Customers

Around 1983, I was fooling around with Commodore C64 and Apple II software development. I negotiated a license with the University of Toronto Innovations Foundation to put the MusicLand games on various platforms.

In 1984, I first met Steve Jobs, and he got me started as an Apple Certified Developer. I bought a Lisa and a 128k Mac, and started looking around for programmers; a real hard to find commodity at the time! I made the mistake of trusting too many guys who couldn't perform, until I met someone who had quit his job at BBN to do music development. We did a bunch of hardware and software for MIDI and Macintosh, and I started exhibiting at many MacWorld and NAMM shows.

10

After we did the MIDI Sequencer, MegaTrack, I started archiving great piano performances. I hired New England Conservatory people to play the classical stuff, and partnered with Bob Winter for the improvised stuff; he's the world famous pianist with the Boston Pops, and a full Professor at Berklee. You've probably heard him many times. Anyway, we've covered all the piano styles from 1900 on, and I expect to be doing a lot more recordings of this type in the future.

With a different programmer, I've been developing what could seriously be the most significant music learning product ever made! It helps a student of any ability, to learn any of the performances we record, so it's entirely driven by what you want to play. I sold this program face-to-face at lots of MacWorlds in Boston and San Francisco, but now my plan is to make it a free web client. The idea is to deliver inexpensive music lessons via the web, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year! When MIDI guitar interfaces get a little more reliable and affordable, I'll do guitar too. The beauty of my approach is that anything that can be played can be learned, so it's completely transparent to level and style. I have high hopes for the growth of this business and the effect of the technology I've developed on music education and on education in general. As part of the product, I'm developing a "teaching engine" which can be used to deliver many subjects.