John Martin III

Music exploring what it feels like now in our difficult and complicated times !

John Martin III

Hi !

thankyou   fro your  interest in my work .I started violin at 7 thanks to  an elementary  strings program  -so I  am a big  advocate  for music  in  the  school system  but I always had an abiding love for the piano and was trying my hand at Chopin etudes before I was 10 .Lessons started later around the age of 12 or 13 so I developed  a faulty technique ,but easily impressed anyone who did not see my hands and arms ! I started composing when I discovered Prokofiev's music in early highschool and a school mate was already showing great promise he played both clarinet and piano so some friendly rivalry led to me  wrting music .This continued on and off through college but I never seriously applied what I learned in harmony and theoy to my composing and spent all of my time trying to master the piano . It wasn't until my 30's that my interest was sparked again .This time as always by discovering a living composer.  PierreBoulez and Olivier  Messiaen (many  years  before  a French piano teacher  gave me  a  beautiful  huge page 1950 edtion score  of  Vingt -regards a l' enfant Christ ) .Around the year 2000 I was not only spending time playing through contemporary music but writing my own .Around 2010 I got Piston' s Orchestration book from a public library and that led to new discoveries and many more orchestration manuals . Now in 2015 I am sharing my scores and music on several websites and hoping to gain performances  as  well as  new  supporters  and  fans  . I 'm also currently thinking  about  graduate  school and getting  an  advanced  degree in music since I  graduated with a degree in English and education not  my first love : music . Now realize I would be overjoyed sharing and teaching music to young people in the schools !