Leo Dunne

Leo's Musical Background

Born in 1944 in Dublin, I have lived here all my life with my lovely wife Rita. We are married 52 years. I have 4 children, 2 boys and 2 girls and now 7 grand children. My eldest son died last year in tragic circumstances, he was a good piano player and is sadly missed by his mother and I.

I have been playing music since I was 12 years of age starting with piano and later playing piano accordion and guitar. I started piano lessons when I was 12 but hated the discipline of it. I soon gave it up (to my regret now) and started to play by ear. This was much more fun than playing scales and exercises. In my twenties I played guitar in a folk group for a couple of years but that evetually fizzled out.

I got my first keyboard when I was in my early forties, a GEM, which had about 12 styles and 20 voices. I gigged with this in a 3 piece for a few years. Since then, I have owned quite a few keyboards including Farfisa, Wurlitzer, Korg, Gem, and Roland. I was resident musician in a football club forabout 16 years where I had to provide musical backing for singers and visiting Caberet artists.

I have been gigging for the past 20 years with my good friend Chris. He does most of the vocals,which lets me concentrate on the music. At one time this was about 3 gigs a week, but that has all changed now since the Government here introduced very strict "drink driving laws" and the pubs and bars are not frequented nearly as much as previously.

Currently, I have 3 keyboards: a PSR9000, a Tyros1 and Tyros2 (my gigging machine.) Although I do not gig too much now, I still would like to upgrade my keyboard (the Tyros-1), but it is hard to justify when it can't earn it's keep. I would like to retire the Tyros 1 for a used Tyros4 / Tyros5.

I'll keep an eye out on the PSR Tutorial Forum for someone upgrading to the New Yamaha Genos. That's about all I have to tell you at the moment, so I'll say goodbyes for the present and keep in touch on the psr forum. By the way, I still have great interest in Multi Pads and believe they are a great resource, underutilized by most players. I use them a lots as an alternative to multitracking.