Juul Meffert

Juul's Musical Background

Music has always been a big part of my life. I started playing accordion when I was nine years old and found that I had a real knack for it. I soon joined a large accordion orchestra in my home town Beerta (a tiny village in the north east of the Netherlands) and enjoyed playing in this group for many years.

My parents also wanted me to play the piano and started me on lessons in a neighboring village. This did not work out at all. My teacher and I had very different ideas about music: I wanted to play the boogie-woogie, he only allowed me to play nocturnes and other classical music pieces. He told me that boogie-woogies would destroy my fingering and that was the end of that. Music needs to come from the heart.

At one point my parents got an Electric Organ and that turned out to be much more my thing. My parents were always very invested in my musical development and made sure I was properly schooled on this instrument as well. Around my sixteenth birthday I joined a band (The Rodys) and started playing clarion in our local drum band.

After finishing school, I joined the Navy in the guided weapon systems department. Everyone who played an instrument was automatically enlisted to the ship band. As part of the band, we basically toured the whole wide world and performed in places such as Norfolk USA, Odessa, Tolio and Gibraltar which was a great experience.

I regularly changed ships during my time at the Navy and joined the band every time. Often the keyboardist position was already taken, in which case I would try out a different instrument. This allowed me to add bass guitar and saxophone to the list. But, whenever I could, I would go back to my first love, the accordion.

At one point we were stationed for a long time at Curaçao, where we would often play music on the beach. One night, almost 50 years ago, I was playing music with some of my crew mates when a number of ladies joined our group to listen to the music. One of those ladies later became my wife to whom I am still happily married.

After eight years in the Navy, I moved back to the mainland to work as an electrotechnician, but my love for music always stayed. Next to my day job I played in a band called The Rio’s at weddings and parties. I also volunteered to play accordion in nursing homes and accompanied Dutch folk choirs together with a friend, which I still do on occasion (unfortunately, my friend recently passed away after 30 years of playing the accordion together).

Now that I am a bit older, the on-stage performances have become less frequent. I do still accompany one Dutch folk choir for men and record background music for singers and choirs who do not have the luxury of professional musicians. I used to record songs using the MIDI format but have recently switched to MP3 as this is much easier to play from a telephone.

I have a lot more time to devote to my music now that I am retired. I practice at least an hour a day on my accordions and record a lot of German and Dutch folk music. I also still enjoy the boogie-woogie. I record my music on the Tyros 5 and Roland FR7. I am trying to covert my old midi files in to styles with Style Works2000, but is not an easy process. In any case, over the years, I have produced a ton of MP3 and MIDI Songs and the pile keeps on growing. I would love to share these songs with you all via this website. I will also try to share some of my best midi songs from the past.