Photo by Joel St Marie
A veteran of the L.A. music industry as composer / arranger / producer / guitarist, Byron’s credits span work with numerous #1-hit artists, multi-platinum producers, film and TV productions, records and international tours.
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Having undergone guerilla ear-training with his Mother beginning around one year of age and explored free-form closed-fisted arhythmic, atonal improvisation on piano from infancy, Byron and his annoying sense of tonality all but inevitably developed a tradition of musical hooliganry, adding ukulele at four and guitar at five, formal education on piano commencing at nine. His first band was a rock trio of ten-year-olds; his hearing is surprisingly undamaged, despite his best efforts.
Growing up in a very musical family, he benefited from exposure to everything from Mussorgsky to Miles to Stravinski to Shankar, as well as going to see Ozawa conduct the SF Symphony often. His teen years were an exploration of odd-time-signature writing and playing with like-minded players in bands he formed around the East Bay Area. Contrary to all probability, he has never been arrested for his musical endeavors.
He went on to study improv with Russ Tuttle and attend Dick Grove’s Composing / Arranging program in Studio City, gaining much good juju from cathartic exposure to instructors Sammy Nestico (orchestration), Diz Mullins (copying), Lalo Schifrin (Thematic development), Henry Mancini (music business), Tom Scott, etc. The intervening years have been spent and misspent in the LA music industry.
As Composer / Arranger / Producer, he has scored dozens of hours of footage for Film and TV; written, arranged and produced every style for live shows and records; been musical director of a theatrical musical’s 3-month run; written his first symphony and conducted its premier and spearheaded the writing of a major-label rock opera by an international team with multiple platinum records and number one hits under its belt. He continues to get commissions to compose more pieces for orchestras and large ensembles, and produces other artists in every genre on an ongoing, free-lance basis. Details here.
As a guitarist, he’s recorded with number-one hit artists and indies alike, played on numerous Film & TV scores and commercial soundtracks, toured dozens of countries and amassed credits spanning through every genre known to the first world. Details here.
As a teacher / clinician, Byron has taught many hundreds at many schools and colleges and as a contract artist for the State of California, as well as at academically elite Deep Springs College; he is on faculty at California College of Music in Pasadena. Players of all levels and styles benefit from his private instruction online via Skype, Facetime and Google Hangouts. He teaches all Fretted Instruments, Keyboards, Vocals, and non-instrument-specific musical curricula (such as Harmony / Theory / Improv, Composing / Arranging / Orchestration, etc etc) to players of all instruments. More info here.
He venerates art and expression over pop “product” and his musical comfort zone stretches through every genre from Jazz / Fusion to Funk / R&B, World to Classical, Big Band to Country and of course all Rock styles, Blues to Latin to Slide and Acoustic forms, etc. In short, he’s somewhat of a musical schizophrenic but isn’t above hoping you’ll like his music.
