I grew up a child of the 1970s in Detroit, Michigan and, even though I now live in sunny Southern California with my family, I still think of myself very much as a Midwesterner. I took piano lessons from the age of 8 and picked up the guitar on my own at around age 12, but the core of my musical upbringing comes from listening. Our home was always filled with music -- “Meet the Beatles” and “Rubber Soul” were always on the record changer. Gershwin, Cole Porter, and all of the Great American Songwriters was my Dad’s piano repertoire (played by ear, all in the key of C), Folk music, show music, and some classical was there too. By the time I was buying my own Elton John and Cat Stevens records, I already had a pretty good basis in music just from listening.
I started writing songs and instrumental pieces around age 12 and was playing in bands long before I could drive. After high school I pursued a formal education in music, eventually gaining a music degree in Jazz Studies from DePaul University in Chicago. From college, I spent a year in New York City gaining the studio skills of a recording engineer and soon I was working with some very talented people, engineering their records and making musical contributions wherever possible. I left New York for Los Angeles with a pretty full resume and this year marks my 20th anniversary as a working musician in Los Angeles.
Along with record making, I began working closely with film and TV composers as a sort of musical jack of all trades -- engineer, arranger, musician, producer, and after serving a long apprenticeship, I began to co-compose and eventually I became a film and TV composer on my own, which is the career I have been mostly pursing for the last ten years or so. You can read all about my entire professional career at www.DavidTobocman.com.
At my core, through all of my history, has always been an abiding love of music.