Hi there. My name is Lucas Sanchez and I live in Miami, Florida.

I have a lot of jobs as a musician. I am currently the principal timpanist of the Palm Beach Symphony, the Florida Grand Opera, and the Southwest Michigan Symphony Orchestra. I also play percussion for the new deco ensemble, which is a smaller orchestra that performs more modern pop works and arrangements in the Miami area as well. As principal timpanist of the symphony, my job is primarily to play the timpani, the large kettle drums in the back of the orchestra, which is a lot of fun because they’re present in so many different kinds of music all the way back to Mozart and Bach. So oftentimes, I’m the only percussionist, the only drummer in the orchestra. I also teach a lot. I teach the percussionist of the greater Miami Symphony. I maintain a private home studio, both online and in person lessons at this point, and I also teach at different middle schools and high schools around the Miami area.

In mid-March, all of our concerts were canceled.  I’ve had a few projects here and there with music, but it’s been largely shifted over into music education for this summer, and so I define resilience as the ability to bounce back quickly, and the ability to be flexible. I think it’s important, especially for musicians, to understand that having good resilience doesn’t just necessarily mean that you keep going in your field and you keep doing the same thing over and over, but adapting to new ways of thinking. For instance, you’re hearing me on my new setup with a microphone, an audio interface, and a new PC that I built for myself. And I think that’s one of the ways that I’ve really shown resilience is by adapting to teaching online and getting the tools that I need to be successful in that capacity.

A daily practice that I have to show my resilience as a musician is to always do something music related every single day. I currently tutor in mathematics as well as my other job in order to make up the lost income that I have. But I always try and make an effort every day to sit down at the piano keyboard, to go behind my timpani to just pad on a drum pad for a little bit. Because it’s important as my identity as a musician that I be making music every single day. So I would say that’s my daily practice and how I show resilience is to do a little bit of music every day, even when it’s full of eight hours of teaching math.

I think one of the most important things we can do to help other people build their own internal resilience is just offer a listening ear when they need it. Especially nowadays, I find myself, whenever I talk to other people, I tend to talk a little bit too much, and being a natural introvert, that’s strange for me. I think it’s because we’ve been so socially isolated from people and I’m excited to see other people, but I think it’s also important to listen to what other people are saying and what their troubles are and coming up with solutions together. Even if you just listen to someone and don’t offer any feedback, just the fact of getting someone to speak, you know, to speak their mind can often lead them to the solution themselves, which I find in my own teaching both in math and music. Often a student will come to a good way to build resilience when they realize that they have the answers themselves. All it takes sometimes is a kind listener. Like me with a problem, saying “Hey, these strokes don’t sound quite even, I’m not exactly sure.” And then they realize, “Oh, it’s because my right hand is higher than my left hand.” Or in mathematics, someone will come to me, “I’m not exactly sure how to solve this algebra equation.” And then all of a sudden it clicks for them. “Oh right, I need to add the same thing to both sides to cancel out.” So I think just offering a listening ear is really useful.

Lucas makes a good distinction on how resilience is not just being present, but adapting. In the pursuit of one’s goal, there is a good chance they will hit a plateau at some point. Repetition is rarely good enough to overcome said plateau, so the incorporation of new ideas through adaptation is a key factor to true resilience. Lucas also brings up a good method for building resilience. Typically, resilience is built through prolonged struggle. On the other hand, constantly receiving help can build complacency. Sometimes we may catch ourselves deeming our own thought to not be worth exploring; but simply having someone there to listen can better help us think, as we are forced to make coherent thoughts to communicate with them.