We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Josh Jones’s. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Josh below.
Josh, looking forward to hearing all of your stories 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.
I was very fortunate to not only have private instruction at a young age, but mentors throughout my education. Through their guidance and countless hours of practice I am not only a master of my craft, but an internationally recognized educator. If I knew that the key to success was finding your voice and expressing it, I would have been able to navigate moments of imposter syndrome that hindered my growth. However, the most important skill that I gained from not having that wisdom was positive self talk. While I believe imposter syndrome was a major obstacle, there were outside factors as well, worst of which were bad actors.
Josh, 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?
When I was two years old I loved hitting everything in sight, much like many kids do. However, my family could tell that it wasn’t that simple or routine. So, my grandfather gave me a drumset for Christmas at age three, and the rest is history. I began to play drumset in church and even joined the children’s choir at both my church and elementary school.
My chorus teacher, Angela Addison Davis, also noticed that I had a talent for drums and let my parents know about an opportunity to study percussion at the Chicago Symphony. After interviewing for the program, I was accepted and received free drum lessons from 4th grade to my freshman year of college. My instructors, Douglas Waddell and Patricia Dash, encouraged me to go to college for music because of how well I was doing in the program.
I then attended DePaul School of Music, won the Detroit Fellowship position after graduating, and later both won the Pittsburgh Fellowship position and attended Carnegie Mellon after that.
Before I began my studies in Pittsburgh, I won my first of three principal percussion auditions at the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra. A month after I began my tenure there, I was diagnosed with stage 3 cancer. During the treatment process I began publishing a book series, Spatial Studies for Hitting Things, and uploading mini drum lessons on my YouTube channel and Instagram to document everything I had learned for anyone to use. After a year of chemo, radiation and finally surgery, the cancer was removed and am currently still in remission.
A year later I was granted tenure with the Philharmonic and won my second audition with the Kansas City Symphony, and two years after that I won one of my dream jobs, the Grant Park Festival Orchestra principal position. In 2023 I was granted tenure with Grant Park, but was denied tenure with Kansas City. The denial sparked an international conversation about the fairness and lack of consistency in tenure processes, as well as the lack of diversity in orchestras. This story was reported on by the Washington Post and other outlets. Since then I have continued performing as principal percussionist with the Grant Park Festival and have been a featured soloist at Carnegie Hall.
What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?
My goal is to make the path to sconces easier for the next generation. By providing pertinent information on practicing, technique, the audition or tenure process, or it’s telling my story about Kansas City, I think all contribute to increasing the chances for success and opportunities for aspiring musicians.
What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?
If society invests in making spaces more equitable and fair, it will benefit everyone. A more inclusive and diverse space breeds creativity and sense of community within itself. A fair environment decreases the chances of people being taken advantage of or being treated poorly by coworkers or managers.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://Drummojo.com
- Instagram: Joshjonesdrums
