As Nick Bereznak (12) begins to warm up on the drums, he slowly ramps from light rhythms to full beats and songs. The longer he begins to play, the more his emotions and feelings from the day are portrayed in his music. Serving as a way to express and feel out his emotions, his drumming session slows to a close as he makes his final preparations to record drum beats for his business. 

With quarantine putting Nick’s previous plans of music lessons on hold, he decided to use his musical abilities with the drums to record and sell his beats online. His website, Nick Bereznak on Drums, has people contact and request certain types of drum beats to fit their music, which he then records and sells to them.

“At first I started advertising at Fiverr and … selling drum beats, but then I got my own website, and I’ve made a lot of money with that over summer,” Nick said. “People will say, ‘I need a drum beat to my song,’ and then I can record it and send it over.”

Though he is talented in drumming, Nick found that running his online business requires not only musical talent, but also knowledge and experience of the ins and outs of selling online.

“It took a while to get over that initial learning. There were a lot of times in the first month or two where it was just long, four hours a day, trying to figure out how to make a website or how to market … or how to advertise,” Nick said. “[I learned] a lot of it through YouTube videos, I read a bunch of online articles and I even took an online course in marketing.”

Friend Anish Kilaru (12) sees Nick’s business as something that aligns with Nick’s active personality.

“He definitely has an entrepreneurial mindset, I could never see him just sitting down in an office job. Doing what he wants and being his own boss is very Nick,” Anish said. “He’s not complacent, he’s always doing something. Sometimes we’re exploring in forests, we’ve gone skateboarding, or sometimes he’s just reading a book, but he’s always doing something.”

Nick’s active personality stems from his determination to complete goals and tasks. Nick recalls a memory of finally being able to play a difficult song as an example of that.

“Even if I’m not really good at [playing a song], I don’t just quit on it,” Nick said. “There’s this song called ‘Tom Sawyer’ by Rush, and for about nine or ten years I was trying to play that … I remember the day I got that song down perfectly, and I was so happy. It just reinforced the idea in my brain that I can do things with hard work.”

Similar to how Nick’s drumming subtly leads the band, the other part of Nick’s website, teaching drumming, also contains that same determination. Though being stopped from teaching in person because of the pandemic, Nick aims to help people acquire and perfect skills.

“I used to not be [a leader], I used to be really quiet,” Nick said. “But then I overcame my personal struggles and I would see people and I would want to help them do their best because I know they can and I can show them that they can.”

Nick’s friend Sydney Takemoto-Spraggins (12) believes that his want to teach is something that complements his personality, and that his desire to teach is what makes him such a good person.

“He hasn’t always had the ability to teach,” Sydney said. “Everything in his life has been building up to finding his own path, because he’s very down to earth and he’s very genuine and helpful and him developing that humble quality has led him to be able to teach really well.”

Along with his humbleness, Nick’s ability to learn coincides with his ability to teach. Upper school instrumental music teacher Dr. David Hart believes that Nick, when he’s wrong or doesn’t know something, actively tries to find the right answer and solve his problem.

“A lot of times as a teacher, you lead by example, which he does,” Dr. Hart said “As a teacher, you also have your own life experience to work off of and that worked well for him as a learner and because he’s such a good listener, I think that would help him as a teacher.”