Getting His Ideas Across

It's all a far cry from when, as a twenty-something untrained, illiterate musical novice armed with his first instrument - a bass guitar bought only a few years earlier when he was eighteen -- he began to play in a band with the late Dick Buckley. 'That's how I started playing jazz', says Guilfoyle. 'but I was playing completely by ear, always hoping not to be unmasked for the imposter I was. Because I didn't know anything, I was playing these tunes and this music but I couldn't have explained to you the difference between major and minor.'

Like many Irish people, Guilfoyle received no musical instruction in primary school. Nor was music offered as a Leaving Certificate subject at his secondary school, where 'music appreciation' received a token monthly slot in the timetable. Even when his innate musicality finally compelled him to take up an instrument, Guilfoyle never considered enrolling in the Royal Irish Academy of Music or the (then) Dublin VEC College of Music.