Keepitsimple
New member
Hello all. My name is Rabih. I'm from Lebanon.
Well where do I start?
My adventure with music started at the age of 6 when my dad (a hobbyist percussionist, but he never did it professionally, instead he ended up being a math teacher) bought my older brother a toy Casio keyboard. My older brother couldn't care less for this white shiny box with keys on it, so I took it upon myself to start fiddling with it. That's when my dad realized that I love music and enrolled me at the age of 8 in classical piano lessons.
A few years in and while continuing to take classical piano lessons, I also started taking oriental pop music lessons at the same institute. My dad naturally of course bought me an Upright piano (Yamaha) to play my classical repertoire on, but he also got me an arranger keyboard to play all those oriental songs I was learning, and this is where my fascination with synths and...(wait for it)... finger drumming started! I started finger drumming on those arranger keyboards, it became an addiction to me. It was almost a taboo but it felt so good.
At the age of 14, I started playing Arabic songs live with a local band in my hometown. I started getting paid for gigs at that age.
But things took a different turn at 17, when I graduated high school and decided to major in Musicology at a local college. This is when I met a jazz drummer student who introduced me to Chick Corea and Aziza Mustafa Zadeh. Both those artists changed my world and opened up another fascination, this time with Jazz-Rock and Jazz-fusion. This led me to start taking jazz theory and jazz harmony classes with a private teacher in college.
(Side note: I was also a metal head in my teens. I loved listening to Heavy metal, Progressive Metal, Hard Rock, Classic Rock, Grunge, Seattle Rock etc.)
At the age of 17, I formed my first jazz-fusion cover band. We played mostly Jazz standards and Funk covers all over Beirut, and this is also when I slowly started introducing my own music during gigs.
At age 19, I wanted to follow in the footsteps of my musical idol Chick Corea and decided to do like he did, so I applied to Berklee College Of Music and got accepted.
In 2006 while I still living in the US, I released my first Jazz-Fusion album. It was all recorded on a Yamaha Motif lol. And of course it had me finger drumming on it!
Shortly after that, I formed my dream fusion trio in Philadelphia, and we started playing many live shows all over local bars and venues around Philly and suburbs. No covers, all my music. We were literally playing all the tunes from that album I released.
My love for Finger-drumming never stopped. Keyboard workstations were main companions to me all along this part of the journey. I kept upgrading from one keyboard workstation to another.
In 2013, I decided to go back to my essence (the essence that started it all at the age of 8): Solo piano. This is when I released my first piano solo album. I also started releasing music videos of my music, which I will share below.
My love for piano will never end, but so is my love for drums (as weird as that sounds), and of course keyboards! All those 3 were a big part of my musical journey growing up.
Thank you for creating this space and this forum for me to share all those personal details.
Regards
Rabih
Well where do I start?
My adventure with music started at the age of 6 when my dad (a hobbyist percussionist, but he never did it professionally, instead he ended up being a math teacher) bought my older brother a toy Casio keyboard. My older brother couldn't care less for this white shiny box with keys on it, so I took it upon myself to start fiddling with it. That's when my dad realized that I love music and enrolled me at the age of 8 in classical piano lessons.
A few years in and while continuing to take classical piano lessons, I also started taking oriental pop music lessons at the same institute. My dad naturally of course bought me an Upright piano (Yamaha) to play my classical repertoire on, but he also got me an arranger keyboard to play all those oriental songs I was learning, and this is where my fascination with synths and...(wait for it)... finger drumming started! I started finger drumming on those arranger keyboards, it became an addiction to me. It was almost a taboo but it felt so good.
At the age of 14, I started playing Arabic songs live with a local band in my hometown. I started getting paid for gigs at that age.
But things took a different turn at 17, when I graduated high school and decided to major in Musicology at a local college. This is when I met a jazz drummer student who introduced me to Chick Corea and Aziza Mustafa Zadeh. Both those artists changed my world and opened up another fascination, this time with Jazz-Rock and Jazz-fusion. This led me to start taking jazz theory and jazz harmony classes with a private teacher in college.
(Side note: I was also a metal head in my teens. I loved listening to Heavy metal, Progressive Metal, Hard Rock, Classic Rock, Grunge, Seattle Rock etc.)
At the age of 17, I formed my first jazz-fusion cover band. We played mostly Jazz standards and Funk covers all over Beirut, and this is also when I slowly started introducing my own music during gigs.
At age 19, I wanted to follow in the footsteps of my musical idol Chick Corea and decided to do like he did, so I applied to Berklee College Of Music and got accepted.
In 2006 while I still living in the US, I released my first Jazz-Fusion album. It was all recorded on a Yamaha Motif lol. And of course it had me finger drumming on it!
Shortly after that, I formed my dream fusion trio in Philadelphia, and we started playing many live shows all over local bars and venues around Philly and suburbs. No covers, all my music. We were literally playing all the tunes from that album I released.
My love for Finger-drumming never stopped. Keyboard workstations were main companions to me all along this part of the journey. I kept upgrading from one keyboard workstation to another.
In 2013, I decided to go back to my essence (the essence that started it all at the age of 8): Solo piano. This is when I released my first piano solo album. I also started releasing music videos of my music, which I will share below.
My love for piano will never end, but so is my love for drums (as weird as that sounds), and of course keyboards! All those 3 were a big part of my musical journey growing up.
Thank you for creating this space and this forum for me to share all those personal details.
Regards
Rabih
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