Randy currently plays piano at St. Timothy Lutheran Church and plays clarinet in the Charleston Neophonic Orchestra and the Kanawha Valley Community Band.  He is a member of the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA), the WV Music Teachers Association, and the National Federation of Music Clubs.  He also serves on the board of the Charleston Chamber Music Society.

Some previous performing experiences include: Illinois State
University Wind Symphony, the Big Red Marching Machine, the Moroccan Andalusian Classical Orchestra of Bloomington, East Central Illinois Youth Orchestra, Bloomington Community Players Orchestra, Thistledown Ballet (by Mark Scarpelli), the Charleston Light Opera Guild (Cinderella, A Chorus Line, The Producers, South Pacific, Curtains, Rent, Peter Pan), jazz combos, and solo recitals.

Randy was the rehearsal accompanist for the Charleston Light Opera Guild's 2008 production of Grease and the featured piano soloist in Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue with the Neophonic Orchestra at the Charleston Civic Center as part of the 2008 Charleston Goodnight celebrations.

Randy also has an extensive knowledge of music theory and history, which he uses to help students experience music more fully.

Before moving to Charleston, Randy taught clarinet, guitar, and piano at the Stafford Music Academy in Bloomington, Indiana.

My Instruments
(Please read my Instrument Buying and Rental Guide)

I’m featuring 11 of the instruments in my home here on this website.  Please feel free to take a look at my instruments and read about why I have them and what they approximately cost to learn a few things to consider when buying instruments.

I have 1 clarinet, 1 piano, and 9 guitars here to view. Right away, this tells you a few important things: A clarinetist basically only needs one clarinet, a pianist basically only needs one piano, and while a guitarist basically only needs one guitar, I have a few more, implying there is some benefit to having a modest collection.

In reality, an extremely busy gigging clarinetist probably needs 5 clarinets: A B_b soprano clarinet for most ‘normal’ situations, an A clarinet for orchestral music, an E_b clarinet and a Bb Bass clarinet for specialty situations, and a second B_b clarinet as a backup for the first since it will probably be seeing the most wear and tear.

Yamaha S-80

This is my electric piano, a Yamaha S-80 from 2001. This keyboard cost $1500 at the time, and I chose it because I felt it had the most realistic touch when compared to actual pianos and also had an excellent sound quality. Additionally, this piano came equipped with a large bank of extra instrumental sounds and effects that have been useful to me for recording purposes. A similar piano to this now without the synthesizer sound effect options would probably run closer to $1000.

Buffet R-13

This is my clarinet, purchased in 1998. This was my second clarinet after a plastic clarinet that I began with years earlier, and this clarinet made of a couple blocks of solid grenadilla wood cost a bit short of $3000. It hasn’t needed many repairs, but I have had it ‘reconditioned,’ where it was professionally cleaned and re-padded in 2003 to the tune of another $500. Clarinets need to have this done every few years if they are being played constantly, so even though I haven’t needed any new clarinets there is always some amount of upkeep to be considered. I’ll probably have the clarinet reconditioned again sometime in 2008.

Squire Stratocaster

This was my first guitar, purchased around $300 in 1995. It is kept around for equal parts sentimental and experimental value now. This past year, all of the electronic components were replaced and several of the mechanical parts have been swapped out as well, making this guitar something of a Frankenstein. The original parts remaining are largely the body, which is made of plywood, and the neck, which is almost completely flat. (Guitar necks are supposed to have a subtle curve, referred to as the radius.) Modern Squires at the high end of their line are much better than this equivalently priced instrument.

Ovation Celebrity Deluxe

This guitar sold for around $500 in 1996 and is my primary acoustic guitar. Distinctive features of this guitar include its rounded back which is made out of a resonant polymer instead of wood and the way its sound holes in the front are dispersed across the leaf-wings on the shoulders of the guitar face rather than between the bridge and the neck. I prefer Ovation guitars because I find the bowl shape to the back of the guitar to be very comfortable, and because they are especially well-suited to playing higher on the neck, playing faster runs, and sound especially good plugged in. (I grew up playing with my best friend and so I tended to have higher neck duties while he played low, but most guitarists around this area playing more bluegrass styles will be playing fast runs low on the neck and more standard acoustics might be better suited to that task.)

Epiphone Elite, Ltd Edition

This Les Paul body guitar cost $800 in 1997 and is a bit special in how there weren’t too many of these made and there aren’t any other guitars that are quite like it. Normally there’d at least be a few lines of guitars out there that would have roughly the same dimensions to the body, but this guitar remains comparatively unique. It was purchased for playing jazz guitar, and it suits that purpose well with a rich tone provided by its humbucker pickups and its semi-hollow body design.

Fender Texas Roadhouse Stratocaster

This Stratocaster cost $800 in 1998 and served to fill the opposite side of the tonal spectrum from my Epiphone – where the Epiphone is dark and subtle, this guitar is snappy and twangy. Around this time, I’d developed a healthy obsession with the blues and the music of Stevie Ray Vaughn and Jimi Hendrix, and I felt a need for the sound a qualify Stratocaster would provide.

Rogue Bass Guitar

This guitar cost a cheap $150 in 1998 and plays like it cost that much with a slightly too bowed neck and cuttingly sharp fret edges. I purchased this instrument before heading off to college to help learn how to play bass, and I got this cheap instrument online with the goal of getting an instrument that I could learn on but I knew I wouldn’t be planning on playing shows with. This instrument does see the light of day still and has even been played on stage in recent months, but it isn’t a stellar example of the Bass Guitar.

Fender Classical Guitar

This guitar cost even less than the bass at just $100 (1998) and served a similar function. I have this guitar to practice classical guitar methodology without the intent of performing on it in recital scenarios. A classical has nylon strings and the strings are spaced out wider to make it easier to maneuver fingers in between the strings for specific picking patterns, and the fretboard trends more towards being flat instead of having a curve (radius).

Jackson Dinky (DK2)

This is the guitar I purchased most recently for $500 though that price is heavily discounted. This guitar was purchased in 2007 (9 years from the guitars before it to this one!) and the musical hole it fills is the heavy metal gap I’ve been suffering from. The neck has a compound radius to allow for deep note bending while maintaining a low level of string action. The bridge is a floyd rose tremolo design which allows for peculiar divebomb and rising squealing effects, and the pickups are designed to sound reasonably good while being clean or being heavily distorted.

Telecaster Unknown

This last instrument is in my position belongs to my fiancee. The manufacturer has been sanded away from the headstock of the guitar, the maker of this guitar can’t readily be determined. She was given this guitar used and it’s quite a sad instrument with a faulty neck and damaged electronics. It is an interesting display instrument to show some things to be avoided for students looking at used gear. Ideally, a telecaster should be an extremely bright and snappy sounding guitar, perfect for playing upbeat country music and quirkier sounding jazz.

Fender 25R

Though not an instrument or the only amplifier I have, I’m including this here just to give it extra emphasis. This amp is an ideal student amplifier, costing around $150 and weighing little enough that it is reasonable to carry around. This amp is large enough that it can be used for rehearsals for things like bigband jazz ensembles in high school, but its volume can be dialed down to comfortable levels for use at home. This amp will not be large enough for concert settings or for fighting the volume of a garage band playing at its loudest volume, but even after a larger amplifier is eventually bought for those needs, this amplifier will still be useful for practicing alone.