As a teenager in south Florida, Mike Bielenberg wanted to play a sexier instrument than keyboards. Nevertheless, he was usually recruited into bands as the keyboard player because he was the only one who had survived piano lessons. He figured that once he could play enough funk licks on his new bass, there would be groupies everywhere ............... never happened.

Then, as a pianist/percussionist in the military, he offered to learn saxophone to help an understaffed big band. "Nope," they said, "We can't survive without you on keyboards."

Years later, as a composition major, his fellow percussionists in the orchestra would get mad at him for writing innovative, exciting music for the strings, woodwinds and brass and leaving the drummers with parts marked tacet.

Today, as a successful commercial composer (Telly awards, New York Festival awards) Mike has accepted his lot as a knob-turning, computer-operating synth geek and has realized that he will never play a sexy instrument. However, after recently being smitten by a rare recording of a Tanzanian mouth harp....