Living the Dream

Welcome! ¡Bienvenidos! 欢迎! Bienvenuto!

My name is Tony Goffredi and I am living my dream as a professional musician. It was a long road to get to this point in my life and I don't regret any step I've taken along the way. I'm also confident in saying that I will never go back to the 9-5 grind as I've worked too hard to give up now.

I've always been very interested in music and in middle school when it was time to start learning an instrument, I picked up the trumpet. I was obsessed with it and I remember practicing in my parent's bedroom playing through scales and songs and never getting tired of it. Well, I never got tired of it until I decided to pick up the saxophone that is.

I remember one time, I called my mother who was coming to pick me up after school because I wanted her to bring my tenor saxophone in the car with her so I could play it while we drove around. I played the tenor so much that my parents eventually made me practice outside because they were sick of hearing it. I thought I had found my instrument... and then a buddy of mine started learning guitar.

The first time I heard my buddy rip an AC/DC riff, I knew that I was in the wrong game. I was so sold on guitar that I went to pick up my first guitar weeks later on my 16th birthday and I bought it as a present to myself. I picked up a black Ibanez electric along with an amp and started “shredding.” My first task was to learn the opening riff from Crazy Train because that riff has always stuck out in my mind as being so rock n' roll that I absolutely HAD to learn it. My next task was to learn the solo of the song after having only played for a month. Needless to say, I don't let any of my students do that because I wasted so much time and built up so many bad habits that when I finally started taking lessons, I had to essentially relearn how to play the guitar with better techniques.

Fast forward to college, I struggled to find what I was really passionate about and wanted to study. I did classical guitar for a bit but I wasn't going to be credited with a degree in music education unless I picked up the sax again which wasn't happening. I could have pursued a degree in guitar performance, but I wanted something a bit more viable than that. I ended up studying languages and graduated with a major in Spanish and a minor in Mandarin Chinese.

I played guitar all throughout college and started a band which is where I got my first taste of playing live which was incredible! The first time I got up on stage, my nerves tore me apart but once I got past the initial stage fright, the rush of adrenaline was unreal! Those performances really showed me that I wanted to play guitar on stage for the rest of my life.

After college, I moved to China to work as a tour guide where I switched to acoustic guitar for the first time due to the lack of a decent amp to play on. Around that time I also started working on my singing which was a pivotal point in my musical career. I would start by playing basic covers that I knew and worked hard on learning to strum and sing at the same time. Once I returned to the states, I stuck with acoustic guitar for quite some time and continued to work on my singing.

Fast forward two jobs and three years later, I decided it was time to take the leap to become a full-time musician. I had been playing guitar for 12 years, had taught lessons for over six years and was confident enough in my singing ability to play solo gigs. I saved up enough money to give myself a cushion in case I failed miserably and I quit my job to jump into the unknown. It was by far the best decision I've ever made and I've never been happier in my life. What has the road looked like during this last year? Well, you'll just have to stay tuned to find out.

Thank you for reading about my beginning! I look forward to sharing more about my journey and telling you some fun anecdotes along the way. In the mean time, please be sure to follow me on instagram: tonygoffredi and facebook: www.facebook.com/tonygoffredi for snippets of new tunes I'm working on as well as where I'll be playing in the near future.

In the meantime, keep honing your craft.

TG