So How Does a Band Geek From Boston End Up in Hollywood?

I think it was the summer of 1971, or thereabouts, that started it.   By all reports, I spent the better part of the daylight hours motoring around the house.   That is to say, I made a motor noise with my mouth constantly as I walked, choosing that over any innocuous conversation with my family.   Whether I had a plan at that point, or was simply trying to overcome my bottom-of-the-pecking-order status as the youngest of five kids, may never be known.   But somehow, it all ended with me making noises and voices for a living in Hollywood.

There were plenty of side roads in between.   In 5th grade, our class was summoned to the auditorium for a what was, in retrospect, an infomercial put on by a musical instrument manufacturer.   For a nominal rental fee, we could choose whatever instrument we wanted, and be taught how to play it.   I chose the trumpet, for reasons which are unclear to me now.   Most likely, it had to do with my total lack of athletic ability, and the vague notion that there was something more masculine about trumpet than say, flute or clarinet.   At age 10, I can be forgiven for not realizing that in order to to get girls, you need to play "Stairway to Heaven" on guitar, not Sousa marches on a rented trumpet.

(Definitely not an athelete.)

In any case, the next 15 years of my life were dedicated to making music.   The latent skill of buzzing my lips to make motor noises paid off, and I was quite successful at playing trumpet.   I endured the humbling experience of studying with a trumpet player in the Boston Symphony, who routinely cut me down to size.   My turntable (remember those?) was as likely to have Mahler or Stravinsky on it as the Beatles.   I practiced hard, entered various state band contests in high school, and ended up ranked as 1st Trumpet in the All-Eastern Band in 1983.  

I went on to study music at Indiana University, which in spite of being plunked down in the midst of endless corn fields is one of the better music schools around.   Between endless hours of practice a day, I was tutored on the difference between a Baroque trill vs. a Classical appoggiatura.   I ended up playing in some great orchestras, including the Indianapolis Symphony, the Orchestra of Santa Fe, and music festivals in Santa Barbara and Graz, Austria.   I experienced the full spectrum of surreal gigs too.   They ranged from playing for 15,000 screaming fans at a bluegrass festival in Kentucky, to 4 miserable elderly folks in the pouring rain in a town square in rural Indiana.

At some point in college I had a flash of pragmatism, probably when I saw the unemployment statistics for classically trained musicians. I decided that maybe, just maybe, I should have some kind of backup career. As luck would have it, Indiana University offered a dual degree in Music and Audio Engineering, which
seemed like as good a choice as any. Never mind that some of the students in the audio program looked like drunk carneys who missed the circus bus out of town. The audio professors were ecstatic to have me and a handful of "real" musicians in the program.
(Yes, the Monkees hair
was in style...)
It turned out to be a fateful decision. Although still a trumpet player at heart, I was required to do an audio internship to complete my degree. Through another student, I landed an internship at Delos Records in Los Angeles, producing and editing classical recordings. I figured I would spend a few months lounging on the beach and avoiding earthquakes, and then launch my music career.
Almost 20 years later, I'm still in Los Angeles. Delos Records was followed by Columbia Pictures, editing sound effects for television and film. Soon after I was lured away by Universal Studios, largely because I was part of the "new generation" of editors who used computer workstations instead
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(Bank geeks at play.)
of cutting film or tape. In spite of my background in human-based sound effects, the realm of dialog and voices became my main territory. I morphed into one of the supervising editors at Universal, working on more movies and TV series than I can remember.
 
I had another epiphany (of sorts) after one of many sessions with actors in the recording studio. We often have to re-record a character's dialog, the process known as ADR (for those of you into Hollywood lingo). Wait a minute, I thought; all those years I spent goofing around with voices and memorizing Monty Python skits--these people are being paid for that! I realized the tiny slice of my brain which had been exercised by years of musical training could be re-applied to the voiceover world. Increasingly, I was using my own vocal talents in the shows I worked on anyway, so what the hell? If a dubious talent like J-Lo can be a triple-threat, surely there's a place in Hollywood for an East Coast band geek.
 
If the downside to L.A. is its jammed freeways and overpriced real estate, the upside is the talent pool. I studied and worked with many of the great voice talents in Hollywood, including Pat Fraley, Frank Welker, Ginny McSwain, Stefan Rudnicki, Michael Bell, and many others.  Doing wacky voices for a living?  Sure it was loads of fun, but I realized quickly that voiceover was as difficult and intricate as any of my musical endeavors. That suits me just fine. I submerged myself in the study of improv theatre, ADR, movie trailers, and twisted cartoon voices.
In the end, I feel incredibly fortunate. I've found a career that seamlessly blends all of my bizarre, goofy talents. I get to make movies, coach other actors, do voices for fun and profit, and work in a multi-million-dollar studio playroom.
 
People occasionally ask about the years I dedicated to playing trumpet; usually it's framed something like "You spent how much on a college education, and you don't even use it?" Nothing could be further from the truth, and I definitely have no regrets about studying music in my youth.   I learned a kind of mental discipline and commitment that has supported everything I've decided to take on.  I haven't found the need to work out a quadratic equation in 25 years, but I use my "musical" brain every day of the week.  I sometimes dust off a horn and play for fun, but mostly I see it as an earlier chapter in my life. I will say, every time I hear blowhard local politicians threatening to cut funding for music programs in schools, I want to wring their necks.  (For more on that topic, please visit  Mr. Holland's Opus Foundation ; my wife has worked with them and it's a great organization.)   
(I'm not a doctor, but I played one on TV.)
Revenge of the Band Geek. Now that sounds like a Hollywood sequel in the making...