A Short Musical History
My name is Nick Ridout and I play and teach guitar, violin and viola in and around Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I had some piano lessons at an early age, and began clarinet lessons at school in the third grade. Somewhere around fifth grade I broke my front teeth in a car accident and it hurt to play the clarinet. Around this time my parents took me to a classical guitar performance by Andres Segovia which was amazing. I quit the clarinet and began taking guitar lessons. I had several different teachers for a while, then studied with a very nice man named Mr Rosetti.
Around the same time, my best friend was also learning the guitar and was intent on starting a rock band. I was enlisted as the rhythm guitarist. My friend went on to become a professional rock musician. I mostly concentrated on "classical" studies but have always enjoyed improvisation and playing with other musicians in a variety of styles and genres. I will always be grateful for what I learned from my rock band experience.
After a number of years, my mother heard about a new classical guitar program at Carnegie-Mellon and I began taking lessons with Irvin Kauffman. He introduced me to much of the "standard" classical guitar repetoire, as well as a number of Bach piecess, many of them his own transcriptions.
Some time around 10th grade I started thinking about music as a career and my mother suggested it might be a good idea to learn another instrument. The viola was suggested and I began my studies with Eugene Reichenfeld. While still in high school I was accepted into the Carnegie-Mellon orchestra, and I received a scholarship to attend CM-U as a classical guitar major and viola minor. I attended as a performance major, continuing my guitar studies with Mr Kauffman and studying viola with Mr Grossman.
After a year I left school, got married, became a parent, and learned computer programming. We moved to NJ and I pursued a programming career which continued until around the end of 2001. In 2002 we moved back to Pittsburgh. I stopped working in computers and began looking for music students.
My parents loved country dancing (English and Scottish) and dance tunes were an important part of their lives. I wasn't interested when I was younger, but after moving back to Pittsburgh I tried it a few times (there's a group that meets in Pittsburgh - see http://www.cdssp.org/ ) and I met some wonderful musicians. From time to time they invite me to play with them at the dances.