##Hello! I'm happy you've decided to come by. I'm Contra, or Matt. I began this Twitch stream after some years away from the piano, and with this channel we have developed a strong and unique foundation for learning OUR way. My next goal for this community is the migration toward crypto currency. I want us all to have more wealth and freedom in life. I've played since I was 12. I won an international competition and had my orchestral debut at 16. I used to be very focused; I traveled all around the U.S. trying to find the best ideas and the best minds to talk about music with, living inside my car, being homeless, etc. whilst pursuing what was then my dream. I eventually got to perform all over the US, Sweden and Mexico, and was generally on my way. In 2004 I met my mentor and best friend, José Feghali. Incidentally, Jose won the Cliburn Competition in '85; essentially the largest piano competition in the world. While doing my Artist Diploma with him, we did a lot of cool and exciting projects, like pioneering the first HD streaming music classes between Julliard and TCU (before streaming was a thing) using one of the only Gigabit networks available to Universities at the time (In Abilene, Texas). In these first streams, the teacher would be, say, at Julliard or London and the student would be sending out 24-bit sound and HD video (compressed with Windows Media Encoder) from, say, Texas or out at the New World Symphony Hall. There were no programs that supported streaming this high amount of data throughput at the time, so we made a weekend out of it and cracked MS Conference XP to handle the necessary data throughput for our streams. Together, we produced and recorded dozens of albums. He taught me as a classical producer; my first solo-produced record of another classical artist got two Grammy nominations, thanks to Jose. 4 years ago, Jose killed himself, and I just...stopped. I couldn't do it anymore. I left my piano at a friend's for storage and walked away. I've spent most of my time since then homeless and on couches, while trying to find work in a different career. ANY different career. Genetics, Microbiology, Nutrition, Embedded Design and Electrical Engineering, Nutrigenomics, Botany, Mycology, etc. Music is starting to work its way back into my life, and I am discovering new approaches and ideas. I feel a budding excitement. I logged into my Soundcloud after leaving it for those 4 years and found that my recordings had broken 100,000 listens while they were just sitting there, without me. This surprised me. I followed my favorite game designer and programmer, Jonathan Blow, on Twitch, and realized that streaming might be in the spirit of those first masterclasses that Jose and I set up, years ago. I saw that Twitch could possibly honor the work I did with him and allow me to both remain reclusive to privately explore music my way and also to share those things with a community. So, when my dear friend Misty offered me a large enough room to pull my piano out of storage and set it up, I accepted. So here we are. I look forward to chatting with you. :)

I want to keep my stream ad free and as decentralized as possible. Therefore, the only ways to support the stream now are: Using Crypto currency (best; see Crypto panel), [Streamlabs](https://streamlabs.com/contracrostics), or [Ko-Fi](https://ko-fi.com/contracrostics).

The best way to support me is through crypto. If you are new to crypto or have questions, please don't hesitate to ask! $IMP token is my preferred currency (BSC network). After that, it is MATIC (Polygon network). Bitcoin can be sent to the wallet address in the UPC code, and most other tokens (ERC20, Binance Smart Chain, Polygon, etc) can be sent to my Metamask wallet: 0xED6EB937fa5FB378F90D421EB9E60762d7d7724c

Please visit those of my fellow streamers who have given me and my stream huge amounts of support and encouragement! ##[Openset](https://twitch.tv/Openset) ##[Kakolukia_](https://www.twitch.tv/kakolukia_) ##[Egglyberts](https://www.twitch.tv/Egglyberts) ##[CA_in_LA](https://www.twitch.tv/CA_in_LA)

#[The Renaissance Project](https://drive.google.com/file/d/12TUL4oA886CBjCbg7p4i4-5ACau0nfMm/view?usp=sharing) ###This stream has goals for 2021, and these goals are split into 3 phases. The completion of each phase will mark a dramatic improvement to the stream, and by the end of phase 3, the stream will have comparable sound to the highest end studios. View the summary for this project [here](https://drive.google.com/file/d/12TUL4oA886CBjCbg7p4i4-5ACau0nfMm/view?usp=sharing), and the living document [here](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1H5de5ZQmyk-2EiRglbtpkBqGCfuaJk9t/view?usp=sharing) (Sheet tabs for each phase are located at the bottom of the document. As of October 2021 Phase Two is basically complete! And I need to update the living document because it's out of date, currently). #Phase 1 ***COMPLETE!!*** #Phase 2 ***COMPLETE!!*** #Phase 3 ***TBA***

No hard and fast rules here, but I do not generally take requests. I will mostly be studying classical music, with some at-will forays into other genres and computer composition. I'd love to talk about your music with you and help out with whatever you are studying (HINT: The best way to get me to play something for you is to study it yourself ;). That said, I'm interested in cool arrangements of game music and I'm very interested lately in some EDM (Shpongle, Infected Mushroom). I will not be shy about tackling new things, and neither should you!

##...study all the things ##...talk about health, genetics and nutrition ##...talk about crypto ##...talk about cognition, AI and emergent systems ##...talk about/play puzzle games (The Witness, anyone?) ##...talk about Sci-Fi (Asimov or Clarke, anyone?) ##...do research ##...have respectful debate ##...alter consciousness ;)

...be hateful. ...be bigoted. ...be insincere.

###Q: What kind of piano is that? A It's a Steinway Concert Grand, built in New York, 1894. That's not a typo, it really is 125 years old. According to Steinway, there are only 3 still 'alive' from this production, which was a 2-year 'proto' period for what became the standard 9-foot model today. ###Q: Do you teach? A: I taught for 10 years until I quit music 4 years ago. I almost never give in-person lessons now but I teach occasionally using Discord. Contact me if interested in booking any focused, solo lesson time, and do note that I'll include 1 free lesson (or consultation) per month to anyone who subscribes at the $25 level. ###Q: Do you take requests? A: I will entertain ideas. The best way to get your request played is to be studying a piece yourself. One of my favorite things to do is study music alongside others. Otherwise, I want to stick to music that challenges me and poses interesting problems that lend to good discussion. ###Q: Who tunes your piano? A: I do. ###Q: What kind of mic are you using? A: Currently two Earthworks QTC1 omnis and a Shure SM7B for voice. ###Q: Do you collaborate on projects? A: Almost never. ###Q: HAY STRIMMER PLAY MY SONG! A: nownownow?