Beginnings
Who is Jeff Belding? I started my musical life as many have, playing an instrument in the school band. Though my chosen instrument was trumpet, the guitar called out to me in popular songs that I heard on the radio. Songs like “Pretty Woman” by Roy Orbison, “A World Without Love” by Peter and Gordon, “Pushin’ too Hard” by The Seeds and many more. So, thanks to my parents, I got ahold of a guitar and set out on a mission to figure out what these guitar players were doing to get those amazing sounds out of their instruments.
And so, I spent a good part of my teenage years exploring the neck of the guitar, only to become interested in other related instruments like banjo, bass guitar, mandolin and fiddle. All along the way I continued my interest in trumpet and other orchestral instruments.
College – ish
My first music school experience took me to Boston where I attended Boston Conservatory and New England Conservatory as a performance major on trombone and baritone horn. During those years in Boston, I found myself “hitting the jazz clubs” where I saw such luminaries as The Billy Cobham Band, pianists Keith Jarrett and Mose Allison and guitarist Joe Pass. These were new and exciting sounds to a rock guitarist such as myself, so I found that I was shirking my conservatory responsibilities and spending more time trying to learn new avenues on my guitar.
As a result, I didn’t quite finish my classical “lower brass training” but some years later my continued interest in guitar helped land me a degree in Studio Music Production at The College of St. Rose in Albany, NY. In the meantime, I was taking lessons on banjo with Bill Keith and Roger Sprung, and that gave me another musical hat to wear in the growing genre of bluegrass. Through it all, these music styles blended and mixed into an eclectic love of all forms of music providing me with an endless supply of musical ideas to share with any audience willing to listen.
Performing, teaching, and beyond
Upon graduating college, I laid out a path for myself that included performing, teaching, recording and composing in all kinds of musical styles. For 53 years I have shared my music with a myriad of students both one on one and in larger groups in mostly upstate New York where I spent the bulk of my adult life.
You might well ask “Is this Jeff Belding dude famous? Do I know him from something he’s done in the music business?” I’m sorry to say the short answer is – no you probably don’t!
Perhaps my biggest claim to fame (if I can call it that) was making an album of instrumental music in 1975 with the rock band Orion in which I played guitar, banjo and baritone horn. Here’s a link to one of the songs from the album, a version of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”
And now –
My life in the world of music has included many great moments interspersed with many disappointments too. But no matter what end of the musical spectrum I would end up on, whether it was the upside or downside, the learning experience in either situation was golden.
It wasn’t an easy decision to leave my many musical friends and connections behind in NY and go west. But I took with me the gifts of musical knowledge that they all have helped bestow upon me. And now, as I start this new phase of my life, I want to bring that knowledge to a wider audience. Since I began teaching, people have come to me primarily to “pick my brain.” The longer I study music the more fruit there is to pick. So let’s start learning more, exchanging ideas and most of all having fun in Music Along the Way!