Introduction to Steemit

Piano Keyboard

Having been raised by musical parents who required my siblings and me to attend weekly private lessons on piano and one orchestral instrument – in my case, that second instrument was oboe/cor anglais - from age 6 through high school, music is seriously in my blood, so to speak.

Oboe

Then, owing to various “circumstances” that came up in my personal life, I took a detour, into various primitive and philosophical disciplines, including several years of foreign missionary work, volunteering to teach the Bible, reading and writing to folks living on a tropical island, all the while supporting myself by giving piano lessons (and tuning pianos) at a private music school on the same island.

Haiti

After several years of that, my music teaching and performing enabled me to eventually hear and pay attention to my inner voice – my true calling is music – so upon returning to the 'States, I made up my mind to go to music school, scoring high marks and earning degrees and certificates in music education, and musicology – FYI musicology requires participation in many graduate seminars and research courses, and combines the studies of music history and music theory, or harmony.

Over the years since university, I’ve delved into post-graduate studies pertaining to music composition and orchestration for various media, such as film, television and video games,

That said, on occasion I have not been averse to touring and playing keyboards – piano, organ, synth – with various bands of various music styles: Caribbean Zouk, Haitian Kompa, (overseas, I had picked up French, Haition Creole, in which I am a fluent speaker), reggae, Jazz-Latin (salsa), R n B, Rock & Roll, Pop, and Afro-pop. Over the years, I have been tapped to dub keyboard/synth tracks for a number of popular artists.

Yours Truly playing keyboards on stage with Magnum Band, in Paris

Thanks to my educational and experiential background, I am able to enhance the projects of game designers and filmmakers with original, orchestrated music in a variety of styles – heck, I've played most of them - I have participated in the annual "Global Game Jam" and attended a few GDC and other game development conventions. THEREFORE, I am open to professional music production opportunities in cinema and video game development, perhaps overseas again. (At the moment, I am eyeing #Uganda or perhaps another country in East Africa ...)

My style flipside includes serious classical piano accompanying, playing recorders – those Renaissance period flutes – and a bit of orchestral conducting for local grade school and high school orchestras in the USA.

Bringing it forward, I continue to produce music educational videos for DTube, and have plans to produce a few original tracks for DSound, to demo my various musical styles and moods. If anyone is curious about my composing abilities, some of my older demo tracks can be found and listened to at the following URL:

https://soundcloud.com/maguspaganus/sets/music-for-film-tv-games-new

Footnote: I offer private consultation and instruction in traditional and keyboard harmony, counterpoint, and piano technique for composers and songwriters. Message me for details. #classical-music

IMAGE
Oboe_modern, by Hide and seek (mods & commercial use allowed; downloaded 18_02_25): https://flic.kr/p/mxwhDD

Haiti image p1030468, by Sebastien Batteur (mods & commercial use allowed; downloaded 18_02_25): https://flic.kr/p/7tmRVK

Yours Truly playing keyboards on stage with Magnum Band, in Paris (personal archive)