Matthew wasn’t introduced to piano at the age of 4, he never took piano lessons growing up, and he never really had an interest in music until he was about 16. At 16, he wanted to be in a band so bad that he started tinkering on the piano at my house. He soon found that he could play songs he heard by ear. He got excited and started imitating any and every song he heard.

After playing songs by ear for a few months, it started to get old. None of the songs he heard in bands could provoke the emotions that he wanted to hear in music. He started to hear songs in his own head while sitting in class at school and was eager to get home and put them to piano. He started out with just playing single notes, and then found which notes on the keyboard could be played with other notes. This was his way of learning chords. He soon became obsessed with playing piano, and would play for countless hours every day.

The first songs he made were very simplistic and will probably never see the light of day. However, he was determined to get better and make something that people might actually want to listen to. He spent many nights without sleep figuring out what sounded good on a piano. He blames his bad grades in high school on the piano. He continued making piano songs for fun throughout high school.

During his first year in college, his mom overheard a piano song he was playing. She told him she loved what he was playing. This was the very first time he heard someone say that they really enjoyed what he was playing. It was at that point that he knew he wanted to make a piano album and start taking music to the next level.

After lots of work and sleepless nights Matthew finished his first piano album and named it, “Home Is Ahead… The World Behind” which was inspired by a Christian viewpoint on life. He worked out all the kinks and got it ready to be sold to the public with the help of Brad Kamminga who is, without a doubt one of his best friends, and the most important person in helping him do everything he does with music.

Matthew is currently working hard on expanding his knowledge of music and the technology to make it more creative. Orchestra has recently become a big influence for his music, and he has been learning how he can use it in his songs to make music with more depth than ever before. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.