{"id":474,"date":"2023-06-29T13:46:23","date_gmt":"2023-06-29T17:46:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jondiener.com\/blog\/"},"modified":"2026-01-24T09:55:48","modified_gmt":"2026-01-24T14:55:48","slug":"background","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/jondiener.com\/blog\/music\/background\/","title":{"rendered":"Bio"},"content":{"rendered":"

How Did I Get Here?<\/span><\/h4>\n
\"First<\/a> First Electric Guitar – 1974<\/figure>\n

My first real musical activity was learning to play the guitar around age eight. If I recall correctly, my mom traded a neighbor a wall mirror for an old acoustic. Through most of my teen years, I played guitar and sang in a rock band called Future Earth.<\/span><\/p>\n

At Bedford High School, music occupied an even larger part of my days – playing bassoon in Symphonic Band, guitar & bass in the Jazz Band, sousaphone in the Marching Band, and playing bass in Bedford High\u2019s show choir. Chosen by my peers to be President of Bands, I also received such honors as The Director\u2019s Award, The John Philip Sousa Award and was fortunate to be named Co-Valedictorian. In my senior year of high school I began playing with The Ovations, a Toledo area variety band. Duties included playing bass and guitar, lead and background vocals, and running their sound system. While in college, I continued to play with The Ovations, as well as record and mix live sound for friends\u2019 bands.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Creative_Images-1982\"<\/a> Creative Images – 1982<\/figure>\n

In the early 80s, I began working at a small, 16-track studio as a recording engineer. Projects there included recording commercial jingles, demo tapes, and even finished 45s and LPs. With time, I was producing, arranging, and performing on many of the sessions as well.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the mid 80s, my career path veered away from music, but I continued to play on weekends with The Ovations. Little did I know at the time, my days in that band would last until 2002!<\/span><\/p>\n

After the fat lady sang with The Ovations, I played a few \u2018open stage\u2019 gigs, and became the regular bassist at the Gay Galvin Jazz Jam at The Vineyard.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"VIBE<\/a> VIBE at Club Soda – 2004<\/figure>\n

It was at that gig that I met two other musicians who were looking for a bass player and wanting to start a band. This trio became the core of the group known as VIBE, from 2003 until late 2007.<\/span><\/p>\n

Since then, I was involved in 4 cover bands, a church praise band, and was fortunate to be able to do some recording with my son at the legendary RCA Studio B in Nashville, for one of his class projects at Belmont University.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2016, I bought my first upright bass and began fulfilling the\u00a0longtime dream of learning to play such a challenging instrument. As a result, I was able to play 9 shows on upright that year.<\/span><\/p>\n

I have also served as Adjunct Faculty in the Music Department of Siena Heights University.<\/span><\/p>\n

These days, I’m laying down the low end for <\/span>numerous musical theater productions throughout the region, <\/span>recording sessions, and freelancing with <\/span>various cover bands and artists.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
With Triplicity Jazz Quartet – 2019<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How Did I Get Here? First Electric Guitar – 1974 My first real musical activity was learning to play the guitar around age eight. If I recall correctly, my mom traded a neighbor a wall mirror for an old acoustic. Through most of my teen years, I played guitar and sang in a rock band called Future Earth. At Bedford<\/p>\n

Continue readingBio<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":383,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-474","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jondiener.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jondiener.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jondiener.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jondiener.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jondiener.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=474"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/jondiener.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/474\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2645,"href":"https:\/\/jondiener.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/474\/revisions\/2645"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jondiener.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jondiener.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}