Bill Meredith (Guitar):

Bill Meredith grew up on a farm before television was invented, and in the evenings his father often played a guitar and sang Gospel and folk songs before bedtime. Bill learned to play chords and pick out melodies by ear on his father's guitar at the age of 6 or 7. After teaching biology at the Mount for five years, he found he had saved enough money to buy a Goya classical guitar in 1962, and taught himself to read music in a rudimentary fashion; in the mid-'80's, he studied classical guitar under Mark Cudek, then a teacher at the Mount and later director of the Baltimore Consort. A few months before the Mount Jazz band was formed, Bill's wife bought an electric guitar at a yard sale, and he used it when he joined the band. When it appeared to be more than a passing fancy, he got a better instrument, which he now plays in the rhythm section.

Gear Bill plays an Epiphone "Joe Pas" model hollow-body electric guitar. He also owns a Dauphin Model C classical guitar, and still has his father's old instrument (presently broken into two pieces, which he hopes to reassemble some day). Advice Aspiring guitarists should learn proper technique early, learn to count by playing with others, and marry into wealth.