Born in Delaware, and raised in Alpharetta, Georgia. Growing up, I was a sports fanatic. But my grandparents loaned us their old upright when I was 8, so I started taking classical piano lessons. In 7th grade, I decided that guitar was cool too (and more impressive to girls). A year later, I joined my church’s youth band as a keyboard and guitar player, and eventually started singing as well. That’s where I learned how to be in a band. Now, I sing and play guitar at several of the North Point Community Church campuses.
I started writing songs when I was 18, and started a rock band called Bridges two years later while studying finance and music business at the University of Georgia. The band plays shows at venues all over Georgia and is spreading around the Southeast (www.BridgesTheBand.com).
I’m a Type A personality, so I was extremely competitive and achievement oriented growing up. The advantage of being Type A was that I worked very hard to develop my skills. The challenge was learning to pause and ‘feel’ the music; some people call this playing with ‘soul’. Thankfully, I had a great guitar teacher who stuck with me through my teenage years; he patiently and graciously taught me how to play from the heart, and to connect emotionally to music and to the people around me. One of the reasons why I love teaching is that I get the privilege of passing on that gift to my students. My goal with each student is to start a musical dialogue, where they learn how to be a musician, not just learn how to play chords or scales (although technique and theory is important!). I hope that they will learn to connect with themselves and with other musicians by playing and living with an open heart.