My first instance of really noticing music came when I was 12 years old, and I had become captivated with some songs and an album by Billy Joel.
I began watching Billy more and bought his Greatest Hits. I saw he played piano and I wanted to learn too. At the same time, I had been forced to learn to read music in a junior high school choir class, but it worked out well because I used that knowledge to teach myself how to play the piano. My mom played, and so we had a piano in the house. But I had never been drawn to it until then. My brother was forced by my mother to take piano lessons and he kind of hated it haha. So I had been kind of spared from being forced into it. When I discovered it on my own however, I was hooked. Over the next several years I taught myself how to read music better and play. I then began listening to a lot of music for the first time and began playing it on the piano over the years. I discovered the Beatles, Elton John, Tom Petty, Bruce Springstee
n, Bob Dylan among others of the classic and pop rock genre. Finally, when I was a senior in high school, I took piano lessons for 1 year to try to learn to read and play better, as up till then I was fully self-taught. I learned just a bit of classical, but very little.
Once I got into college, I finally started being able to attend concerts to see many of my 
musical heroes. To date, I’ve seen just about everyone that is still living that I’ve wanted to see, from Billy Joel, Elton John, Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen (whom I’d rank as the best performer), Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, U2, Genesis, The Police, Garth Brooks, Aerosmith, Bruce Hornsby, Ben Folds, Bela Fleck & the Flecktones, Stevie Wonder, 
Bruno Mars, OneRepublic, The Script, The Eagles, The Wallflowers, John Mellencamp, Mark Knopfler, Paul Simon, and a number of lesser known artists. Wow, what a list!
Around 2008, I discovered Bruce Hornsby for the first time. I was listening to him, 
and it was striking to me that he was playing much differently than Billy Joel and Elton John play. So I got the sheet music to bring it home and discovered that I was unable to play it. I didn’t even have the tools in order to deal with what he was playing. Bruce Hornsby had come from a jazz background which I was completely unfamiliar with, and the style was very foreign. The problem was that for almost 2 decades I had really only played things that I also listened to. I already knew how the songs went – which means I was able to cheat and skimp on really being able to learn music and playing piano correctly. So I decided that I needed to go back and rededicate myself to learning piano. I found a piano teacher and did lessons once a week for a few months. I discovered that by teaching myself how to play, I had really brushed over A LOT of basic skills that a lot of beginner piano players would learn. I gained some good knowledge from her, but that piano teacher wasn’t what I needed to play the type of music I wanted to play.
I decided that I needed someone who was a true jazz piano teacher. The other teacher knew classical, and steered me towards basics like going back to learn how to play scales, but she wasn’t a true jazz person. I sought out a teacher at the DU jazz school and eventually came upon Marc Sabatella who teaches there and came recommended from Eric Gunnison, the head of the jazz piano department – quite a good recommendation. 
I would also recommend Marc to anyone. I took lessons from Marc for about 7 years. In late 2018 I began taking lessons with Justin Adams who has further enlightened me as an absolutely fantastic teacher. It’s been an incredibly fulfilling and stimulating process because since 2010, I really haven’t played too much of things that I’ve already known how to play. I’ve been completely introduced to the jazz world and music that is much more complex and difficult to play. It’s been very challenging and very rewarding. I now have new musical heroes like Keith Jarrett, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, Bill Evans, Oscar Peterson etc. Although often if I’m just listening to music, I will still lean towards something of a popular variety, but I’ve 
immensely enjoyed the knowledge, theory, skills, and improvisation that studying jazz provides. I’ve also enjoyed constantly working on a classical piece in our studies. It’s been a great challenge, but I think it’s good mentally to keep trying to accomplish goals that are difficult and take mental energy and practice.
Here is my stab at playing Blue Rondo a la Turk by Dave Brubeck:
And here is my try at some Chopin: