About Me #
Captain Martin Heumüller began his musical career in his hometown in Northern Bavaria, where he grew up in a rural setting at his parents’ electrical repair shop. At age 8, he began learning to play the flugelhorn so he could join the local trombone choir. He tried to coax pleasant sounds from the piano standing in his parents’ living room, but without expert guidance, he wasn’t quite able to succeed. So, even at such a young age, he asked his parents if there was any way he could learn to play the piano. A local piano teacher initially refused to take on a new student because of his age, but got to know Martin personally months later when Martin and his father were carrying the broken TV from the living room to the car. His spontaneous reaction was: “I’ll take him after all!!”
From then on, Martin took classical piano lessons from this friendly and passionate musician for nine years, learning the basics of music theory and harmony from him. With this expertise, he found it increasingly easier to understand the structure of rock piano grooves and pop ballads by well-known stars such as Elton John, Billy Joel, Phil Collins, Joe Cocker, and others, to reproduce them, and to interpret them in his own arrangements. He gained his first musical stage experience in his high school’s theater group and was himself surprised by the emotional reactions his passionate playing elicited from the audience. Spurred on by this, he earned the money to buy his first synthesizer by working for his father during summer break—using a hammer and chisel until his hands were blistered. It wasn’t long before he was the keyboardist and pianist in a local band; by the time he was taking his high school graduation exams, he had become a member of a more successful rock band with greater recognition and regular performances.
Next came his basic military service, followed immediately—after successfully passing the selection process—by training as a commercial pilot with a major German airline. This marked the end of his time in bands due to his move to a new location, and Martin began performing solo at parties, weddings, and piano bars, bringing with him a repertoire spanning several hours, featuring elaborate piano arrangements and passionate vocals.
Now working as a commercial pilot on scheduled flights, he increasingly combined the two passions of his life: flying and music. “Captain Piano” is now well known in many hotels, and when he and his crew arrive in the hotel lobby—much to the amazement of passengers who sometimes arrive at the same time—he is immediately asked to take the piano and perform a musical interlude. In 2019, he wrote the song “Let’s Get Together to Help the World” for an in-house children’s charity with his coworker and singer Marika Hinkey. The song was produced in collaboration with children from a charity project and renowned professional musicians, which further increased his profile and led to numerous performances at events around the world.
Music can be like a window to the soul, as he says, and open an emotional channel that reaches deep into people’s hearts and moves them. That is why music will always be a part of people’s lives and makes us a very special species—perhaps even more so than our intellectual intelligence and the resulting progress we’ve achieved, which, unfortunately, we also use to cause so much damage and unnecessary suffering in the world.
“Compassion, selfless love, a willingness to help, and music that gives you goosebumps and comes from the heart—all of this makes me believe that I will never lose hope that humanity is a force for good in the universe!!”
Martin Heumüller