Who Am I?

My name is Matt Marsico. I am a musician, programmer, and nerd. My interests span across technology, music, fitness, and more.

Music

The Beginning

My first passion was music. I started playing guitar in 2014 and I was enthralled since the day I first picked it up. I remember the day I decided to learn was when I first played Rocksmith 2014 at my uncle's house in May of 2014. American Idiot by Green Day was the first song I played on guitar. Not a week after that I ordered my first guitar which was a short scale length Squire Mini Stratocaster which was delivered on June 6, 2014. I was self-taught for the first two years of my guitar-playing journey. I learned through Rocksmith which was a surprisingly good resource for getting started. I say surprisingly loosly because it is literally designed to be used as a learning tool but it is also a video game.

School of Rock

I started taking lessons at School of Rock in 2016, and my first show was Cheap Trick and Aerosmith. The program handled the booking of shows, song selection, and gear. It was a great way to get into performing and allowed me to connect with other music-minded individuals. I then went on to perform in a variety of other shows like Glam Rock, Led Zeppelin, Riot Fest, The Who, The Beatles, British Invasion, Pink Floyd, and Rush. I also joined the House Band which was a more experienced group of musicians that played shows a few times a month.

The setlists were so varied I can hardly remember half of the songs we played, but it was an incredible introduction to music of the past and present and allowed me to discover other bands through my friends there. With professional teachers I learned quickly and even played at places like Summerfest in Milwaukee.

High School

High School was a change as it always is and I was extremely excited to look into our school's Rock Band. It is a rare opportunity that very few schools offer and fewer promote as much as ours. Our Rock Band was the premiere band at the school and also had the benefit of getting some solid funding for performances. We played at masses, plays, sporting events like basketball and volleyball games, and even had our own performances. It was very well integrated in the school and it showed. During my freshman year I applied to be in the Rock Band which was an uncommon thing to do as the band is often reserved for upperclassmen. However, I stubbornly applied and was able to impress the band director enough to get a spot as the first freshman to make it into the band. I made an immediate impact and my previous experience showed, as I was able to secure lead parts for most of the songs. It was a great way to meet some upperclassmen that I would otherwise rarely interact with and bring my passion with me to my school. My freshman year of high school was also the year I decided to pick up programming - a hobby that would eventually overshadow but far from extinguish my interest in playing guitar.

I continued to play in the Rock Band throughout high school where I picked up some serious experience that led to me taking on a leadership role in the band. I started creating setlists and organizing rehearsals, but tried my best to maintain the scope of my role and stay humble - a difficult task for a high school guitarist. Both my Freshman and Junior years of high school
we even played at Disney World and Universal Studios. I still need to find the video of me playing a guitar solo at night on the Disney Springs Waterside Stage with the Hard Rock Cafe Volcano erupting in the background.

Programming

The Beginning (Again)

My programming journey started through two pivotal experiences. First, I was enrolled in a mandatory technology literacy class in my High School that assigned a project of programming a game in Scratch as a sort of final project. Being the zealous teen that I was, I decided that I was going to be cooler than everyone else and write the game in Python instead of Scratch. I used the Pygame framework to create the first example app that made it hard to understand how the framework worked. It was the most disgusting code I have ever written, but it worked, and that game had me hooked. It was difficult but was the canon event that all programmers experience defined by frustration and an intense sense of accomplishment at it's completion. As you can tell by now I tend to get obsessed with my interests and programming was no different. I started learning on my own and building crappy apps, playing with [Raspberry Pis] and tinkering in general, bringing me to my next pivotal experience. Covid-19 shut down my school in the late months of 2019 allowing me plenty of time to do whatever the hell I wanted. Although Covid was a tragic time for many people with families experiencing loss of grandparents, parents, and time spent together, it was an incredible opportunity for me to hone my craft. I would play guitar for hours and then do some programming. This is when I decided to build my own PC. Everyone and their mom decided to build a desktop around that time due to all the remote work, but I somehow got in early enough to maintain some of the funds in my piggy bank.

Around my Sophomore year of high school I switched to Linux where I started with Ubuntu. I distro-hopped for a while experimenting with Arch, Manjaro, and OpenSuse. I eventually settled on Manjaro for a while because I was not savvy enough to manage my operating system but arrogant (insecure?) enough to need something to brag about. Yes I know it isn't the same as Arch. This continued as I messed around with Raspberry Pis and learned the command line. I believe that my switch to Linux solidified my interest in programming and provided me with an environment that made programming enjoyable and fun.

I started taking programming classes in my High School where I exceled due to my existing experience and even worked for our school's IT help desk where I assisted other students in diagnosing issues with their laptops. This also earned me some fancy-schmancy administrator priviledges that let me install programming software and music-related tools like Axe-Edit on my school laptop. There were definitely some days where I paid far more attention to a program I was writing than whatever class I was in.

Other Interests

Whenever Wintertime rolls around I have my annual desire to become an X-Games level snowboarder. I started my winter sports journey as a skiier where became the fastest moving object/toddler on the mountain (Pizza is for losers). Eventually, I decided to give snowboarding a try. I have never looked back and still love taking a few days during the winter to hit the local hills or even take a trip out west.

I have been playing soccer since I was almost 4 years old. I played park district soccer, then club, and for my high school team as well. Although it was never my primary interest, it became a hell of a lot more fun when I started lifting weights, another hobby of mine. Not to say I am that muscular, but soccer players tend to have a very lean build that does not lend well to a 180 lb aggressive high-schooler. When I was younger I was not the biggest fan of soccer but I am glad I stayed involved as it kept me in shape and gives me a fun activity at University with Intramural Soccer.