Biography

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Robert M. Snyder, Jr.

With over thirty years as a professional guitarist, bassist and vocalist, Coraopolis native, Bob Snyder, has spent much of that time in A-circuit touring bands, while also managing these bands. He spent five years in Minneapolis/St. Paul and the five state area and another fifteen-plus years in Phoenix, Las Vegas, Reno and Portland, playing all up and down the west coast--eventually playing over 4000 live shows in over forty states. In addition, after this, he tour managed for other internationally touring artists for another 500 gigs.

When not on the road, he also taught guitar, bass and voice over the years, and worked for six years as Director of Promotions at Inside Out Music America (www.insideout.de), the premier label for the finest progressive musical artists in the world. He’s also been guitar and bass technician at NEARfest (www.nearfest.com) and production manager at RoSfest (www.rosfest.com)--and in 2008 and 2009 was production manager for the first major Pittsburgh area progressive rock festival 3RP, the Three Rivers Progressive Rock Festival (www.3rprogfest.com). At these festivals, he’s worked with such luminaries as Steve Hackett, Keith Emerson, Derek Sherinian (Kiss, Dream Theater, Billy Idol), Virgil Donati, Dennis Chambers, Tony Levin, Mike Keneally (Frank Zappa), Spock’s Beard, Starcastle, Rich Williams (Kansas), Neal Morse, Kerry Livgren (Kansas) and King's X.

Currently teaching guitar, bass, keyboards, ukulele and vocals at the 808 Music Haus studio, he fills in his “spare time” by tour managing for and touring with some of the finest artists in the world (Asia, Jeff Berlin, Stuart Hamm, Billy Sheehan, Jude Gold [of Jefferson Starship), James LaBrie, the California Guitar Trio and the Flower Kings, to name a few). And Bob is also the guitarist and singer for the greater Pittsburgh area's premier vocally driven power trio "GumBand" (www.thegumband.com and also at Facebook: TheGumBand). Also, Bob provides sound (PA) and lighting for some of the greater Pittsburgh area's finer acts--most recently, "The Mazeroskis"--if you haven't seen these guys, you should!

“While it goes without saying that it is a music teacher’s job to teach music, I also believe that it’s the instructor’s job to instill a love of music into the student. That is, to have a student ‘want to practice’ as opposed to ‘having to practice’. I do this by incorporating traditional teaching methods with learning newer, more popular songs that people will again, want to practice, then I explain the musical structure--reverse engineering, as it were. My particular music specialty is rock, blues, pop, metal and AOR, but I love it all'".