Kia ora from New Zealand in the South Pacific. Really glad that I stumbled upon this forum a couple of months ago. Thankfully, I do not rely on making music to put food on the table. This is convenient, as I'm not an amazing player. But I do love the process of making music (including writing, recording and playing live). I play keyboards - in my songwriting project with my bro (Meech Brothers), and with another guy who writes his own folk and alt-country tunes (Matt Hay). I feel really lucky to be able to do this. The music that I make with my brother, we describe as "bespoke indie folktronica". Pretentious? A little. I really like the current DIY/indie movement, and how just about anything seems possible. I guess we are trying to make slightly wonky pop music. But it wasnt always this way. The road to this point started with a few piano lessons from my mum (a piano teacher) when I was 5, but I moved to the trumpet through my youth and teens. We got into R&B, blues, funk and soul, and we had a band. I gravitated back to keyboards in my early twenties and bought a Hammond XB-2 clonewheel when they came out, and played it on a couple of songs in the R&B band. The band disintegrated in the mid-nineties, and I started to identify more with slightly left of centre pop bands of the day, than with the pioneering fathers of American music (although, all of that wonderful roots music continues to inform everything that I do). Started to write songs, but really didnt give it enough oxygen (I was in my twenties, and easily distracted), and then music went on the back-burner early in the new millennium. Got back into it around 2004 with the offer to join Matts band. We started gigging semi-frequently and I decided that I needed a new axe and bought a Nord Electro 2. That was really pivotal. It gave me my decent Hammond sound, but more importantly it gave me those classic old electric pianos that I love. Having a decent instrument is inspiring it sounded good, so I wanted to play more. It was great for my chops (I have only had a couple of formal lessons in my life) and helped fuel my passion for music and (an increasingly obsessive) interest in vintage keyboards. Thank you Clavia. You saved me. Next, bought a hardware interface for my PC (Mackie Onyx Satellite) and got into home recording, and back into writing songs. These days I sub-let a ProTools-equipped studio. More and more I am drawn to synthesizers and recently bought a microKorg to fill that gap (for now). One day I'd love to own some of the vintage instruments that my digital machines try to replicate. Thanks for providing some entertaining and informative reading so far. I hope I can bring something to the conversation. Cheers! Clint