The musicianship of Andy Pope has taken on many forms during his very diverse and colorful career. An accomplished pianist; he began playing at the age of seven. When he first began, he learned primarily by osmosis. His father, Dave Pope, was a highly skilled pianist. Later, he was sent to a private teacher, where he learned the basics of music notation and sight-reading. In those days, Andy also began to boldly to write songs, although he knew next to nothing about music theory or composition yet. Still, the focus he applied to his music at an early age provided a foundation on which Andy's later, more sophisticated, musical exploits would be built.
At the age of ten, Andy composed two rags in the style of Classic Ragtime, gaining him admission into the National Ragtime Society. At twelve, while studying under Robert Savage, he entered a tri- county piano competition and placed first in the Junior Advanced category, performing music by Kuhlau and Kabalevsky. Dr. Savage also provided him with ear training. As Andy entered his teens, it became evident that he had Absolute Pitch; an attribute that is intrinsically valuable in the craft of Music Transcription.
Meanwhile, Dave Pope's military travels took Andy overseas, where in Italy his passion for music compelled him to learn the guitar. Before long, he had acquired a Gibson electric guitar and was playing regular gigs as the lead guitarist in a rock band composed of his fellow "military brats."
On returning to California, Andy experienced even more variety in the spectrum of music as he became active in Musical Theatre. In his early twenties he became the musical director of a summer theatre company in Stockton, California; as well as the musical director of the Student Musical Theatre at the University of California at Davis.
He attended the Conservatory of Music at the University of the Pacific. There he studied piano under Frank Wiens. Under the late Stan Beckler he studied music theory and composition; Andy and Stan remained in close consultation until shortly before Stan Beckler's death. At both Davis and UOP, Andy received the highest score on the departmental placement exams. He then left for Southern California, where he served for two years as Assistant Musical Director of the Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts.
By that time, Andy had composed the two rock operas Evil and Euphoria, as well as three musical plays: After Him, Hymn to the Body, and Over My Dead Body. The latter was produced twice: once at Lincoln Summer Theatre in Stockton, and once at the Summer Repertory Theatre in Santa Rosa. But despite these successes, he grew disillusioned with the genre of musical theatre shortly after leaving the Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts.
As an alternative, Andy Pope began composing songs in a gentler, more folk style; and during the 80's he traveled as an itinerant singer-songwriter, taking his guitar to coffeehouses and other intimate venues throughout Northern California. At one point, however, he returned to the theatre as musical director of the Great American Melodrama and Vaudeville, where the inspiration for his most recent musical, The Burden of Eden, was born.
During the 90's, Andy was often spotted looming behind a Yamaha C-3 Grand at the prestigious Gulliver's Restaurant in Burlingame. There, he learned as many jazz tunes and standards as possible, while simultaneously performing as a church musician, a school district accompanist, and a private teacher of piano and voice. However, as the 90's drew to a close, he was obliged to vacate his posts for reasons related to his family, thus suspending his career for the better part of a year.
Upon returning to the spotlight, he found himself in a new Century engaged for the first time in children's theatre, becoming musical director of San Carlos Children's Theatre for four consecutive summers, and simultaneously taking on positions as a singing teacher for the Youth Theatre Conservatory at Broadway By the Bay and an occasional musical director at the Hillbarn Theatre. He resumed teaching privately, and taught music at a private school. He also formed and conducted the Kids Connection Children's Choir.
Since that time, he has been the Musical Director of Theatre in the Mountains, a singing teacher at Childrens Musical Theatre San Jose, an accompanist at Peninsula Voice Studio, and an opera coach at Peninsula Teen Opera, where two of his pieces, "The Kingdoms of This World," and "Awakening" were performed. His biography has been published in Who's Who in America 2005 and 2006.
The idea for Andy's music transcription service was formed in 2005 while he was transcribing the keyboard parts to twenty songs composed by Chuck Majewski for his musical Young Billy. It then occurred to Andy that, since he had Absolute Pitch as well as an expertise in music theory and notation; and because he had learned how to use intricate music notation programs such as Finale; he could apply his relatively rare combination of skills to the emerging field of music transcription. As a result, he was soon providing custom services to musicians and performers of all kinds. Gradually, the excitement of this opportunity surpassed Andy's interest in other forms of musicianship-for-hire; and it became his primary professional focus. Andy is now proud to present you with his signature transcription work.
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