Choosing My Adventure in the World of Music

The Podcasting Store
3 min readAug 23, 2024

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By Drew Holmes

“You lean down and pick up the silvery item. You grab it and, to your amazement, IT GRABS YOU BACK!”

Sam, age 6, was wide eyed with wonder. We were reading The Badlands of Hark, a Gamebook by R.L. Stein in the vein of the Choose Your Own Adventure stories that enthralled me at his age. The story is an exciting sci-fi/fantasy with strange creatures and dangerous pitfalls around every corner.

This time the choice Sam made caused a hidden enemy to attack and now he needed to decide what to do. The rules of the book were clear — there is only one correct path to navigate the story and any wrong choice would end in disaster, not treasure.

As we read and reread the story, altering our choices and taking different paths, it reminded me of my journey to where I am today.

I started college not quite knowing what I wanted to do. I took classes in various subjects, but always ended up coming back to music. The resistance to choosing music was easy to understand — I had no desire to be a professional performer — but finding an alternate path in music was elusive.

Then, as a sophomore, I interned in the Philadelphia Orchestra library where I learned about the hidden world of music publishers and distributors. That choice opened a whole new set of possibilities I had not known existed. That summer in Philadelphia led to an internship at Tanglewood, summer home of the Boston Symphony, the following year and eventually writing a senior honors thesis on the topic of orchestra librarianships as part of my college degree.

After graduation I was hired as Librarian for the Brooklyn Philharmonic, which led to being named the Principal Librarian for the Naples (FL) Philharmonic. After a couple of seasons there I attracted the attention of Educational Music Service, a global sheet music distributor, who offered me a job even though they didn’t have an opening. There I further honed my existing skills and added the basics of business and logistics.

Leaving EMS for Long Island, I found employment in a completely different part of the industry — a small family-owned music store. There my eyes were opened to the ways retailers bridge the gap between manufacturers and musicians and how a strong relationship with both groups can help bring music to the community.

Relocating to Fort Collins, CO, I now own my own music store, a job I jokingly say is the only one that uses just about everything I have ever learned.

We arrive at the end of the story as Sam nervously makes his final choice. We confront the dragon guarding the treasure and it bites into us, seemingly another defeat. But then something unexpected happens. As it turns out, the creature that attacked us at the beginning of the book injected us with venom that is toxic to the dragon. It perishes and the treasure is ours! Through trial and error (mostly error) we managed to solve the book and successfully reach the end.

The path to owning a music store was not easy or obvious. Each choice eliminated some options but opened so many more, most of which I could never have dreamed of. I have not pursued performing as my primary job but, when time allows, I still play my trumpet. If you know where to look, there are so many fun and exciting ways to be involved in music beyond the stage. And, unlike The Badlands of Hark, there are infinite ways to a happy ending.

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The Podcasting Store
The Podcasting Store

Written by The Podcasting Store

Music retail can be a fascinating business, with lessons learned not just about performing but also about business, mindset, and sales.