An innovative Canadian Composer / Improviser / Performer / Educator / Inventor / Producer / Versatile Session Musician / Studio Owner from Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.Mark has appeared on MuchMusic, a Hollywood Minute on CNN, in Keyboard and Canadian Musician magazines, and has performed live on CBC Radio, at First Ontario Centre, at many festivals, clubs and galleries, and at Comdex and NAMM shows among others. He has achieved a moderate degree of international attention for what one album reviewer called, his bold ideas about music and its forgotten boundlessness.
A highly respected music teacher and music coach in the Hamilton area, Mark has spent more than 30 years sharing his understanding of music with students at all levels, and of all ages and backgrounds. Mark is virtuosic on vocals and several instruments (electric / acoustic guitar, bass, piano). He has a gift for simplifying difficult musical concepts in ways that suit the student and the situation, and his enthusiasm and ability to connect with people have helped hundreds of students dive deeper into their craft. Many of his students have gone on to have careers in music. He teaches beginner and intermediate students at the Hamilton School of Music and more advanced students online, via his website: markdaum.comMusic Fosters a Life-long Love of Learning
A natural musician from a musical family, Mark’s interest in music was peaked when he began studying piano at age five, and then full-on at age 14 when he began studying guitar. During these early years he studied piano and voice with his Mom, sang in the church choir with his Pepere, studied piano with Ruth Lum, and clarinet with Walter Payne. Following this he attended the Levantine School of Music where he began studies on several different instruments with many teachers, under the mentorship of the school’s owner and Mark’s teacher, flamenco guitarist Gary Santucci. While there, he studied classical, jazz, rock, and world styles on guitar, sax, and piano, as well as rock / jazz band, ensemble, guitar, orchestra classes, and theory. During this same time period Mark studied classical voice and harmony with Dr. Lyn Harry, renown vocal coach / choral conductor. When Mark was 17, Dr. Harry offered him a vocal solo with the 100-voice Canadian Orpheus Male Choir at Expo Stadium in Vancouver, BC, with Dr. Harry conducting. The concert was televised before a billion people, and would have signalled Mark’s entrance into an operatic career. A choice between air fare and half the cost of his first real electric guitar was put before him – Mark chose the Jimmy Hendrix influence and the guitar, and began playing professionally that same year in Hamilton. At age 20, he attended Humber College for a year, studying guitar with Peter Leitch and piano with Brian Dickinson, before taking the leap into a professional composing career with a soundtrack for a film for the City of Hamilton.The 1990s found Mark at the forefront of the computer musical software age and MIDI. In 1991 Mark would open Millennium Studios, through which he would go on to produce and perform on keys on Corky and the Juice Pigs’ debut album, (Buck-a-song), and compose, produce and arrange orchestral music for The Royal Horse Show.During this time, Mark was recruited by Peter Gannon of PG Music (Band in a Box) and began a three year stint working as a music software consultant for them, representing the company (playing keys) at many trade shows in the United States, and contributing to the development of several programs (The Rock Guitarist, The Classical Guitarist, The Ragtime Pianist), with writing, research, and R&D.In 1992 Mark invented the Piantar and proceeded to talk with industry people about it. In 1994 he unveiled it at the NAMM show in Los Angeles and as luck would have it, many key people took notice, and the phone wouldn’t stop ringing for a while. However, within 8 months Mark had severely injured his shoulders by over practicing with the instrument, which was still in its prototype phase, and was forced to stop performing for several years.While recovering from his injuries, a student appeared, and then another, and another, and thus Mark officially began his teaching practice in 1996.He later moved to Dundas where he taught privately for several years, during which time he was recruited (at a gig) by Steve Parton to teach at the Dundas Avalon Music Academy. Within two years of starting to teach at the Avalon School, Mark and his wife accepted an offer that Steve had made on day one, to launch their own Avalon Music Academy franchise in Brantford, ON, where Mark taught full time, oversaw 21 other teachers, and met and taught hundreds of musical people. After three successful years, they were compelled to sell the enterprise in order for his wife to recover from injuries sustained in a car accident, and so Mark could reignite his performance career.Always interested in improving his own musicianship, Mark has attended several master classes with such greats as Allan Holdsworth, Lyle Mays, Steve Morse, and Guthrie Govan, and taken part in a few intense week long workshops with Pat Metheny, Antonio Sanchez, Larry Grenadier, Christian McBride, and Mick Goodrick.The ImprovisorAs an artist and player, Mark is perhaps best known as the originator of a radical new approach to improvisation on acoustic guitar, that involves making up a random alternate tuning before each improvised piece, and that employs a host of original playing techniques (chordal harmonics, Eberhard technique, etc).Since 2000, Mark has recorded and produced several CDs of his own original and improvised music, including an experimental album with some of the area’s finest jazz musicians. He produced an EP for a student band (Allotrope) in 2012, which helped them to win the Hamilton Music Awards. Also during this time, Mark continued to teach privately and at the Avalon School in Dundas, until some family matters demanded he take time away from teaching. Mark returned to private teaching in 2020, and transitioned to an online format when COVID began.
The PiantarMark is internationally recognized as the inventor of an instrument called the Piantar (1992), which involves playing the guitar and piano simultaneously, and is currently planning to showcase the instrument again. He can be seen and heard playing the Piantar on YouTube.Mark has released four albums of original music:
• It Is What It Is Just Now (2012)• The Elements of Chance (2002)• The Light of Day (2000)• Piantarist (1994)Currently, Mark and his partner, fellow composer, Mary-Jane Russell, are busy developing programs and writing stories and music for their new creative venture, Humble In’ Creative, as well as preparing new original music for upcoming performances.
