Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Trevor Gabriel. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Hi Trevor, thanks for joining us today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.
From a young age, I’ve always possessed the desire to learn when it came to music; not just how to play instrumentally, but how to approach demonstrating and explaining its fundamentals to others who’ve shown interest in learning its vast nature. I must attribute my primary and deepest knowledge of musical concepts and theory, though, to growing up with musical roots based in the church, as well as the internet; specifically YouTube and Google. Growing up watching my older brother and others play the drums, piano and sing in church, allowed me to develop “Suzuki method-like” skills and practices; watching, listening and replicating in a timely fashion from a young age. On the other hand, Youtube became a very essential tool in just the nick of time; I had taken an interest in playing instruments like the piano, trumpet and baritone, maybe a year or so before Youtube made its debut appearance on the internet, in 2005. Instruments like the aforementioned, inspired my desire to understand the fundamentals of musical notation; Youtube and Google became the perfect places to learn such knowledge in such short time. Knowing what I know now, I wish I would’ve expressed a deeper interest in having a mentor and being a mentee. I believe the skills I developed from playing music in church as well as in restaurants and venues growing up have not only been the most essential, but still is in my career today. As passionate as I am and have always been about composing and arranging music, I do feel as though it has ironically been the primary reason I have not yet fully invested my time and focus to learning any one instrument in particular.
Trevor, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I am a self-taught musician. I was born and raised in New York City. I not only serve as Founder & Program-Director for my performing arts program, A.I.M. Enrichment Center. I also serve Winston-Salem NC and surrounding areas as a full-time musician, singer-songwriter, music producer & director-mentor; teaching private piano, percussion and voice lessons. I enjoy working as a musician and producer for new or experienced artists, as well as a director; booking and performing at events with my live band or coordinating recitals for my students and mentors. Since the age of five, I’ve expressed a deep love for creating and performing music, sharing that same passion on stage with music artists such as Artimus Pyle of “Lynyrd Skynyrd”, Edwin McCain, Dorothy Norwood & Dominique ‘Doe’ Jones of “Forever Jones”. During my junior and senior years in high school, my passion for composing and arranging music took an evolutionary turn; motivating me to step out on faith and look for the members that would eventually make up my first live band, named “Level Won.” For about two years, our band would go on to record our very first single and perform in a variety of events, ranging from school talent shows to running competitions and fundraisers; this inevitably resulted in the beginning of my journey as a full-time gigging musician, sharing stages with the artists previously mentioned.
After graduating high school, I received opportunities to host music workshops within communities throughout the NC Triad area (from 2013-2017), I have since grown a passion for mentoring individuals in the Performing Arts. This increasingly-growing passion gave birth to my performing arts mentoring and development program, entitled “A.I.M. Enrichment Center.” The acronym came to me quite easily actually, I envisioned a place that consisted of resources and people I wish I had access to while growing up as a young artist. A.I.M. Enrichment currently provides a home to aspiring performing artists in NC and surrounding areas; mentoring students in piano, voice, percussion, guitar and more. However, our hope is to someday serve as home to aspiring visual artists as well! Aside from the goal of creating easier ways to access our content and mentors, the AIMEC organization takes pride in creating a safe and fun space to fight against the environmental hardships within minority communities, as well as in support for individuals with disabilities. With many youth and children in after school music lessons and programs, parents can worry less about delinquency. In addition, it is proven to parents on a daily basis that their child(ren) and/or youth can excel on any instrument with proper mentorship, despite the disability; studies have been shown for this to apply to individuals of older age with disabilities as well.
Though I have many moments that I am proud of, I believe the moment I am most proud of would currently have to be jamming on stage with my fifth grade piano mentee, his dad (the band director at my job) and another drum mentor at AIM Enrichment, during our feature stage at “Christmas for the City 2022.” It was so wholesome, my heart was complete!
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
I sometimes tell my students the story of my traumatic experience on drums when it applies in a particular lesson. As mentioned, I grew up watching my brother and others play music in church. Well, I eventually make my debut drumming in the same church. Now Harlem, NYC brought some of the best of the best musically to our church, so I had big shoes to fill and didn’t quite fill them well one Sunday morning; the main drummer was late though and I was the best the could get at that moment! Being a self taught drummer didn’t quite prepare for the fast tempos that drummers are required to play to in churches at that time; let’s just say, it was a struggle to keep up with the praise team and the rest of the band. Luckily for the music department, our main drummer came speed walking in from the back side door; last piece of egg sandwich exiting his fingertips in one hand, the usual coffee in the other, with a faint -yet noticeable- smell of cigarettes bombarding my nostrils. The rushing maestro swiftly makes his way around the drum shield to me, points at the sticks in my hands and says, “up, up!” With all eyes on me, I race over to the seat in the corner behind the congas, as maestro makes all the right rhythmic choices on the drum heads in the snap of a finger! It seemed as though what felt like the longest song of my life seemed to fly by as soon as maestro began drumming. It sounded so easy now but I felt so much embarrassment. I was happy he made it though I felt like I hated him! I even questioned if music was really for me at that point; yet, something in me shouted, “I wanna play like that!”
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
A very simple lesson I learned throughout my journey is that there is no “one way” to learn music; learn as much as you can from as many as you can. Growing up learning to play music mostly by listening, seeing and doing made me feel like sight reading notation was a thing of the past or from some ancient time; yet, I’d see all the cool people on t.v. with tuxedos reading notes on a paper to play. So when I first began learning the fundamentals, I became convinced that you must learn to read music to be considered a “true musician;” that is, until I watched a pianist realize mid-show that he didn’t have the piece he planned to play, so he didn’t play. I say learn both ways and go as deep as you can, to allow your musical language to be as fluent as possible when trying to create your own compositions and arrangements.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.astroentllc.com; www.aimenrichment.com; https://linktr.ee/myoozofficial
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/invites/contact/?i=1lob09v7jguvx&utm_content=1h73zby
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/trevor-gabriel-8270496b/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaIGbOQhgs2r6-A92Qs0eXA
- Other: http://voyageatl.com/interview/life-work-trevor-gabriel-winston-salem-north-carolina/
Image Credits
TayThaShoota; Stewart Knight