Today we’d like to introduce you to Rosie Cerquone

Hi Rosie, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?

I grew up in Missoula, MT for my whole childhood. I was lucky to be born in a small city that really values music and the arts, so I was extremely active in primarily music programs (like school band, school choirs, and community choirs) but I was also part of plays and other community performance-centric events. In addition to my community having lots of opportunities for the arts, I was also lucky enough to have extremely supportive parents who paid for music lessons and encouraged me to explore any creative endeavor I thought was interesting–for me, that was mainly songwriting and recording music in Garageband.

When it came time to go to college, I ended up staying in Missoula to attend the University of Montana, where I studied Percussion Performance. Because it was a smaller state school program, percussionists were expected to be in basically as many ensembles as they could handle. So I played in wind ensemble, percussion ensemble, jazz band, jazz combo, all of our World music ensembles like Balinese Gamelan, Brazilian percussion, salsa band, and West African drumming, as well as preparing and performing in new music ensembles and my own solo recitals. Throughout college, I began to play and perform my own music, and started combing my singing and songwriting with my mallet percussion skillset.

Fast forward to today–through many twists and turns, I am now a full-time musician by piecing together private drum and percussion lessons, gigging as a vibraphonist-singer-songwriter for public and private events, presenting mallet-specific and music entrepreneurship clinics, and doing remote recording and writing projects for mallet percussion.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?

Ha! No. It has not been a smooth road. There have been so many things I have struggled with, and still struggled with. I graduated from college in May 2020, so obviously that was a difficult time to be “released” into the world after being in school for the past 12 years of my life. I think everyone can relate to how topsy-turvy life felt in that period of time.

But even if the Covid epidemic had not happened right as I graduated, I think I would have had many of the same problems. The first one that comes to mind is even though I love playing, writing, and performing music, I was so hyper-focused on it throughout college that I was understandably tired. But it felt scary to be tired of this thing I just got a degree in. It felt like now that I was in the “real world,” it had to be go time. So it was a lot of work to figure out how to let myself rest and recover from a very intense period of my life, while also continuing to push through and continue doing it.

To someone reading this, it might sound like I was burned-out, but it really didn’t feel like that. I still very much wanted to be working on music, and pursing a career as a performer. I just had to realize the pace I had initially thought I was going to accomplish things at was going to be slower.

It has also been a huge learning curve to figure out how to maintain a love for something I use to do as a hobby now as a job. One thing I feel like I had never heard professional musicians talk about is how different your relationship is to your instrument, to performing, to writing, to creating music in general when there is money attached to it. Specifically if you are somewhat broke and really counting on that money to make ends meet. It puts a kind of stress on your craft that doesn’t suck all of the fun out of it, but definitely doesn’t make it feel like the escape it use to feel like when I would sit in my room and play my instruments for hours after school. Music is no longer just for me; I am always promising a certain level of quality to someone else, whether it’s through a performance or a recording. Feeling like your creative practice always has to live up to a high-standard is very taxing. And if I’m being honest, there has been some grief involved realizing as long as I am a professional musician, there is a certain level of joy that will be much harder for me to access through my music.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?

My main creative work I do and am know for in very specific circles is combining singing, songwriting, and vibraphone! I loved singing and songwriting from a young age, but it was presented to me as something you did using either the guitar or piano. It wasn’t until late high-school when I was extremely invested in my school band program as a percussionist that I realized maybe I could try singing while playing mallet instruments. It wasn’t until part way through college where I started regularly trying to sing and play marimba and the same time, and I would post little 15-second song covers on Instagram. I found I loved making those videos, and people loved watching them, too. Eventually I tried singing and playing the vibraphone instead, and the instrument felt so much more natural to me for the kind of music and sounds I wanted to make.

I think what I am most proud of with my singing and playing is that I was never afraid of being seen as too different or breaking the norms of what a “real” percussionist should be playing. It’s a place where I can look back in my life and see true growth, and while there are other people singing and playing mallets my sound is all me, and I love that. It’s an area where there really aren’t any experts, so there is no pre-conceived idea of how I am suppose to do anything. I also am very proud of how many places I have had the chance to perform as a vibraphonist-singer. It’s very common for percussionists, besides drummers, to not get a chance to perform much unless they are part of a symphony. But I’ve worked extremely hard to make my own performance opportunities, and I play out in the world at least a few times a month. And then I get to teach people about what a vibraphone is!! It’s the best.

What matters most to you?

My relationships with my family, close friendships, my health, fostering joy, and new experiences are what matter most to me. As cool as being a professional musician is, my favorite roles are being a wife as of a few months ago, a daughter, a cat mom (some day a real Mom), and a sister. Those relationships, along with true, close-knit friendships, are the things that give me inspiration to do anything of value, truly. My health is also so important to me, because the more in-tune I am with my body, the more I am able to fully show up for myself and for others. Joy is a value for me that clarifies everything. If I am actively working on holding joy and fostering it for myself and others, then nothing seems too heavy to carry. And lastly, I need new experiences, because that is the spice of life to me. Whether it’s traveling somewhere new, trying a new workout class, learning a new skill, acquiring new experiences reminds me how much I don’t know, but how much I can know if I am willing to try and look around.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.rosiecq.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rosie.cq
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rosie.cq/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1WwcEukXz93B6JRFo_mCrg
• Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/1cmkEuTzTx52t235qX35Zc?si=NmroO8vsTNmfURwgq6Z7gg

Image Credits

Jaymie Belknap