 At age 11 he had outstripped his father's teaching capabilities for the violin and continued on to the advanced stages of training on his own, aided by the playing instructions in the British in the British magazine "The Strad".He played the violin frequently at concerts in Invercargill.In 1907 he passed the Royal Schools of Music Licentiate examination with such high marks that he was awarded a scholarship to study in London at the Royal Academy of Music, where he won the Hill Prize for violin, among other prizes.