Mitrap grows passion for music

National

By JACKLYN SIRIAS
NO other hobby can beat his passion for drumming.
Able Mitrap, 21, hails from a mixed parentage of East Sepik, New Ireland and Germany.
He grew up in a family which loved music.
“I was brought up in a musical environment. Daddy was a musician and the director of music in the Christian Revival Crusade church in Wewak,” he said.
His mother and sisters participate in singing and other music-oriented activities.
Even his cousin brothers and a number of his extended families and relatives are musician.
His music passion started developing when he was very young.
He would follow his parents to church and watched his father directing the music while he would sit beside the drummer and copy his actions.
“At the end of the services, I’ll grab on the sticks and started hitting the drums because that’s the only day of the week I can sit behind a real drum kit and make a lot of noise,” Mitrap said.
On other days, he would use twigs and small sticks to hit pots and containers and other objects pretending that he was drumming the real instrument.
After all the trials and errors with his fake drum kits, Mitrap began playing confidently at the age of 12.
Today, everything about the drum set feels like a part of his body movement.
“I major in drums and I also play other instruments including bass, rhythm guitar and keyboard.
“The thing I love about music is the vocal or instrumental sounds (or both) combined in such a way as to produce beauty of form, harmony and expression of emotion that has no ending.
“It only die when you die. It is creative, style and challenging. It evokes all kinds of emotions in people like relief, relaxation, happiness, madness, craziness, courage, depending on how a composer arranged and write about a subject.”
Mitrap is a member of the Son’s Arise Band. Currently he is playing as a guest musician with the Avisat Band in Wewak.
“Apart from that, I help with other fellow Christian churches when needed and with East Sepik Minister Fraternal and Wewak AOG (Full Gospel) town church music team,” Mitrap said.
He also played with The Change Band – a gospel band from Madang, Avisat Band and the Talio Lodge in-house band in Wewak.
He says the exciting part of his passion for drumming was when playing a song and the whole audience start dancing and screaming in excitement.
“Music has grown to another level with technology and software making life even easier,” he said.
“But I had the advantage of recording songs using manual instruments. I think young musicians who came to know and use software cannot play a live 70s or 80s hits. But thanks to tutorial videos available on net that answer our musical questions.
“There are also a good competition of music around the country that pushes young musicians to grow in their skills and talent,” Mitrap added.
He dreams of owning a studio of his own to work with people of same interests.