Breen and Tasha: Family Support Story #19

Back in the days when I was teaching at Rising Star Music in Spotswood I had a student named Breen. You could tell her apart from any person in town when she was out driving in her mom’s car, which was painted Red, White, and Blue. That was my first impression of her, this kind of zany car. It reflected her personality as I would see in the years to come.

I worked with Breen first at the studio and then when I left that job to begin teaching privately Breen was one of the students that continued on with me for private lessons.

Breen was super talented on guitar. She was a real player; she learned songs on her own was prepared at lessons with questions and realizations about music and guitar. We played a lot of different kinds of music, but I remember her being mostly into classic rock, and 90s alternative, punk, and rock. We learned a great many songs, and she also learned how to hold her own as a lead and rhythm player. Not everyone sits comfortably in the lead-guitar seat, but Breen did.

When we switched from the studio to private lessons we would switch it up between working in the park by her hose in South River, and her house. Her mom, brother, and little sister were usually hanging around the house while we worked so they took an active interest in what we were working on I knew Breen’s brother through other friends, but only found out he was related to her after I started going to the house and seeing him there. Breen’s mom worked in the garden department of a Home Depot or Lowes, and so I would often catch her at the house after her shift. I always enjoyed going there and doing lessons. The family was welcoming, friendly, and loyal clients.

A few years would pass, and eventually Breen went off to join the Airforce, and so of course, we discontinued lessons. And that’s when her sister Tasha got the music bug.

I worked with Tasha for many years too. She was really young when we started and I was her teacher until she was in High School or so.

Much like her sister, Tasha had a great knack for guitar. I gave her a slightly similar lesson curriculum that her sister had gotten, but we veered off according to her interests. Both Breen and Tasha were fun to teach because they were both fairly music-aware, meaning that they knew the names of songs and artists they liked, and so I was able to steer them accordingly with ease. It’s tricky because sometimes little kids don’t really know what they like or they have an idea but no names or titles to accompany. My favorite memory of Tasha is this particular one: She was all excited one day because she had discovered a “new” band and she was insistent that she was going to be the first to tell me and her mom,.. The band… “The Beatles”, hehe. That was and is SO funny and awesome. Naturally we learned a lot of Beatles after that moment.

They were both enjoyable and impressive students. I am still currently friends on social media with both of the girls as well as their mom, Tasha’s dad, and their brother. It’s nice to see what they have been up to. Eventually, when Tasha was old enough, the family split up to (on good terms, of course). Their mom, Cindy, went to Georgia, as part of a job transfer. Tasha relocated to Hawaii, as that is where Breen was stationed. Breen had a child eventually as well. I think they are back in the mainland states now.

Thinking of Breen and Tasha takes me back to a very transitional time in my life. When I left my studio job that was the first time I had been living out on my own (for the first time after leaving my childhood home). Technically I didn’t live alone, I had roommates similar to my age who were also long time friends. Taking a chance and leaving a steady jb to try my hand at building a business was a risky, scary, and bg step. So when I think back to this time, it unlocks a whole stream of memories and feelings that sometimes otherwise go unnoticed, forgotten, or misplaced in my mind. I was very grateful for Breen and Tasha’s family. They were stable work for me for many years, and they were very supportive of me as I was enduring these transitional times.

I’m hoping this blog leads to some reconnection, as I was always fond of them as a family. I’d be curious to see if Breen or Tasha are still musically active at all.

My Take-Away From This Story

Rolling back the clock in my mind to think up some of these stories is an interesting exercise in not only memory, but also in timeline creation and expansion. Sometimes in life so much transpires that we lose track of, or block out, or disregards, or simply forget a LOT of moments. Experiences are stacked deep within each memory. Thinking back to the days of teaching Tasha and Breen brings me back to a time when I was to leave my childhood home under duress; divorce, ugly split, affairs.. Enough said. So this was a very potent time in my life in regards to my adult development. I was sort of like a refugee at that point,.. I had a place to live, but it was surreal, and though a lot of fruit came from those years, there was a lot of heavy transition, and a lot of that went unchecked or redirected towards work and my band, which were my priorities at that time. My parents had split up, my sibling migrated west and eventually became a ghost essentially. I was like 19-21 or so when I taught Breen. Thinking back to working at the studio is also a very memory provoking thing. I really learned my craft having that job. The owner, Chuckie hansen, was an extremely knowledgeable, versatile, and equipped man. He had been in the dirt with rock-n-roll, and he had a lot to share and teach, and that he did. I learned a huge amount from him in those years, and Breen was very much a transitional client for me. She may have been one of my first post-studio regular weekly clients. And from there I blossomed. And here I am today.

I would also like to say that another take away from this story is how influential trust and loyalty go when it comes to clients. They trusted me to enter their home, and they treated me like a professional. They were involved, and energized. And they stuck with me for a lot of years.. I probably taught Breen for like three or four years, then there was a few year gap, then I started teaching Tasha, and then I taught her for a good four or so years. So my roots with their family, as their teacher, ran about 10 years deep. A decade. That is a long time to be employed by a client, and for all of my clients I am grateful, but for the ones that stick with me through great expanses of time, I extend a deep and sincere thank you. Thank you for enabling me to develop, evolve, and continue on in this business of mine.