Before Sundays @ 6

Before Sundays @ 6, Caleb loved to play the piano.  He began playing at the age of 4 years old.  He didn't have a piano teacher, but we had been given some old piano method books from the neighbor and so we gave them to Caleb.  Mom and Dad didn't play piano, but they knew the basics of the staff and showed him middle C, D, and E, and let him go from there.  

Caleb had already learned to read by the time he was 4, so he just began reading through the books and teaching himself how to play and read music.  Within 2 months time he had passed through level 4 of the piano books and was playing The Entertainer, March from the Nutcracker, and anything he could print out off the internet.  He astonished others when he could play advanced songs with such a small hand span.  

At 5 years old, he performed live in a store lobby during Christmas time, and was asked to play the "Overture" for his school's performance of the Nutcracker.

By age 6, we began searching for a piano teacher but were unable to find one who would take a student so young.  

By age 6 1/2, Caleb was honored to begin lessons with a concert pianist, Dr. of Music at the University.  He immediately began to grow and develop skill and technique that had been lacking from his own self-taught instruction.  

While he learned mostly classical piano through his study, Caleb loved to play all sorts of music at home.  Caleb found that he could always find a piano at church and there were so many hymns to choose from.  He didn't just like the traditional hymns, but he loved to find different arrangements or often liked playing them in his own way or in another key.  

By the time Caleb was 7 years old, he had began playing different church arrangements and at 8 years old was asked to play them for church.  Soon, word spread and he began playing across the valley and even traveled out of state to play as well.  There was just something extra inspiring about a small boy playing such beautiful church hymn arrangements.  Caleb learned he could touch the lives of many people and help them to feel God's love.  

One of his first hymn arrangements he played was by composer/arranger Aaron Waite.  Here he is playing "Praise to the Man"'



Here is a later recording the day he played it for the first time in church;