Hello Everyone.
I\'m new here so I\'ll introduce myself first.
My name is Niels and I\'m from a small village called Nieuw Vennep. You might have guesed already that this lies not within the USA. I\'m from the Netherlands in Europe.
Anyway, I\'ve been a huge synthesizer music fan since I was about 12 years old. It became for me more interesting when I saw the TV series of the Transformers. This was very cool and all, but it became even more interesting with the Movie. After that... I\'ve been spending allot of time trying to find more information about the musician Vince DiCola, who made the score for this movie. After been scooping around on the net, I\'ve found several mp3\'s of his music, but I\'m a musician myself... a beginner nevertheless, and this means that I want the origional CD\'s and not steel the music from him or any other artist. Finally, and thanks to TDRS music, I am the proud owner of "in-VINCE-ible!" and "Falling off a clef..."
But there\'s more I would love to know about Vince DiCola. Sadly though, living in the Netherlands, I\'ve never been able to visit a BotCon. Gosh, I would love to walk around there if I could. I do hope that it will come to the Netherlands one day.
I would like to ask Vince DiCola several questions if I can do that here.
I would like to know what his playing style is, where... of course, he learned to play the way he\'s playing... and looking from a technical point of view... what his gear is made out of. Which brand of Key\'s he like\'s the best.
You might have guessed it... yes, I admit that I would love to be able to play like Vince DiCola. Sadly not one music school here in the Netherlands knows of Vince DiCola or his playing style. But it\'s his music I would like to learn and to play.
Well, this is all for now... seeing that this opening of the topic is very long.
Greetings and cheers from the other side of the World. :-)
Niels aka Synthesize
Welcome to the forum. I hope you get a chance to look around this forum, a lot of the questions you ask have been answered here, some by Vince himself. Vince drops by once in a while and is always very helpful when he does.
Thanks to Niels for writing.
To offer a little background on my musical education and influences... I started private piano lessons when I was about 5 years old and continued off and on until I was well into my teens.
I also studied percussion in my younger years, specifically in high school and college. I went to Millersville State College in Pennsylvania and Towson Sate University in Maryland, though I did not complete my college education. I was heavily influenced by some of the great progressive rock bands from the 1970\'s; specifically ELP and YES. I\'ve always loved the marriage of rock, classical and jazz styles. As far as my "playing style" goes, that\'s pretty well represented on the discs you have. I would decribe my style as adventurous, melodic, thematic and rhythmical - with rock, jazz and classical overtones.
I\'ve covered my gear issues elsewhere on the forum, so please have a look for those postings.
Although I myself was a guest at several "BotCon" TRANSFORMERS conventions and always had a good time at those events, the friend of mine who headed those conventions no longer does so. As a result, the convention in Chicago last year was most likely my last. I met a lot of great fans and made some very nice friends at these events over the last several years, for which I\'m very grateful. One never knows what the future holds, so I\'ll never say never! As I mentoned elsehere on this forum, there is a new TF live action movie being produced, and it is currently scheduled to be released in July, 2007. That\'s still a ways off, but I\'m hoping to be considered for being involved in the music for that film in some capacity. Keep checking back here from time to time for any possible updates.
Thanks so much for the kind words, Niels. I hope I\'ve addressed all the issues you inquired about. Take care, Niels, and best wishes for your own success.
Cordially,
Vince
Wauw. Well, hereby I would like to thank you very much for the information you\'ve given me Vince. I\'ve never expected that piano lessons would be the basics to keyboard and synthesizer playing. I\'ve been a huge fan of Synthesizer music made by Jean Michel Jarre, Vangelis and Jan Hammer, but later on my interest went to a little bit more rythm style of the music.
You mentioned progressive rock band Yes and elp. I\'ve never heard of ELP before and I\'m sure I will scoop this band out. I myself like Dream Theater very much too.
I started my musical interest by playing electric and accoustic guitars, but after being in a band with a drummer who was from time to time manically depressed, I choose to step out of the band and to begin for myself.
One thing I like to say Vince, is that your music and your style is my most favourite and I would like nothing more to learn to play like that too.
Thank you very much for all your information and I hope indeed that the life action Transformers movie soundtrack will include your musical art.
greetings and cheers from Niels.