- [Voiceover] In partnership with the Curtis Institute of Music, WHYY presents the following program.

(lively drum music) (lively drum music) - My name is Griffin Harrison.

I'm a percussionist, currently studying at the Curtis Institute of Music.

(soft piano music) So I come from a musical family.

My grandfather played on Broadway.

He was a woodwind player on Broadway.

My dad was a guitar player in rock bands.

That's how my parents met actually.

They were playing in rock bands in Boston in like the '80s and '90s, so that's the kind of music I grew up with was mainly like rock music and you know, like, punk and stuff like that.

My mom is a music teacher though.

Well she was, she retired now, but she was a music teacher and like for general music, so she always had the classical side as well.

My dad was more so a rock musician.

Well is, but I mean they were both very supportive, I would say, of my music endeavors and they always really tried to support me as much as possible.

When I started studying at Eastman, they always came to my recitals and they always tried to support me as much as possible.

And you know, coming to Curtis, they were very proud, so I'm really lucky to have their support.

(soft piano music) I went to School of the Arts in Rochester, New York and there was a inner city school program through the Eastman School of Music called the Pathways Program.

So basically if you had financial need and you were in your inner city, you were able to get lessons, classes in the Eastman Community Music School.

And that's how I was able to get a scholarship to study with my teacher Ruth Kahan.

And I wouldn't be here without Mrs. Kahan.

She gave me everything.

And she was such a big integral part of that program because she has so many students over the years and she taught, you know, people who necessarily weren't in this program, just regular students or you know, kids that were in the Pathways program, but every single one of her students had a special relationship with her.

And that's how you know that she's an amazing teacher.

'cause everybody, like countless students are hers, just have very personal relationships with her.

I wouldn't be here without her, so big shout out to Mrs. Kahan because she's amazing.

(soft music) If I didn't actually start playing percussion until a little later, I think I was in my last year of middle school, early high school was around 13 or 14.

And before that I always wanted to be a drum set player, so I wanted to play like rock, jazz kind of stuff.

And my dad is a guitarist, so I grew up jamming with him in the basement, just like self-taught drum set, playing rock tunes.

And then in high school, well when I got into middle school I wanted to be in the jazz band and it turns out they already had enough drummers for that.

So the band director said, "Hey, "well you could always play in a concert band.

"We always need percussionists."

And I was like, "concert band, like, what's that?"

You know, I didn't really know much about it.

And then at that time, there was a senior in my school who kind of took me under his wing, started teaching me how to play like Timpani and xylophone, stuff like that, like classical instruments.

And then later on I ended up getting lessons at Eastman School of Music, which is where I'm from, Rochester, New York.

I had a scholarship to study percussion, so it kind of turned into it by accident.

I wanted to play drum set, but I ended up doing classical and then never looked back.

Hello, my name is Griffin Harrison and I'm a percussionist from Rochester, New York.

For my solo selection, I'll be performing "Mexican Dance #1" by Gordon Stout My favorite part about being a classical musician is definitely playing in orchestra.

That's my love.

And there's nothing that really compares to it.

I think where things can get tricky with classical music is that there's a lot of perfectionism, there's a lot of judgmental kind of stuff that happens.

People really get, you know, it's just like anything.

When you get to a certain level of proficiency, you get really picky and you get really perfectionist.

And it's really easy to get kind of cynical about things and only see the negatives or I missed this one note, so therefore the whole performance is bad.

Stuff like that.

And I think what's really important and what's great about classical music is just expressing what the composers have given us in the notes and not when you...

I mean, in the practice room, that's the place to be about your work.

Just like anything.

(soft music) You could be a classical percussionist and play drum set, but it's, there's a difference in terms of like the genre, like you could really be a great drum set player like playing jazz, but not be so good in the orchestra.

You really have to study in either one.

They're really kind of their own disciplines.

So you have really good classical percussionists who aren't necessarily great drum set players, but you've got really great drum set players who aren't necessarily great classical percussionists.

So the two are a little bit separate, but you can definitely do both.

But you, it's definitely the kind of thing like you pick a lane and really study in that lane.

Also, I played piano too 'cause I really wanted to take drum set lessons when I was a kid.

And my mom was like, you know, "you really should," she's a music teacher, she teaches kindergarten and second grade and she was always really trying to get me to learn piano.

So there was another mom in my elementary school, a family friend, and she ended up teaching me some piano lessons and I was in like fourth and fifth grade.

So that's how I learned how to read sheep music.

My recital was real special to me because I feel like I just really wanted to play music that spoke to me.

(dramatic music) I played a really cool duet for timpani and cello, which I played with my friend Jason, who's a bass player.

So he was able to take the cello part and transpose it to bass.

I played a drum set transcription.

(dramatic music) (dramatic music continues) (dramatic music continues) (dramatic music continues) (soft dramatic music) (drum thuds) (lively dramatic music) (lively dramatic music continues) (lively dramatic music continues) (lively dramatic music continues) (lively dramatic music continues) Creative process can be different sometimes from just like practicing because there are certain things you gotta do that are just like work.

You gotta learn the notes, you gotta just practice the technique behind what you're doing.

But then once you get all like the foundational stuff solid with your playing or your piece, then you can really start to have fun with it and you can really open up the music and decide what do I want to say here?

What do I wanna do with this?

But I think definitely studying and really understanding the piece, like what the composer intended before you put your own spin on it.

That's something that one of my teachers always tells us is that the first thing you have to do when you're learning a piece is research it.

You gotta know who your composer is, why they wrote this piece, when they wrote it, what was going on in the world when they wrote this piece.

(soft ethereal music) You gotta get everything on the score.

So everything that the composer wrote for you to do, you have to be able to execute that.

And then once you're able to understand the piece, execute the piece, then you can kind of put your own spin on it and decide what do I want to do with this music?

And I know, I understand where it came from, what the composer wanted here and now what am I gonna do to make it special?

So there's kind of like three stages I think when it comes to preparing music.

(soft ethereal music) Music is always a collaboration, you know, even if you're playing, if we're playing someone else's notes, but it's us playing it.

So we're doing the composer justice and what they wanted with the piece, but we're also able to put our own spin on it and you know, think about what we want to say with the music.

Knowing your role is very important when it comes to classical music specifically.

That's the thing with jazz is that you're improvising on the spot and you're able to really have a lot of freedom with what you're saying through the improvisation.

But if you're not improvising with a classical piece, you always have to have your composer in mind too, because they wrote the music.

And in a way, this is something else that one of my teachers told me is, you have to be a window to the music.

'Cause a window opens, the music comes out and a window closes and that's it.

There's no ego involved.

So sometimes people can get a lot of ego involved and say, "well I feel inspired "and I feel like I want to do this with this piece," even though maybe that's not what the composer intended.

So you're still collaborating, you know, you can give and take some, but you always have to remember what is this piece about?

You know, why am I playing this?

I played a drum set transcription by a drummer named Ari Hoenig and he is took a a twist on a drum set solo, made it his own.

And then I was able to transcribe his solo.

(lively drum music) (lively drum music continues) (lively drum music continues) (lively drum music continues) (lively drum music continues) (lively drum music continues) (lively drum music continues) (lively drum music continues) Curtis Institute, I definitely feel like I always wanted to come to Curtis.

It was like one of my goals.

And there's something really special about Curtis because it's a small school, but everyone there is so focused and everyone there really loves the music.

And everyone gets along with each other and you know, it's something really special.

These kids come from all over the world.

And then, you know, we all interact together in rehearsal.

In the cafeteria, we're all eating together, socializing, and you would never know that we come from like a million different countries.

Everybody just comes together and it's like just one thing, which I think is pretty special, you know.

Especially given the state of the world right now where so many people are fighting with each other about like things that really don't matter.

And like you have all these kids come from all over the world and we just come together.

It's really special.

I feel like my orchestral playing skills just went up immensely because playing in an orchestra feels a lot different than if you're just playing by yourself.

You have the conductor there, you've got, you know, 80 other colleagues that you're playing with.

And if you're playing by yourself in a sense, you have a lot more freedom.

But when you're playing an orchestra, you always have to know your role.

Who am I playing with?

Why is this here?

What am I trying to, how can I help the ensemble with my part?

And when I was playing in the National Repertory Orchestra every week I was always having to ask myself these questions about how can I be helpful to the ensemble here.

And coming out of that eight week experience of nonstop performing, nonstop playing, I felt like my comfortability, and if that's a word, (laughs) and my ability to feel confident playing on stage in orchestra just went way up.

And I feel like I finally was able to start to feel like, yeah, I know what I'm doing here and I know how to do this.

So I picked pieces that I could play with great musicians that I'm friends with at school.

Music that really spoke to me and I feel like I could send a message to the audience about, you know, who I am as a musician in this way.

And then the last piece I played was a transcription of Histoire Du Tango by Astro Piazzolla.

And that I played with my friend Iau, who's a violinist.

So that was a marimba and violin duet.

(bright lively music) (bright lively music continues) (bright lively music continues) (bright lively music continues) (bright lively music continues) (bright lively music continues) (audience chuckles) (bright lively music) (bright lively music continues) (bright lively music continues) I definitely want to keep opening up, you know, my worldview as a musician and as a 21st century citizen, you know what I mean?

Like you can't just stay in one lane, you gotta really branch out.

And I think if classical music wants to survive in general, that's what it needs to do.

Because you can't just have people in, you know, their suits and ties up here, you know, thinking that they're above everybody else.

And you know, we're just a one part of the larger musical community.

So it's important to be just a good, you know, musician in the 21st century.

Three years from now, I want to be close, if not already in an orchestral position with an orchestra.

Five years from now, I would definitely want to be established in a job, hopefully.

And I also want to teach, that's something else that I really want to do with my career.

So maybe having a somewhat of a teaching position at a university or college, or even privately, a private studio.

And 10 years from now, I feel like I want to explore other things beyond music as well.

And I really want to travel.

I really want to see a lot of the world and also get into playing other styles of music along with classical.

I feel like I've always been a big jazz player as well and I really want to keep that up, and keep exploring other kinds of music.

Because I feel like, I mean, music isn't necessarily like split up by genres I feel like, I mean we always see these crossovers between genres and I think it was Duke Ellington that said "there is only two kinds of music, good and bad."

so why not learn from everything that music has to offer and that art has to offer in general, you know?

Like why limit yourself to only classical when there's so many great kinds of music to learn.

And especially with percussion because percussion is so versatile between all the genres that there's always more to learn.

There's always more to learn about Indian Tabla playing or learning how to play, you know, Brazilian music or African drumming and everything like that.

(upbeat drum music) Having Curtis is great 'cause that just links you in with a network of distinguished alumni who have gone there.

You get a lot of connections through Curtis because it's, you know, such a name that it really opens up a lot of doors for you moving forward and being able to link in with people in the scene and to find work as a musician.

(upbeat drum music continues) I would tell my younger self a lot of things.

I feel like I would tell myself it's not that serious.

You don't have to be so nervous.

I would tell myself just 'cause of where you come from doesn't determine your future.

'Cause I'm from an inner city environment originally and I always felt like I had a chip on my shoulder because maybe I didn't have the same kind of opportunities as other people.

I started late, you know, I always felt like I was behind the curve.

I always felt like I had to work harder than other people to get where I'm at.

But I would go back and I would tell myself, you know what, you're just fine.

It's gonna be all right.

You don't need to compare yourself to other people.

You don't need to think I'm worse or better than this person.

All of that sort of judgmental stuff, I would tell my younger self that, you know, it'll be okay and you only need to focus on yourself.

You don't need to worry about anything that's happened before.

I'd tell my future self, you know, these are the good days now.

So enjoy it while it last probably.

(laughs) You know, have fun.

Continue to have fun.

Don't take yourself too seriously, you know?

Just keep working on the craft and enjoy the journey.

Enjoy the process.

(upbeat drum music continues)