We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jamie Papish. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jamie below.

Alright, Jamie thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

When I was a teenager, music was my passion. I went to concerts every week and all my social interactions revolved around music. I took guitar lessons as a child but never really worked at it and was never really encouraged. As a teen, I was a frustrated guitarist and eventually gave up. My dad was an accountant and always pushed my brother and I to have a profession. He believed that security was the most important thing and once you made a good living and supported your family, then you can do whatever else you wanted. I wasn’t a great student since all I wanted to do was listen to music and party. When college came around, I had no idea what to major in so I ended up following in my fathers footsteps. After graduating with a BA in Accounting, I started working for an Accounting firm. I immediately got extremely depressed and hated what I was doing. I literally thought I was going to be miserable for the rest of my life. As always, music was my muse and got me through some very difficult times. Around 4 years into my accounting career, I sought out some therapy and got to talking with a co-worker who developed a seminar called “The Personal Mastery Workshop”. This gave me a sense of self worth and that I was more than my career. Soon after that I visited my brother in LA and decided to move there from NY. Once in LA, I tried to switch careers from Accountancy to Real Estate Finance but I didn’t have enough background and fell back to Accounting. I eventually moved from being an accountant to a accounting software consultant. It was a bit more interesting but I knew it was still not my path. A few years into that job, I was invited to a drum circle in the desert and I found a connection to the drum. Soon after that in 1998 when I was 38, I decided I needed to play a musical instrument. It was either going to be drums or guitar. At a music festival in Seattle, I ended up coming across a Egyptian import booth and played a Middle Eastern drum called a Doumbek. I immediately fell in love with it and literally couldn’t put it down. When I got home, I put on Santana and played along. I didn’t know what I was doing. A few weeks after that there was a Middle Eastern concert in San Juan Capistrano where I saw how the Doumbek was played for the first time and fell in love with the sound. That same night, my wife got inspired to rekindle her belly dance career. A week later there was a drum instructor teaching Middle Eastern drumming basics at a Festival called Cairo Carnival. That class was the turning point. From then on I was obsessed with Middle Eastern drumming and the sound of the Doumbek. For the next 2 years I took lessons from a master player named Souhail Kaspar which gave me the sense that I could be a great drummer. Still a consultant at the time, I had to fly to different cities every week and would take my drum on the plane. Whenever I wasn’t working, I would find places to practice (at the clients offices after everyone left, at a park in freezing weather or between trucks parked at my hotel). I also fell in love with Middle Eastern music and got very involved in the Middle Eastern music and dance scene in LA.
Around this time I met a musician named Yuval Ron who played an instrument which is the precursor of the guitar called Oud, a round bodied 11 string fretless lute originating in the Middle East and one of the oldest instruments known to man. Yuval was a composer at the time and played the Oud as a hobby. We started jamming together at parties and he was then invited to play for a fundraiser for the 2nd Intifada (violence between Palestinians and Jews). This was one of the first real gigs I ever played and Yuval was determined to have the band sound good. I realized how much i didn’t know about being a drummer for a band and therefore worked very hard to prepare. The band struggled but the audience loved the music and gave us the encouragement to continue. After another 2 years of playing gigs with Yuval and becoming more confident as a musician, I came to a crossroads. I was only interested in being a drummer but my culture and background kept me in a career that I had no passion for. I realized I couldn’t go on like that and said to myself, my life isn’t worth living unless I can live my passion. With no plan, only a few gigs a month and no savings, I quit my accounting clients.
So at 45, I began the hardest 5 years of my life. All the freedom I had with money (which I spent just to survive my unhappiness) was gone and I literally didn’t go out to eat for 2 years. My wife supported my happiness and hung in there. It was only possible because of our mutual decision not to have children when we got married. On top of the financial pressure, I had tremendous pressure to perform at larger and larger venues. The stress caused me to get Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. I spend years dealing with that to the point of thinking of throwing in the towel and going back to accounting. I slowly learned how to manage my stress and settled in to my new life. Over time my name got around town to different band leaders and in the Jewish Synagogue community of LA were I started getting gigs from a number of different congregations. By 2019 I had been making a living as a musician for over 15 years performing locally, nationally and in India, Morocco, Israel Turkey, Jordan, Spain, Poland, Mexico, Armenia, Georgia & Cuba. I recorded on over 100 songs and soundtracks and taught countless students.
When the pandemic hit all my gigs stopped. With no gigs to prepare for, I had the freedom to start composing my own music. It began simply with just drums and vocals and then expanded to melodies on guitar. Soon I gathered a small band together and started to record. Composing and producing original material was a dream come true. The band is called The Chants and to date we have 3 songs and 2 videos on the web with many more in the pipeline.. Our first song “Hey Ya” has over 65,000 streams and the video has 95,000 views.
I’m happy to say that my lifelong love for music that fueled my leap of faith 18 years ago has positively effected thousands of people and given my life purpose. I’m 62 now and have the passion and energy to continue my musical quest.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

Jamie Papish is a LA based performing world music hand drummer and percussionist. He specializes in a variety of world & sacred music and percussion styles ranging from Middle Eastern, Turkish, Persian, Israeli (Sephardic, Yemenite & Ashkenazi), Armenian, Balkan and Kirtan. Jamie pursues these styles out of his love of music from around the world and the fusion of styles that is currently exploding. As a native New Yorker, Jamie grew up listening to Rock, Pop, R&B, Soul, Funk, Reggae, Latin, Jazz & Fusion, which continues to heavily influenced his playing.

Jamie is known to have many drums on stage to create a variety of sounds. He uses foot bells/tambourines and foot shakers to add texture and movement to his sound. Jamie has played and recorded with many world and sacred music groups, orchestra’s and top musicians and composers including the Krono’s Quartet, the Yuval Ron Ensemble and the Chloe Pourmorady Ensemble to name a few. He started his own band called The Chants and has released 3 songs and 2 videos to date with a full albums worth of music in the process of being recorded.

Furthermore, Jamie Papish is a Los Angeles percussion and drum teacher who gives drumming and percussion lessons to individuals and groups.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

I would first say that everyone has creativity. What fuels that creativity or innovations is passion and wanting to make a difference in the world. If you are unhappy in your career, it may be because you are just doing it for financial reasons and have no passion for it. To find your creativity, you first have to find a purpose to your live. Then you can see if you can fulfill that purpose within your current career or by switching careers. In most cases a change has to be made and risks need to be taken to get on a path that more closely relates to your purpose. This will ultimately bring you lasting happiness.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

The most rewarding aspect is to inspire others with your passion. When people come over to you after a show and express how moved they were by the performance. When they find out that I started playing at age 38, it gives them hope that they can pursue their dreams.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://jamiepapishmusic.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jpapishmusic
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jamie.papish
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7iRQE2rni36gudYQu3YEmA/videos
• Other: These are links to my band The Chants https://thechantsband.com/ and join our community. A free download awaits. https://thechants.bandcamp.com/ subscribe to our channel follow us: https://www.facebook.com/chantingmusic https://www.instagram.com/the_chants/ https://open.spotify.com/artist/1UBFx…