M J H - Rock guitarist, vocalist, composer, producer, artist
MJH began playing instruments at the age of 11. His early ventures into the world of music focused on the saxophone and culminated in numerous concert band performances. It was during the formative years of High School that he transferred his musical interest to the guitar.
“It seems that one day I woke up and discovered rock for the first time. I was so impressed by how the guitar sounded in this –to me— new kind of music that I made up my mind to master it.”
His first guitar was a right-handed beater –the first real challenge to a left-handed musical talent. MJH tried the "jimi-hendrix" with it, but after 6 months of struggle, he gave up and had it restrung left-handed. It was a special day for him when he had enough hard cash saved up to trade in the old guitar for a real left-handed one.
MJH considers himself a self-taught guitarist whose greatest musical influences on the guitar have been true virtuosos, such as Jason Becker, Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, and Marty Freedman. His goal is to create compositions filled with the life and energy their music possesses.
MJH draws inspiration from classical composers as well, particularly the Baroque masters of the 17th and 18th centuries: Vivaldi, Handel, and J. S. Bach.
”I am captivated by the complexity and fluidity of baroque music. The minutely intricate details of this style of music should be in contradiction to the intensely passionate moods they evoke, yet, they work in amazing harmony. I want to capture this beauty in my music.”
Film scores, especially those written by John Williams, Robert Folk, Danny Elfman, Hanz Zimmer, and James Horner, have further shaped the song writing style of MJH.
“You just can’t live in the 21st century and not be influenced by the film industry one way or another. Some of my music is written exclusively as potential film scores or theme songs.”
MJH began serious composing and recording in 2005 when his earlier one-track/one-instrument recordings were reinvented and a score of new pieces were written.
The variety and number of compositions that MJH has produced over the past few years continues to increase as new instruments are added to his repertoire: the base guitar, the piano, and even the penny-whistle.
From his early years, MJH’s goofy humor –occasionally bordering on the ridiculous— has had a profound influence on his creativity. His artistic skills on paper were apparent to his peers and teachers alike. His math assignments were frequently decorated with doodles, and his sometimes-wandering attention during in-class lectures of boring magnitude were redirected to early masterpieces of imaginative caricatures –heroes and villains alike.
“My imagination fashioned a ‘cosmos’ of make-belief characters, conjured up fascinating tales of a future to come and constructed legends of an impossibly probable past.”
MJH has tried his hand at traditional art, but he found his true passion in the unorthodox representation of the world and its inhabitants, real or imagined. His greatest endeavor in this field has been the creation of an entire cartoon universe where Good is funny and Evil is replaced by the ludicrous and the preposterous.
”I love writing and recording music. I also love drawing cartoons and scenes for my stories. If I can tell a tale by combining art and music into a single project, well, that’s the biggest thrill for me.”
Alpha-Ardvark is exactly this kind of undertaking. As a family man, and the father of two, MJH strives “to bring more light into this world by giving folks a charmingly quirky story with clean humor, enchantingly silly characters and irresistibly good music.”
“I want to reach children and their parents alike with an artistic presentation of a hilarious but virtuous cartoon world which makes them smile, laugh and, on the rare occasion, even roll on the floor by its sheer absurdity.”