz Arranging for Big Band, Jazz Improv, as well as playing guitar in various student jazz combos (small jazz groups of 4-8 members), Big Band, & Guitar Ensemble. Each semester, every student band played @ least one concert for the entire group of jazz majors & their teachers, and we often had student/professor jam sessions @ our Friday morning Jazz Forum. I received weekly private guitar lessons 1st w/ Lindsey Blair, and then w/ Richie Zellon, who I had previously met through my parents & taken early jazz lessons w/ while finishing high school. Some things I gained through my jazz training @ FIU were good note-reading skills, a strong repertoire of jazz 'standards' (classic jazz songs, or 'tunes' as they are usually called), firm harmonic/rhythmic knowledge & technical skills, how to craft an interesting jazz solo, and how to create a chord-melody style arrangement (where the guitarist plays several parts @ once, including the chords, the melody/solo, & the bass line). I also got some jazz gigging experience while attending FIU, playing concerts w/ student friends @ places such as Bougainvillea's Tavern of South Miami, the student chapel @ University of Miami, & a few other venues. Frequently, other jazz students & I got together for extra-curricular jam sessions in dorm rooms, practice rooms in the music building, & home studios, where we practiced the tunes we were working on, practiced our arrangements, & exchanged musical ideas.
When I returned home to Tamarac for the weekends & holidays while going to FIU, I often got together with local musicians & made improvised recordings based on new ideas we came up w/. I worked on these recordings w/ friends including DJ Immortal, Sensei Jean LeGrande (who trained me in mixed martial arts fundamentals), DJ Trails (also a member of our martial arts team), Brett Segal (a jazz drumming major from FIU), & my friends since high school, Jared Cole, Daniel Gardner, & Rusty Ellison. In March of 2006 I noticed that I worked most nights a week as a local pizza delivery driver earning finances for gas, food, & other expenses while going to school, & I wound up w/ very little time to practice based on the commute to Miami & the delivery work. I decided to w/draw from FIU, continue studying music @ home, & to begin to focus on learning advanced computer skills such as multimedia design and network management.
I wrote a bunch of new songs since withdrawing from FIU, created a series of song demos, & created my first remixes on the computer. I recently purchased a Yamaha MO6 synthesizer workstation & started working w/ the Steinberg Cubase AI 4 studio software that it came bundled w/, and I'm working on producing lots of great new music! On the information technology side, I am currently studying for my 1st Microsoft Certification Test (on Windows Vista Fundamentals).
- For more of my writing: - Visit my Blog! Please feel free to e-mail me @ djginsberg@yahoo.com !
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