Marcus Weeks was born and brought up in Hastings, on the sunny south coast of England. He started music lessons aged five, and picked up a trombone for the first time when he was eleven. His teenage years were spent avoiding school work and playing in various orchestras, brass bands and jazz groups, as well as some serious practice to master the trombone. He went to Sheffield University, where he studied music and philosophy, concentrating mainly on composition and 20th-century music, and was co-founder of the free-improvisation group AMG. For some years after university he worked as a teacher, still playing and composing whenever time would allow, and later studied musical instrument technology at the London College of Furniture, setting up business as a piano tuner and restorer in 1983. For the past ten years he has made his living as an author of all kinds of non-fiction books, but continues to play (mainly jazz) and compose. He lives and works in his home town of Hastings with his partner Ann, two goldfish, and a garden full of birds.
