Uncle Hugo

Hey Folks,

Uncle Hugo, (Pia’s fathers brother) is an extraordinary man. In many ways he has been a mentor for me. He is absolutely a Renaissance man.  While in his youth he was an athlete and won Gold, Silver and Bronze medals in track at the 1951 Pan American Olympics. As an artist, his paintings earned him an exhibit at the San Francisco Art Festival. As a psychologist, he was schooled at New York’s Bellevue School of Medicine, and as a philosopher he spent a week at a Buddhist monastery in Shasta. During World War II, he took a month off of work to teach himself electronics and passed the Navy’s Radar program entrance exam with flying colors.

 

In 1957 he moved to Brentwood California, a sleepy little town with virtually no medical community. He worked alongside two other Doctors who treated a plethora of ailments. He worked this position for over 50 years and kept hand written records on everything. It’s estimated that he has delivered thousands and thousands of babies!

Check out this link to Vai.com for a bit on Uncle Hugo.

I don’t believe I have ever known anyone with such a zest for life and learning.  He even owns a patent for a simplified system of music that clarifies the half-step progression represented by the black and white keys on a piano.

 

Uncle Hugo shared his new type of notation with me and I wanted to show examples of it here. It’s ideal for learning to play a piece of music relatively quickly, enjoy.


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And here is Uncle Hugo’s original filing papers and a few more examples of notated music in PDF format (15 Mb). 

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