I started playing guitar when I was 7 years old and haven't looked back since. After I had some facility with the guitar I started listening to a lot, and I mean a lot, of progressive rock and fusion. My early influences were early Genesis, Gentle Giant, King Crimson, and of course ELP and Yes. I also listened to a LOT of Frank Zappa and even got to play with him in 1978 (I will write a post about...
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I started playing guitar when I was 7 years old and haven't looked back since. After I had some facility with the guitar I started listening to a lot, and I mean a lot, of progressive rock and fusion. My early influences were early Genesis, Gentle Giant, King Crimson, and of course ELP and Yes. I also listened to a LOT of Frank Zappa and even got to play with him in 1978 (I will write a post about that sometime, but it is R rated). I loved Mahavishnu Orchestra and that got me into Paco DeLucia and Flamenco music along with the Phrygian major mode! I also tried to keep up with Larry Carlton and Lee Ritenour.

Then I went to at Grove School of Music. After my year with songwriting , I decided to move on to CAP (composing and arranging program). This was one of the most intense times of my life (well boot camp was worse, but for different reasons), not only because the curriculum was insanely challenging, but because I was out of cash. Dick Grove taught CAP, he was one of the best teachers I have ever had. Equal parts mentor and boss. CAP wasn't about the typical (at that time) college curriculum of building up to your "masterpiece" that takes two years or more to complete. No, CAP was about the business. The music business and Dick made sure we knew that. We didn't write our one opus in four plus years, rather we wrote a big band chart... every week. No time to sleep, that is for your next life.

Read the whole story at: https://jongriffinmusic.com
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