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I started playing in the band and learned to play piano by ear.

I was focusing on sax while at Berklee, but then I started to play Brazilian choro and Colombian music. I was doing more folkloric stuff on the clarinet because it works better. Finally, I realized I was working more on the clarinet than the saxophone, and I started to feel more comfortable on it.

I'm a little musically inclined; I play the clarinet and the saxophone.

I'm blessed with a good pair of ears. That's how I fooled my piano teacher. I'd watch his fingers and I'd listen to it, and I just kind of basically learned it by myself.

I started off playing the clarinet, after I was inspired by listening to my dad's Benny Goodman records.

I find that classical music helps put me in a place that is very calming and allows me to express emotion through my body. I played clarinet as a child, so I guess I have a bit of a musical ear.

I grew up playing about 15 instruments and the way that I was able to accomplish that was by cutting my classes, hanging out in the band room all day, and going from one instrument to the next to the next, until I learned how to play everything by ear.

My father was a jazz tenor sax player. He played in a lot of big bands. So I had that sound around me all the time. The first record that really caught my ear was Clifford Brown's 'Brownie Eyes.' I grew up listening to John Coltrane and Illinois Jacquet. This is where I come from... I love improvisational music.

I learned when I started to study piano that I could play by ear. I could hear a song on the radio a couple of times and hear the song and the lyrics and sing it for you after a couple of plays.