Music is my true passion. I play the
guitar, bass, mandolin and pipa, a four-stringed Chinese lute that I picked up during a term abroad in China in my junior year of college (see image pictured to the left).Besides playing Chinese music, I also play jazz, rock, blues, and bluegrass. I've performed at venues in Nanjing, China; The Discover Jazz Festival in Burlington, VT; the Plaza Hotel in New York City; and the Pegasus Suites on the top floors of Rockefeller Center, also in New York City.
Prior to moving back to Albany in 2006, I was guitarist for the Burlington, VT-based quartet The Kent Variety, which recorded an EP entitled Spectacle in 2003. Listen to some clips from the album (below) and hear why Seven Days newspaper wrote this in a review of the recording:
"The group sounds tight and polished, with the addition of lead guitarist Roger Noyes providing -Seven Days Newspaper, March 3-10, 2004
Click here to download a copy of the complete review.
Sound Clips: Files are all mp3s
»Wait For Green Lights (excerpt): a Kent Variety tune, from Spectacle »Shine (excerpt): a Kent Variety tune, from Spectacle »Take Me To The Zoo: a Kent Variety tune, with me on electric guitar, from Gezellig, a compilation of music by Burlington, Vt., musicians. »Well You Needn't (excerpt): a Thelonius Monk tune, with me on electric guitar, from Union College Jazz Band: Live! »The Spring Snow (excerpt): I perform this traditional Chinese piece on the pipa
Recordings:
"Skulkin' & Prowlin'" — Diego
"efbom" — efbom
"A Different Land" — Tern Rounders
"9.26.07" — Chickpeas For Earl
"Spectacle" — Kent Variety
"Union College Jazz Band: Live!"
"Gezellig: Burlington Vermont Scene Sampler" — a compilation of music from the Burlington-VT area
"Seven Days newspaper had this to say about the Kent Variety's contribution to "Gezellig":
"The Kent Variety's 'Take Me to the Zoo' pits melancholy vocals against beautifully stinging guitar runs."
-Seven Days Newspaper, March 31-April 7, 2004 -Nietzsche, from The Birth of Tragedy
some needed depth to the music ... The album boasts many a nimble-fingered solo and well-placed
drum fill ... The real plus of the group, however, is Noyes' guitar playing. It's difficult to imagine the
band once existed without him, as his licks and tangling solos push this music to another level."
"Language, as organ and symbol of phenomena, can never reveal the innermost depths of music,
and as soon as it engages in the imitation of music, can only skim the surface, while even the
most eloquent lyric poetry is powerless to bring the deepest meaning of music as much as one
step closer to us."
