No one else in our family was a professional musician so this took an enormous leap of faith on their part.

But some great records are are being made with today's technology and there are still great artists among us. Likewise there are artists today who are so reliant on modern technology, they wouldn't have emerged when recording was more organic.

I kind of liked the method of the seventies where they would throw a little bit of money at a hundred different groups - not millions of dollars per group, but, you know, a few thousand. Throw them in the studio, and if five of those groups came out with a hit record it would be money well spent.

Finally, I would like to remind record companies that they have a cultural responsibility to give the buying public great music. Milking a trend to death is not contributing to culture and is ultimately not profitable.

You don't necessarily need expensive gear or giant budgets to reach an audience.

When I was five my parents bought me a ukulele for Christmas. I quickly learned how to play it with my father's guidance. Thereafter, my father regularly taught me all the good old fashioned songs.

In the last 17 years of his working life, my father was finally rewarded with having landed a great job as first, a maintenance engineer, and then a senior locksmith with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.