“I was studying marketing but
my focus remained on music.”
Tray's parents bought him a piano when he was 5 years old after noticing his aptitude for picking out songs by ear on a toy keyboard. Tray began taking formal piano lessons and continued on-and-off for a few years, but lacked the patience to read music from a written page and primarily learned most of his songs by coming up with his own arrangements entirely by ear. Tray graduated from Texas Tech University in 1992 with a degree in Marketing, but his real focus remained on playing piano and singing both solo and with various bands through his college years.