The Surprising Sanity of Encouraging a 7-Year-Old to Play Drums

by Drew Holmes

“Timmy! Keep it down you’re too loud!” I shouted. My seven-year-old was assaulting his drum set while I attempted to make dinner, ears ringing so loud the only cogent thought I could form was to make it stop.

A lack of space necessitated the less-than-ideal kitchen adjacent location of the drums and our hopes that Tim would show restraint while playing were quickly dashed. His nightly solo sessions, heard in every corner of the house, were frustrating the whole family.

We considered putting away the drum kit altogether, since Tim is young to be playing and formal lessons are still on the horizon. Besides, what are the chances that he will become a serious percussionist? How much time and sanity are we willing to invest in this uncertain pursuit?

In college, I studied Music with a minor in Arts Administration. The coursework included economics, accounting, business writing, and fieldwork. To fulfill the fieldwork requirement, I interned at the Philadelphia Orchestra. There I was assigned to the orchestra’s library and worked under Clint Nieweg, one of the most knowledgeable and respected orchestra librarians in the world.

That summer I learned more about repertoire and the inner working of a major arts organization that I ever could in a classroom. Returning to school in the fall, I applied for a similar position with a different orchestra. My eyes had been opened to a world I did not know existed and I wanted to explore it further.

“Your resume is great,” I was told by my prospective boss, “and your experience is top notch. Are you planning to make this your career?”

“I’m not sure,” I responded, “I’m possibly considering something in arts management.”

“I’m sorry,” he curtly replied, “unless you plan to pursue this as a profession, I cannot offer you an internship.”

I was crushed. I was still in college, and this was an unpaid position. Wasn’t this time meant for exploration, for trying things and finding my path?

When I told Clint the news, he was sympathetic.

“That’s a short-sighted view,” he said. “So few people know what we do and why it matters. The more I can share what I know the better off we all are.”

That’s when it hit me. He was educating me without condition or expectation. He had opinions on my future, of course, telling me that if I pursued arts administration, it would be “a waste of a good librarian” but that did not slow the flow of information or his enthusiasm for sharing it.

Now retired, Clint has former interns (“students” as he always called us) working in top level music libraries across the country. He also has former interns working in unrelated fields, such as banking. For him, the outcome was never the point. The opportunity to learn and achieve was the purpose, regardless of how that education was used.

For a time, I did work as a professional orchestra librarian. As way leads on to way, that foundational experience made everything that came after possible, and to this day I still use what I learned that summer.

“Hey buddy,” I said to Timothy, “How would you like to move your drums to your bedroom?”

He gleefully agreed and we rearranged the furniture. From his room we can close some doors isolate the sound better than in the previous location. And if we still have a problem, perhaps an electronic kit is in his future.

Will Timmy become a drummer? In the end it does not matter. What matters is the opportunity to try, to learn, and experience all that music has to offer. Like Clint did for me, I will support and encourage him without condition or expectation and do what I can to help him achieve to the best of his ability.