Biography:
David A. Roby was born and raised in Orlando, Florida. He starting studying piano at age 5, and has since become a professional recording multi-instrumentalist. He is self-taught on mandolin, tenor banjo, fiddle, trumpet, guitar, bass, accordion, tin whistle, and bodhrán. David Roby is a member of the recording project Dance The Bridge with long-time friend Damon Gentry. Dance The Bridge has recorded two EP’s and one full-length LP available at http://invademyprivacy.com/blog/music/dance-the-bridge/ and iTunes. He also composes, performs, records, and produces music for Deep Space Tragedy, a comic/music project of artist and comic creator Mike Wagganer, which can be found at http://www.mikewagganer.com/.
David Roby earned his Bachelor of Arts in Music from the University of Central Florida. He graduated with honors in the major, with a minor in cultural anthropology. He also attended Austin Peay State University in Tennessee, and studied piano performance under Dr. Patricia Halbeck before transferring to UCF. His primary interests as an undergraduate were ethnomusicology, musicology, music theory and composition. His undergraduate honors thesis entitled, “Bastard Offspring: Heavy Metal, Hardcore Punk and Metalcore,” addressed cross-genre and culture in heavy metal and hardcore punk.
His current research interests are in crust punk, anarcho-punk, and activism. He is also interested in folk metal, specifically finnish folk metal and issues of genre, identity, ethnicity, and enactment. In addition he plans to continue to study the multiple genres and cross-genres of heavy metal, trying to stay current on metal trends and the latest artistic developments within the genre. He is also an avid composer, writing for a variety of instruments and musical genres. He arguably created the first dodecaphonic extreme metal, incorporating Schoenberg’s twelve-tone method into blackened death metal music. He plans on completing his master’s degree and seeking a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology or musicology, or performance studies, or cultural anthropology. His ultimate goal is to become a university professor.
