Oct. 28--Mark Wood started building his first electric violin at age 10. A Port Washington fourth-grader at the time, he had no thought of making a career out of his invention, not even after he received a full scholarship to Juilliard and studied under Leonard Bernstein at Tanglewood. But upon returning to school after that summer, Wood recalls, "It occurred to me that playing Bach on viola wasn't what I wanted to do with the rest of my life."

Long Island gets a chance to see and hear what he wants to do with his life now -- in his late 40s -- with the Mark Wood Experience concert Sunday at Dix Hills Performing Arts Center.

GROWING UP CLASSICAL.Wood's mom was a musician and her sons formed an all-brother string quartet. He still lives in Port Washington, where Wood's son Elijah, 13, "goes to my old schools." His wife, Laura Kaye, sings with her husband's band and on his recordings, including a DVD of the WLIW/21 special aired in August.

"We met when she was dating my bass player," Wood says. He has a new bass player these days.

STRINGED INVENTOR.

Beyond his family, Wood's passion is his invention -- a full line of electric stringed instruments (available as Sam Ash and other music stores) -- and his music, which is decidedly not Bach (not even P.D.Q. Wood's violin straps on -- no hands required to hold it to his chin). Without the bow, it looks as though he's donned a straight-arm prosthetic. The Viper, as he calls it, resembles a miniature Stealth fighter bomber. "I created it," says Wood, "to accommodate the music I heard in my head."

PINK LED.The music, much of it written or arranged by Wood, sounds like his heroes when he was a teen -- Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin. His career began paying off when he became an original member of the pyrotecic Trans-Siberian Orchestra, which mixes pop and classical influences into a rocking symphony.

The Mark Wood Experience is a heavy strings band -- heavy metal with classical and country licks ("Vivaldi Rocks," "Hoedown"). "When you play violin," says Wood, "people think of two things: classical or fiddling. I want to change that -- to revolutionize the violin the way Jimi Hendrix revolutionized the guitar," Wood says. "The Jimi Hendrix Experience." Hence, the Mark Wood Experience.

What The Mark Wood Experience in concert

When -- Where 7 p.m. Sunday at the Dix Hills Performing Arts Center, Five Towns College, 305 N. Service Rd., Dix Hills

Info $30, dhpac.org, 631-656-2148, more on CDs and Mark Wood's instruments at mark woodmusic.com

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