Memphis musician Chopek still learns even as he teaches others

Memphis musician Stephen Chopek is a drummer of some note, having played with jazzman Charlie Hunter and rock star John Mayer, as well as a host of Mid-South acts over the years.

He’s also a drum teacher, offering the benefit of his experience to up-andcoming young students in the region. But above all, Chopek remains a student himself, learning from the people he plays with, those he instructs and from the meditation practice he’s dedicated himself to personally.

Although the New Jersey-bred Chopek made his reputation behind the drum kit, his more recent focus has been on his own work as a singer-songwriter.

“Around 2008, I started taking a more serious interest in songwriting and playing guitar and singing,” he says. “I started busking in the days and doing open mics at night. It was sort of a crash course in performing where I wasn’t sitting behind a drum set.”

Earlier this fall, Chopek released “Begin the Glimmer.” It’s his first album since relocating to Memphis in 2014 (where he moved to be with his girlfriend, and now wife Abby Miller). On “Begin the Glimmer” Chopek is largely a one-man band — playing all the instruments himself, while he worked to finish the project with Doug Easley, the local recording guru whose credits include everyone from the White Stripes to Pavement.

“It was a real Memphis music-school lesson working with Doug,” Chopek says.

“I looked forward to going to the studio every day to do the work, but also the added bonus getting to hang out with Doug was great.”

In between his solo career and sideman jobs, Chopek also spends time teaching drums to young students locally. Although Chopek did not attend music school, he picked up drums as a preteen and was privately trained, eventually studying with the likes of Chris Wood of Medeski, Martin & Wood, before launching his professional career.

Now, Chopek is passing on the lessons he’s learned to promising percussionists in Memphis while continuing to educate himself in the process.

“It’s funny but I always learn new things through the teaching process,” he says. “What I try to teach is the importance of fundamentals and the repetition of fundamentals and how crucial that is.

“The first things you learn on an instrument are the things that are the most important, particularly as a drummer. The things that are going to be vital in your career — your role in serving the song, in keeping time — are foundational things.

“I always tell students not to overlook that. With young students they often want freak out on their instrument and bash away, which is understandable. But I try and instill in them the best lesson that I came to know — that the first things you learn are the most crucial.”

Just as he draws on his work with students to continue to inform him, Chopek also uses his personal passion for the practice of meditation to help with his creativity.

“I have a regular meditation practice. I started getting into it around high school. It’s a big part of what I do on a daily basis. It’s the core of the things I do,” he says.

“For me, there’s a deep connection between meditation and music, and an awareness of how it’s heightened all of the things that are important to my drumming. Being focused and being centered, that plays out in the role of a drummer. Because you’re relied on to be focused and centered and keep things on track musically.”

Chopek adds that his songs also benefit from meditation.

“It’s taught me how to listen as a drummer, and not just listening to myself. It’s also fed and informed my songwriting as far as being sympathetic to the song and listening to where it wants to do as I’m writing it,” he says.

“In the end, it’s about having a conviction about where the song is starting, but being open enough to where the song wants to go. That’s how I try to approach everything I do.”

Stephen Chopek