About Santos Garcia
Always searching for inspiration, Santos continues to study the great music of the past while finding new music through friends, family, radio and Internet. Santos grew up in small town West Texas surrounded by cotton fields and grazing cattle. With large open spaces, Santos began to grow a large imagination and turned to the piano and guitar to express his creativity.
At 12 years old Santos's music career began with middle school band. Having received a guitar and keyboard the previous Christmas, Santos would go on to learn the trombone, guitar and piano simultaneously. While learning how to play trombone and to read music at school, Santos would go home and teach himself guitar and piano with the same music. The first award Santos received was first chair all district as a freshman in high school on the tuba. As a lover of rock 'n' roll and guitar driven music, he started a band in high school and performed at local fundraisers and celebrations including his own graduation. In high school Santos played football, basketball and was a part of auto club, choir and marching band, however none of his other hobbies matched his passion for music.
After high school Santos went to work in the oil fields of West Texas. It was in those years of hard work where Santos became inspired to study engineering and piano. Santos chose his favorite university, Texas Tech University, to study engineering and take piano lessons. This was Santos's first time to take lessons after teaching himself classical pieces by ear, pieces by Chopin, Beethoven and Debussy. Finally Santos was learning about posture, hand positioning and different ways to sight read. Santos took lessons from William Westney (Chairman) and other graduate students at Texas Tech. William Westney's teacher was a Russian master who was taught by Chopin himself. For a project at school, Santos arranged Texas Tech's Alma Mater for piano. This arrangement can be heard on the phone systems for the alumni center. Santos is currently playing around Houston in a band that plays his original music and jazz.
Santos believes in teaching his students inspiration. Having spent his life following so many hobbies, he has found a way to integrate finding inspiration into his music lessons.
