Darren Pickering Photo: Adam Hodgson
Darren Pickering didn't need a teacher to learn the piano, just a tape recorder and a couple of very supportive parents.
Growing up as an only child in Gisborne, Pickering spent many hours in his room listening to pop and rock music, then recording his own attempts at the keyboard on cassette tape.
Listening back, he developed his own sense of what worked.
Later, when he heard jazz pianists for the first time - the likes of Bill Evans, for example - he did the same.
For Pickering, developing his own inner ear was a crucial part of his musical development; the web is full of videos showing musicians how to perform, how to sound.
That's great on one level, but are musicians learning to be artists, or just to imitate?
All the music on Pickering's album Three is his own. The album is the third in his Darren Pickering Small Worlds series, released on Rattle Records.
He spoke with RNZ Concert's Bryan Crump about the album, and some of the other musical projects he's involved in.
Now based in Christchurch, he's one of the most sought-after session musicians in a busy music scene that encompasses everything from alt-country to synth-pop.
Pickering told Crump he values his time making other people's music as much as he does making his own - nothing beats exposure to different genres when it comes to stimulating creativity.
And Pickering has a whole backlog of his own ideas waiting for an outlet. Only these days he records them onto his smartphone, rather than cassette.
Darren Pickering Small Worlds. From left: Pete Fleming, Heather Webb, Jono Blackie, Darren Pickering Photo: G. Easterbrook
