John Schreiber

Hi, my name is John Schreiber. I am 53 and have been playing music for over 40 years. My interest began when I was 12. My parents brought a piano into the house, but my mother noticed me tinkering with it more than the rest of my family. She started sitting with me and humming melodies as I picked out the notes. After a couple of weeks, my parents got me a private piano instructor. I took two years of lessons and continued to play through High School. In my sophomore year I joined the jazz band and took a year of music theory. I gained a major interest in teaching when I enrolled in the keyboard class that the school offered. I was too advanced for the class so the teacher started letting me tutor the other students.

At 17, I heard a friend playing the banjo and I fell in love with the sound. After taking some lessons at a local music store called The Banjo Shop, I spent the next three years of my life studying string instruments and bluegrass music. I practiced 8 to 10 hours a day and by the time I was 20 I had become proficient on 5 instruments including the banjo, mandolin, guitar, bass, and fiddle; A couple of years after that I joined an Irish band and started delving into world music. I have been playing and teaching music for my full time living ever since.

The instruments I play are: Banjo (5string, and tenor), Mandolin, Bass, Guitar (in standard, and the Irish tuning DADGAD), Fiddle, Bodhrán (an Irish drum), Bouzouki, and Didgeridoo (an Australian wind instrument).