BIO
short version
Christoph Scherbaum grew up in Berlin and since oct 2009 lives in Amsterdam, NL where he is working as a musician, composer and teacher.
He holds a MA degree in electric guitar performance from the ArtEZ Conservatory Arnhem, NL.
Next to working with other musicians, Christoph specializes in performing and composing / producing for dancers, visual artists and installation art.
Christoph is performing on (electric) guitar, bass-guitar, laptop and MIDI controllers.
long version (more text, less information)
I started playing guitar when I was about 11 years old. I also tried piano but somehow I liked guitar better it seems. After 5 years of classical guitar lessons I finally discovered that most of the songs by Nirvana are played on electric guitars so I decided to buy one myself and started playing with a pick instead of my fingers. I decided to grow my hair a little longer, too.
I happily spent my days jamming along with my favourite records (cassettes, not CDs...) and totally had no clue about what I was doing.
The next years I played in different rock, pop, grunge, hardcore, metal, you-name-it bands, finally discovered funk and ended up playing jazz. I also played in some big bands including the "Berliner Jugend Jazz Orchester".
When I entered conservatory I was playing jazz only, archtop guitar, flatwound strings, nothing more but a cable between amp and guitar. My guitar-sound was as dry as Jim Hall playing in the middle of a desert.
Having passed the first year at school I figured something was wrong. I still liked Jim Hall (and still do!) but bands like Rage Against The Machine somehow let me feel more like ehmm...like they had a more personal connection to me and my life or something.
After that it took me some time to figure out a way to combine all the things I like in music. People often tell me that they find it impossible to clearly define my taste of music. And I have exactly the same problem! Sometimes I have a look at the playing history in my iTunes and just don't get it.
But who cares?! After all it's just music...
"Paint as you like and die happy." Henry Miller
If you want to know what I am currently doing in music it might be entertaining to check out the rest of this website.