Born in the small town of Big Sandy, Texas, Karl Harmdierks (aka, Bladiator) came to learn music through the inate plunking of his father. At the age of five years, Blad's father taught him the basics of chordal harmony. From there, Blad eventually went on to take lessons for about 3 years (9-12 years old), until his teacher up and left town. He continued to putz around on the piano and had some fun trying to write music. Fast forward to college, where Karl told them he WAS going to be a musician. Amidst the chaos of six years in higher learning, he finally graduated, not as a pianist (though still a pretty durn good one), but as a composition major. Now Karl is scraping together a living as a freelance pianist/composer and loving every minute of it. He is a hero among love struck underage girls and desperate choir directors alike. Karl has won widespread international acclaim for his piano renditions of such famous video game soundtracks as Kirby's Dreamland and Chrono Trigger on ocremix.org. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.