We recently connected with Aidan Smith and have shared our conversation below.

Aidan, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Are you happier as a creative? Do you sometimes think about what it would be like to just have a regular job? Can you talk to us about how you think through these emotions?

I think that my final semester studying percussion performance in college was the first moment that I had had serious doubts about my creative abilities and about my future, and in the year since I graduated, I’ve been returning to these thoughts often. I think this sentiment grew out of having to take extra time to finish my degree and saying “I need to just graduate already!” in the last stretch, not having a structured plan once I was able to get there, and persistent issues with not being intrinsically motivated to create and make progress towards my goals. To me, it almost felt like the road I had been traveling since elementary school had come up to a vast abyss, and at some point I had lost the original vision for why I wanted to study music in the first place, which really was terrifying!
I believe that I have found many answers through the communities in which I’ve had the honor to be surrounded by, particularly in my freelance work throughout the valley; being able to talk to concertgoers after performances and seeing how my contributions create positive emotional responses has reaffirmed my passion for percussion and the arts. To make a visible difference in the lives of people in my community is the “why” that I strive to make music for every day, and I think it more than proves the importance of my craft and being in the world even when my mind tries to state that I am not worthy of it. While I have many interests outside of musicmaking and have worked many “regular” jobs to support my finances throughout this journey, I have continuously felt that no other career would feed the fire which I have built for myself over the past 15 years and counting.

Aidan, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My name is Aidan Smith, and I am a percussionist and drummer currently working throughout the Salt Lake area as a freelancer and teacher, including a principal percussion position with the Salt Lake Symphony, a community-driven orchestra that aims to create inspiring and accessible performances for the greater valley. I got into this craft through a close family friend who suggested I make the most of my innate sense of rhythm, and it’s taken me throughout my schooling, across continents, and to international convention competitions. I’ve had the opportunity to work with a broad variety of ensembles and have experience in the styles and performance of orchestral, choral, opera, wind ensemble, jazz, musical theatre, and chamber percussion, to list a few!

I place great value in creating inclusive communities through music, including working alongside youth groups and classes as an instructor and inviting university students to participate in side-by-side performances with the symphony, and I believe that this reflects a cooperative, compassionate, and driven personality that I possess in every opportunity to create. Currently, my goals are to continue to inspire audiences through my music and expand my presence in gig work and social media presence throughout the coming year.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

There are so many books that have helped me obtain my goals and get my creativity going that it’d be impossible to list them all, but one that sticks out in particular is Hermann Hesse’s 1922 novel “Siddhartha”! It’s a book I re-read every year and find new inspirations from, and I’m confident that the novel’s theme of experience as an impetus to understanding the world and enlightenment is crucial to my creative process and approach to every gig I’ve undertaken. Working on broadening my scope in all scopes of life — studying history, eating new cuisine, watching theater performance, learning Spanish and Japanese here and there, just to list a few — has directly influenced and improved the methods in which I practice, learn, and develop myself as a drummer and percussionist, and I believe it’s a great takeaway that all entrepreneurs can use in their story. The world is so wide, so beautiful, and has so many lessons we can take from it as our careers develop!

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

One method to improve the presence of arts in our societies would be to create more public spaces, equipment capabilities for performances, and working alongside local organizations to promote public interest in the arts. While it’s definitely a privilege to be able to dedicate a career to the arts, I believe that it’s still important that we can work alongside our communities to ensure that musicians and artists can survive in their craft and remain an important part of society. I’ve dealt with these issues often working in music, as space and money can quickly become an issue with larger groups, and having more cooperation between both creative and non-creative organizations could greatly help with fostering cultural heritage in our modern world. (In my area of percussion, the collaboration between the Percussive Arts Society non-profit and the City of Indianapolis has been extremely beneficial to the growth and recognition of the percussion community for many years now, so I think this idea is viable!)

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.aidansmithdrums.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/asumisens
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aidan-smith-a16545194/
• Other: if you’d let me shout-out my symphony, their website is here! https://saltlakesymphony.org/

Image Credits

header image: Chris @ Utah Headshots