Follow your heart.
As far back as I can remember all I ever wanted to do was play the drums. To me the world was a drum set. I played on everything, and I mean everything. When I was a kid it actually got me into some trouble. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve never done jail time or anything, it was just an annoyance. My dad would yell, “Bart! Stop playing the table!” or “Quit pounding on everything!” I must have had a million pairs of sticks taken away by teachers and school bus drivers. But none of that ever stopped me, “You can take my sticks but you can’t cut off my fingers” I would think to myself; and the tapping has continued to this day.
It’s been 45 years since I first picked up a pair of sticks and I still find it as challenging and fun today as I did when I was 5 years old. Somewhere along the line I went from the annoying kid who was tapping on everything, bugging the hell out of people to an “entertainer.” Drumming has taken me all over the world. I’ve stayed in some of the nicest hotels and casinos money can buy and I’ve been to war zones, literally I’ve played in war zones. And you know what? I’ve loved every minute of it.
Drumming has also given me is the opportunity to become a music educator. I love teaching music. Seeing the desire to play and create music in a young person’s eyes at their first lesson is magical. I also love seeing adult students who have always wanted to play start playing. That old saying, “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks” is a bunch of crap! It’s never too late to start learning and trying new things. I have students that range in age from the age of 4 years old and to 85 years young. Watching people go from not knowing anything about music to setting and achieving goals is amazing to me.
If you want to play, you can play. If you feel a calling inside yourself to play music like I did follow it, nurture it and blow some love into it. If you do that it will come back to you a million times over, I promise!
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