The only thing Pavel Steidl wanted when he was growing up was a horse. His love of movies featuring cowboys and Indians sent him off in to the woods to play. That was where his older brother, who played the banjo, put a guitar in his hand and told him to accompany him.
"I was watching him how he was keeping the hands, the position of the left hand and of course, then I had to learn it again the better way. But now we also discovered that this is the best way for the child to start, you know, to see, to listen, to open his mind with the music and not immediately to start with reading the notes. It's the way we learn, like to speak, we don't see first the letters and what to do with the mouth and then the sound. It must be first sound and our imagination, must be always combined, I think with the love for the music and the instrument you play," Steidl said.
Along with playing the guitar, Steidl teaches, composes and has been working on a PhD on famed 19th Century violinist and guitarist Nicolo Paganini.
Steidl finds musical inspiration in many places, he said you have to "stay open, always open."
Steidl performs Friday, 10.24 at 8p.m. in Tampa at HCC Dale Mabry Campus Student Services Auditorium.
