Testimonial

I think I was about 12 years old when I got my first guitar, a gift from my great aunt.  I was fascinated with it for about two weeks, but soon lost interest because it was just too difficult to learn the chords, playing hurt my fingers, and I had other priorities that took up my time, like little league baseball and watching cartoons.

  A few years later, a couple of my teenage friends got the “guitar bug” and we tried to learn some chords so that we could start a band.  We wanted to be famous, like The Beatles, but that lasted only a few months before other priorities, like girls and cars, overwhelmed us.

Later in life, I got interested again when my job took me overseas for the first time.  I was working in Moscow, Russia and I remember listening to a cool Russian radio station that played all kinds of great English songs I hadn’t heard in ages, and some that I’d never heard before.  I remember hearing Needles and Pins and I thought, “I wish I could play that!”  So, I started picking up the guitar after work and trying to learn the chords.  I found doing that was a great stress reliever after a long day’s work, and it got to be kind of a habit.  In a short time, I learned that three simple chords will yield HUNDEREDS of songs, and that really encouraged me.  It certainly didn’t happen overnight, but the more I played, the better I got.  I wasn’t good by any means, but that didn’t matter at all.  I just enjoyed playing and singing for the fun of it.

At the same time, my best friend, back in the states, was in a similar situation.  He had a nice guitar, but it was mostly just a decoration.  He was still a “wannabe” musician like me, but never really made a serious effort to actually learn how to play.  When I’d come back to the states for a visit, we’d always try to get together for a long weekend and we’d try to play some tunes together.  We had so much fun doing that!  My friend said, “We sound so bad that people would be shoving icepicks in their ears to stop the sound!”  I guess he was probably not wrong about that, but eventually, we did get better.

Over the next two decades I managed to connect with several people who were just like me.  They wanted to make music, but didn’t have the time or the motivation to pursue it.  When I’d run across someone like that, I’d invite them over and we’d plunk around on the guitars over a few drinks and maybe work on a song or two.  I hooked up with some folks who could hardly play at all and some who were so good they could have performed on stage.  I learned a great deal from jamming with all these folks and some of them learned from me.  I met so many good people, and made some really great friends.  The bottom line was that I had so much fun doing this that it became my favorite hobby.  Every time I’d take a new assignment, I would seek out some folks who were “wannabes” like me.  And it didn’t matter how good you were, we’d get together and play and have a blast doing it.

I eventually bought a little Tascam Porto 7 recorder.  You could take that baby, pop in a cassette tape, record seven different tracks and then mix them all together.  WOW!  I’d record a rhythm guitar track and then record a vocal track.  (Great for songs that I couldn’t sing and play at the same time!)  My BF back in the states bought one as well.  I’d sent a tape to him and he’d record a harmony track or a bass track to go along with my stuff.  What a hoot!  Our recordings were very crude and amateurish, but we couldn’t have cared less.  We were having a blast doing it, and it helped us to improve.

Now, having traveled all over, I’ve made a lot of musical friends.  We write our own stuff, create covers of our favorite songs, make music videos, and have a riot doing so.  We share our creations, collaborate on our music projects and encourage each other to keep going.  I’ve heard some really great cover tunes and some fantastic original creations, and these are performed by people just like you and me.  So don’t kid yourself, you CAN do it!

Hence the creation of Ice Pick Sound Studios, a way to connect my musical friends from all over the world.  Wanna hear somebody’s version of Paint It Black?  How about an original song written by a young dude in St. Petersburg, Russia?  Perhaps a music video about the folks that get together to jam every week in Esentepe, Cyprus?  THAT’S why Ice Pick Sound Studios came into existence.  We’re all about the music!

Randy L. Pearson