He grew up around me playing and recording, and listening to a LOT of Dream Theater, and guitar heavy bands from Ozzy to Angra and all the instrumental side projects. He started playing piano and guitar around 7 years old. He utilized Youtube to learn songs and became more focused on music writing after a few years. I realized he had perfect pitch early on also, he has this note memory that's pretty astounding to me. He would always sit down and start playing songs he heard, from cartoon theme songs to Dream Theater songs. He would get real close, so I guided him through some of that stuff and gave him lessons once in a while and taught him to start teachig himself. I also have had him teach me songs because I DON'T have perfect pitch, so he's shown me some Satch & Vai stuff & given me a few lessons as I would give him tips on harmonics. I told him about a lot of the stuff I learned here and he just soaked it all up and polished his picking technique & things. He's always on web sites that teach songs and doing covers of Periphery and other bands, and records the songs completely with all the synth, bass, and time signatures. He knows what to do right away most of the time and hope he teaches more.

He's 17 right now, be 18 in July so he's getting ready to jump out into life and I'm excited for him and his projects. There is a band that hired him to make setups for when they record their album and they wanted him to play bass, but he couldn't get ready in time but they still have him go to the shows and watch and get involved. Getting a lot of experience.

He's good at performing live too, both his own songs at competitions and in jazz band and things, and has no fear & really enjoys it. He sings too, and has kind of a MJK from Tool type voice, and will probably get better when he has more time to focus on some vocal training, but he's more than ready to lead or join a band & just needs to learn to communicate & teach a bit better & he's learning that from hanging out with the other band. Their way of writing is thinking about moods and things and not quite as technical, so that's good to learn efficiency when collaborating too.