Many of my friends know me as a person and my character. But few know this: Lionel as the guitarist. Here's a wee bit about myself in music.

As the story goes...

...I started playing the guitar at the age of 14 when my uncle and brother were jamming to LaBamba and stuff like that. I don't really recall why I picked it up, but I'm sure glad I did. I actually started playing in school bands for a while, but to tell you the truth, I was really crap then. (Then again, I still am... but that's a different story...) But somehow I wasn't too depressed about it cos I liked it more and more as I continued learning. I mean, you have to start somewhere right? Well I continued learning till I was 18 when I bought my first electric guitar. It was an Ibanez JEM77BFP. I loved that instrument... Actually, I hated it. So much so that I brought it back to the shop to get it changed. Nuts huh? I exchanged it for a blue Ibanez 440R. A much lesser guitar by JEM standards. Why did I do that? well, I'll tell you now what I told the guy at the store then. I hated the JEM neck. It felt too thin. I like necks I can feel, not paper thin stuff. Now, mind you, many guitarists out there will say that a neck is best when it's thin, then you can play really fast. Well somehow I never did subscribe to that Idea. I believed that I needed to feel comfortable with the guitar, and I didn't feel comfortable with the JEM. I felt much better with the far cheaper 440R. Strange, but true. And I hold that belief dear even today. My Ibanez JPM90HAM has exactly the same neck feel as the old 440R (now affectionately known as "the Bubble", and I can still play as fast when I want to. If you doubt this, just ask John Petrucci of Dream Theater. He designed that guitar. But that's another story. I'm not John Petrucci, nor do I like to play fast. I'm more like a "slow-take your own sweet time-relax dude" kind of guitarist. And I think I don't stand alone when I say that that's all I need. No? Check out Eric Clapton. You don't see him shredding do you? Anyway, I played in the Stonyhurst College Jazz Band in England when I was 18 to 20. Hence I was exposed to different styles of playing; Swing, Blues, Rock, Contemporary, Pop and Oldies. I did very little Jazz though... Couldn't hack the weird scales. When I was 22, I was learning under a guy named Rick Smith for a very very short period. My first ever formal guitar lessons. He was the most amazing local jazz guitarist I had ever met. He didn't bother to teach me how to play, nor did he teach me playing styles. What Rick taught me was something far more valuable than that. Something few teachers teach nowadays. Rick taught me how to "listen". How to pay attention to chord structures and use different notes to accentuate different emotions. I learnt more from that than I did from any other person, book or video. The rest taught me how to play guitar. Rick taught me how to be a musician. And from then on, I've been playing ever since and probably will never stop...

That's all for now folks. Thanks for reading...