My name is Andrew Wharton and I am a current student at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. I am studying Communications Media Production and am currently a junior. Communications interested me because I started playing guitar when I was eleven and always wanted to share my views and play style with others. Growing up while learning the guitar and different types of music was a great eye opener for me and my music taste. I grew up in a town called Upper St. Clair about 20 minutes south of Pittsburgh and have been there since I was one. My parents both have worked in the emergency field and are still currently working. My mom has been a nurse for different places and my dad a police officer in Upper St. Clair, currently the chief. My two older brothers and I have been volunteer firefighter since we were sixteen.
Seeing my family involving themselves in emergency services, I really looked up to doing these things and volunteering for my local fire department. I applied to join when I turned sixteen, since that was the minimum age of acceptance, and was accepted the following month. I was with The Upper St. Clair Volunteer Fire Department for two years and then went to college and joined the Indiana Fire Association. I joined there before the start of my freshman year at IUP so that I could be in the live-in program. The live-in program allowed me to live at the fire station for free while I responded to incidents and did weekly chores and checks around the station. I lived there for two years and now live in an apartment while still being a member of the IFA.
I have really been into music all of my life and definitely couldn’t live without it. When I started playing guitar I only was into the most iconic rock bands, like Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, Metallica, just to name a few, now I am interested in all sort of bands and different types of genres. Anything that can be played with a guitar I wanted to play. I got lessons and practiced mostly everyday. In high school I took up wrestling which led to me not to play my guitar as often and lose some interest. Once I got to college, I picked it back up and started playing again so that I didn’t lose some of the skills I was nearing to perfect. Now playing more and writing about and blogging about my passion, it will hopefully make me a better guitarist while also helping others play.
I have been in a couple of bands throughout the years and have been on stage at The Hard Rock Cafe in Station Square in Pittsburgh. I have posted YouTube videos of some of my performances and have posted small clips of me covering songs or playing solos of certain songs. These are the first few videos I have made public and shown other people what I can do. I want to further my channel by posting full covers of songs and even informative videos.