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Young musician jazzed about guitar
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 Dominick Restivo, 12, plays his Epiphone Dot Semi-Hollow electric guitar in the living room of his Sonora home. Maggie Beck/Union Democrat, copyright 2012
He’s played guitar for seven years, specializing now in jazz. He plays the trumpet in his school band and he’s dabbled some in violin and cello. He plays in a college jazz band and in his own trio for fun, and he’s played behind one of his favorite singers. “I started playing guitar when I was 4 or 5,” the Sierra Waldorf School sixth grader said earlier this week. “I just asked my dad if we could play. We always had guitars around the house.” Dominick has been playing guitar in the rhythm section of the Columbia College Jazz Ensemble for about six months. He likes to play a number of styles of music on the guitar — rock, pop, Spanish and folk. The instrument’s versatility, he said, is one of the reasons he keeps picking it up. But he said right now, jazz guitar gets the bulk of his daily practice time. “I like the freedom of it,” Dominick said of the genre. “It’s really involved. It’s like classical, but it’s fun.” The youngest of three children, Dominick is being raised in a musical household. His father, Rick, taught music at Sonora Elementary School for more than 30 years and is in the local Black Irish Band. He was Dominick’s primary music teacher until recently. His mother, Cynthia, plays the harp and sings, and his older sisters, Lizzy and Maria, participated in music while in school. They didn’t get into it as much as Dominick, though. Cynthia says she can’t recall a time either parent has had to tell him to practice the guitar. “When he’s trying to master something, he stays with it,” she said. Dominick was first approached about trying to play with the Columbia College Jazz Ensemble while participating in an acting group. He said he played guitar during one of the sessions, and a member of the jazz ensemble suggested he try it out. While playing with the group, he was able to be part of the backing band for one of his favorite singers, Barbara Morrison, who performed in Columbia in November. Dominick said it was a bit intimidating at first playing at that level, and it still isn’t easy. “I got lost a lot (at first), but it was a lot of fun,” he said. “It was really challenging.” Cynthia Restivo said his excitement was obvious after the first session. “I remember he said it was better than Disneyland,” she said. Though guitar is a major part of Dominick’s life, it’s not all he does. He’s played baseball on traveling teams and in Little League for years. He’s an avid San Francisco Giants fan. He’s also in the middle of listening to the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy on audio book. And when Christmas rolled around, he had another responsibility. Santa Claus brought him a baby corn snake named Cornelius. He has to feed his new pet once a week by dropping a small mouse into the tank, something Dominick said he’s still getting used to. But as a former owner of a bearded dragon lizard, he doesn’t get the creeps from things that crawl or slither. “I think reptiles have a bad rap,” he said. “He never tries to go scampering off or anything.” Dominick also has his challenges. Math and spelling don’t come particularly easy to him, he said. He’s still working on nailing down all the complicated chord progressions a jazz guitarist needs to know. But he also keeps his abilities in perspective. He said he’s seen video clips of kids around the world even younger than him playing guitar and other instruments beyond his abilities. “There’s always going to be something you can do better, or someone who’s going to do better than you,” he said. |
