Thomas Roberts' audition on drums for the 2014 Grammy Band. The song is entitled "Billies Bounce". Thomas is a 15 year old Sophomore attending Bozeman Public High School in Bozeman, MT. Drums: Thomas Roberts Piano: Ann Tappan Bass: Craig Hall
Thomas Roberts' audition on drums for the 2014 Grammy Band. The song is entitled "Softly as in a Morning Sunrise".
Natural Rhythm
Interview
It would be hard for anyone watching Thomas Roberts play to tell that drums were an instrument he disliked for many years.
Thomas is gifted with a natural ear for music and rhythm, but a bit handicapped when it comes to reading it. He started playing the piano in second grade and for 5 years he could play almost anything he heard. His teacher stopped teaching him and told him to learn to read music. Three years ago, a series of events brought Thomas to Bozeman where his brother’s drum teacher noticed Thomas’ ear for rhythm and gave him a lesson.
Thomas hated it.
Fortunately he gave it another shot a few months later. Things happened fast for Thomas. He started studying drums with Michael Blessing. He says he was dropped into playing gigs very quickly. He often didn’t know the style and had to fake it. He learned everything on the fly, there was no time to think, just to improvise.
He says is was a great learning experience and opened his eyes to a musical world outside of Bozeman. He did however pick up what he calls a few bad habits. He is still learning to read music properly and expanding his knowledge to other percussion instruments.
Thomas has taken his musical education quite seriously. He wakes at 5:45 am so he can get to his 0 period class, but first he does 15 minutes of rudiments, or basic percussion technique before class to warm up his hands for the day. He admittedly has an easy class schedule after that and can fit in an hour of practice in-between classes at school. After he goes home, he spends 2-4 hours of practicing at home to build muscle memory.
Listening to music, all kinds of music is very important to the development of his musical ear. He listens to a lot of Gospel, Hip Hop, Fusion and Latin music to help learn drum styles and work an becoming a well rounded musician. Thomas spends a lot of time transcribing solos and listening to other musicians play pieces he is working on. He has gone back to the piano and is re-learning to read and play properly this time. Learning to play the bass has crossed his mind, but for now he’s sticking to learning the piano and percussion.
Aside from an immaculately curated Facebook page on jazz history and musicians, he has built a network of internationally known musicians and instructors to mentor him. He claims that mother and step-father as artists wanted him to have a social media presence for his art. He says his facebook page is a way for the people he meets at camps and so on to find him and connect and it is important to him that he presence be professional.
He credits fellow sophomore musician, trumpet player Luca Rodoni for helping him learn about the business of music and establishing a work ethic. They both play with the Bozeman Youth Jazz Ensemble, a quintet directed by Craig Hall including saxophonist Will Brown, bass player Colleen Schmidt, and keyboardist Ryan Garnsey. They also spend a lot of time preparing for and auditioning for national youth bands and camps.
They met at Camp Epic here in Bozeman in 8th grade. Thomas says he didn’t realize opportunities that were available to him at the time, but he came away with a great appreciation of music and a hunger for more. He started practicing and gaining awareness of a future in music.
He has attended the prestigious Stanford Jazz workshop where he met and worked with Tia Fuller, a musician and instructor for Beyoncé as well as Columbian percussionist Tupac Mantilla. He is currently working on auditions for the Next Generation Jazz Orchestra in LA, the Grammy Band and several other camps and bands in the LA and San Francisco areas. He is also working on achieving sponsorships from Imperial Cymbals and Supernatural Cymbals.
Future goals for Thomas include staying in jazz as much as possible, but he would like to work as a studio drummer for recording artists like Jay Z or Beyoncé and hopefully get picked up a band to tour. Eventually he would like to settle into teaching music at a university or college. In the meantime, he hopes to transfer to Los Angles County High school for the Arts for senior year, and wants to attend The New School for college.
There is more to life than music for Thomas. He is an avid rock climber when he is not playing.