Eddie Van Halen: The Best Life Advice I Have Ever Received
Eddie Van Halen passed away at 65 years old and now we remember the best advice of his life…
Edward Lodewijk Van Halen was born in Amsterdam The Netherlands on January 26, 1955. Eddie was the son of Jan and Eugenia Van Halen being Alexander, his older brother. Eddie's father was a clarinetist, saxophonist and pianist. His mother was an Indonesian from Rangkasbitung on the island of Java. Music has always been present in Eddie's life. His second name is a tribute to the great German composer Ludwig Van Beethoven. The spelling in Eddie's name is the Dutch equivalent of Ludwig. Interestingly, Eddie used the same approach as his father, when he named his son after the Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
At the age of 7, Eddie moved with his family to the USA, settling in Pasadena, California. However, even before this change, both Eddie and his brother Alex started to study the piano. His learning continued after the change. Moving again, now to San Pedro, they took classes with an elderly teacher named Stanley “Stasys” Kalvaitis. A curious fact about this is that they hated that and were forced by their mother to continue their classical piano studies, to avoid possible punishment. Eddie himself later revealed that he was never able to read music. He learned to play by watching and listening. “When I did recitals, I improvised” he said in an interview. By the age of 10, he had already won awards for musical performances, especially the annual piano competition at Long Beach City College, where the judges said he interpreted a classical piece in an interesting way, even though he was playing it correctly .
Eddie was not satisfied with the piano, as it did not appear to be a challenge or something he’d be so interested to do. While Alex, his older brother started to learn to play guitar, Eddie migrated to the drums, practicing for hours, every day. Later on, Eddie made the decision to change his instrument and began to learn to play the guitar, keeping it tied to his body and practicing while strolling or being locked in his room for hours.
He was always close to his family so no wonder in an interview when asked about the best advice he had ever received, Eddie revealed that it was one advice from his father.
On another occasion, Eddie went into more detail and shared the advice he gave to his son Wolfgang Van Halen:
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