The day the music died

Long ago (it feels like a lifetime), I considered myself a musician. I had dreams of becoming an orchestral percussionist with a major symphony. I worked hard, practiced my excerpts, and spent hours in the practice room. The summer prior to my senior year at Florida State University, I stood in a practice room playing my marimba. Next door I could hear one of my fellow percussionists pounding out the xylophone part to Gershwin's Porgy and Bess. I stopped playing and listened to him practice the part over and over; slowing it down and picking out each note, striving for absolute perfection. He continued to play the same few measures over and over and frankly it started to get on my nerves. It was at that moment I realized that I would never be a professional musician. I simply could not be that person obsessively practicing the orchestral excerpt, removed from the rest of the music.

A few days later, I told my instructor that I would not be auditioning for graduate performance programs and would instead pursue a career in arts administration. I finished out my senior year of college earning a Bachelors in Percussion Performance, hoping that I would be able to find a job doing something in the arts world. I put away my mallets and instruments and didn't touch them for 8 years.

Today and I am in a nursing career that I love. (I'll save the story of how I got into nursing for another day!) Though recently I have felt like something was missing from my life. That thing that is missing is music. I have decided to welcome music back into my life and have done so with gusto. I have joined a local community band and will start playing with them in August. I have pulled out my mallets and snare drum and have started practicing once again. Most significantly, I am having a 5 octave rosewood marimba custom-made for me. It will be a few months until it is ready, but I have already stated planning what music I will play once it arrives.

Perhaps 8 years was too long to be away from performing, or perhaps it was just what I needed. I can't really say. All I know is that music is once again enriching my life and I really believe it's here to stay.