About DJG: A Brief Bio

Playing guitar (and other instruments) and composing original songs since age 12, I also enjoy writing, cooking, studying web development, and creating multimedia artwork, in digital, painted, pasteled, penciled, video, and other forms...

Born in Cedar Sinai Hospital of Los Angeles, CA, I moved with my parents to Washington Heights (upper west Manhattan), NY when I was one year old. Some of my earliest memories were of attending magnet school in New York City, and enjoying the music of "Rabboni", a Broadway-style musical by my dad Jeremiah Ginsberg. I was interested in learning to make music myself, and my dad showed me how musical notes were arranged on the piano. When I was eight, we moved to the Ft. Lauderdale area of South Florida, where I finished elementary and middle-school at Sar Shalom Academy. I started playing guitar and writing songs in sixth grade with my best friend from school, and we soon had our first gig at a school lock-in!

Advanced High School Training:

I began high school in 1998 at Coconut Creek High School in Coconut Creek, FL, where I trained for writing in Honors English 1 & 2, and AP English 3 & 4 classes, which covered Creative Writing, Essay Writing, and Literature (non-fiction, plays, poetry), as well as grammar, spelling, and vocabulary.

I joined the staff of our school's monthly newsmagazine, "The Coconut Creek High School Harbinger", as a staff writer, and I soon received the position of Entertainment Section Editor, where I contributed articles on the arts (concert reviews, local events, etc.) and edited articles written by the other staff members.

Soon I was given a monthly editorial column on the back page, where my writing style really shined!

I also joined the German club, where I eventually tutored beginning German students on basic German language skills -- my German teacher was Mrs. Anne "Frau" Humphreys, who I met in her Honors World History class.

Later, she introduced me to her husband, Richard Humphreys, who I taught basic guitar to, and who's been a close friend ever since. He runs a South Florida storm shutters installation company.

My First Bands:

When I was a freshman at CCHS, I joined the school's jazz band on electric guitar. There I gained experience playing a few jazz standards in a big band setting, and had fun using my wah-wah pedal on the funk tunes!

I met some older students in the jazz band who admired my guitar-playing style, and they invited me to join a rock band they were forming called "Eat @t Joe's", on lead guitar. We began working on original songs together, and soon, one of the members left due to heavy work constraints, and I agreed to become the lead vocalist and also take over rhythm guitar responsibilities. Soon we started gigging at places like a local donut shop, a rehearsal studio, and Young Circle in Hollywood Beach, FL.

At an evening gig in front of a jeans shop in Young Circle I met Juergen Kerth, a talented blues-rock guitarist from Germany, who really enjoyed our music and invited me to join his trio on bass guitar for gigs in the area. I had fun on these gigs and learned a lot!

While in high school, I also played bass for a local progressive rock band, "The Vovniks". Later, I formed "The Bark The Dog" with my bandmate from Sar Shalom and members of Eat @t Joes, and often jammed with friends at the local rehearsal studios, and at after school parties!

College Years and Beyond:

After graduating from CCHS in 2001, I began college studies at Florida International University in Miami, FL, less than an hour south of my home in Tamarac. My tuition was fully covered by the Florida Bright Futures academic scholarship, which awarded me based on my excellent high school grades. My chosen major was Jazz Performance, with guitar as my principal instrument.

My curriculum at FIU included Music Theory/Ear Training, Class Piano, Jazz Arranging for Big Band, Jazz Improv, as well as playing guitar in various student jazz combos (small jazz groups of 4-8 members), Big Band, and Guitar Ensemble. Each semester, every student band played at least one concert for the entire group of jazz majors and their teachers, and we often had student/professor jam sessions at our Friday morning Jazz Forum. I received weekly private guitar lessons first with Lindsey Blair, and then with Richie Zellon, who I had previously met through my parents and taken early jazz lessons with while finishing high school.

Some things I gained through my jazz training at FIU were good note-reading skills, a strong repertoire of jazz "standards" (classic jazz songs, or "tunes" as they are usually called), firm harmonic/rhythmic knowledge and technical skills, how to craft an interesting jazz solo, and how to create a chord-melody style arrangement (where the guitarist plays several parts at once, including the chords, the melody/solo, and the bass line).

I also got some jazz gigging experience while attending FIU, playing concerts with student friends at places such as Bougainvillea's Tavern of South Miami, the student chapel at University of Miami, and a few other venues. Frequently, other jazz students and I got together for extra-curricular jam sessions in dorm rooms, practice rooms in the music building, and home studios, where we practiced the tunes we were working on, practiced our arrangements, and exchanged musical ideas.

When I returned home to Tamarac for the weekends and holidays while going to FIU, I often got together with local musicians and made improvised recordings based on new ideas we came up with. I worked on these recordings with friends including DJ Immortal, Sensei Jean LeGrande (who trained me in mixed martial arts fundamentals), DJ Trails (also a member of our martial arts team), Brett Segal (a jazz drumming major from FIU), and my friends since high school, Jared Cole, Daniel Gardner, and Rusty Ellison.

In March of 2006 I noticed that I worked most nights a week as a local pizza delivery driver earning finances for gas, food, and other expenses while going to school, and I wound up with very little time to practice based on the commute to Miami and the delivery work. I decided to withdraw from FIU, continue studying music at home, and to begin to focus on learning advanced computer skills such as multimedia design and network management.

I wrote several new songs since withdrawing from FIU, created a series of song demos, and created my first remixes on the computer. I recently purchased a Yamaha MO6 synthesizer workstation and started working with the Steinberg Cubase AI 4 studio software that it came bundled with, and I'm working on producing lots of great new music! On the information technology side, I am currently studying for my first Microsoft Certification Test (on Windows Vista Fundamentals).


For more info: visit http://DJGinsberg.com/!
djginsberg@yahoo.com