Stage fright is an unfamiliar concept to Colin Knowles. “I always wanted to do it live in public,” he says. “There might be others who get nervous but I wanted to be playing the piano for people all of the time.”
The ambition served Knowles well in his Welland, Ontario, since there were only a couple of keyboardists to go around, a necessity for the jam band style popular in his high school. But playing covers of Grateful Dead and Phish songs was just one detour on the musical journey that began with piano lessons at age 8 — he spent four years in the jazz program at Humber College, and has more recently performed in composite time fusion ensemble Camarillo, in addition to solo gigs in restaurants and private parties.
Colin Knowles
A passion for teaching brought Knowles to Toronto Rock Camp in 2008, and he returns this summer to share his diverse skills, helping to incorporate 88 keys into several of the budding bands.
“What I saw was that the kids would learn more in that one week than they would from a year of lessons,” he says. “They would go home and practice non-stop. Parents were telling me they could not get them off their instruments at night — because their peers are pressuring them to do their best.”
Watching several members of a group become acquainted through music each week never failed to fascinate Knowles, who observed first-hand how they would go from being disjointed on Tuesday, to jamming together on Wednesday, to sounding solid on Thursday. “When it all comes together there’s a lot of satisfaction,” he says. “The pinnacle is the show at the end of the week — the nervousness at the beginning disappears as they figure out the stage moves.”
Knowles learned the value of making those connections from the seasoned pro instructors at Humber who repeatedly stressed that networking was a crucial part of the creative process: “You could get a lot more accomplished just by being friendly.”
But being an instructor also means keeping the students aware of the details. “I’ll remind them throughout the week of the challenges ahead of them on Friday,” he says. “When it’s three hours until showtime, in front of their family and friends, there are things they need to do to feel prepared. It’s all part of the real experience.”
