DOWNEY – “For me, it’s hard to remember because music has always been something that I’ve been interested in. I remember that first time I ever picked something up [the tambourine] was at our church, we have live music, so I remember that was the first time I was exposed to that.”

Downey native Anai Hernandez has been actively playing music since she attended her first music course at Doty Middle School.

Her entry into percussion, her instrument of choice, was “purely by luck.”

“Everyone wants to go into the drums because that’s like the cool thing, so they [Doty] literally have a raffle because there’s so many students,” recounted Hernandez.

It was due to this literal luck of the draw that 19-year-old Hernandez is now pursuing music as a career at Cal Poly Pomona.

Throughout her middle and high school years, Hernandez played percussion in beginning band and marching band.

At Doty, Hernandez said she learned “the basics” of rudimentary instruments, like the snare and bass drum.

It wasn’t until another stroke of chance that Hernandez was able to expand her catalog of instrumental knowledge.

Hernandez said, “again it was just luck. My cousin – he’s going into music – told me, ‘Oh, if you want to learn more, come with me to the LA Music and Arts school.”

Starting in the eighth grade, Hernandez would go to LAMU after school and learn how to play the xylophone, marimba, tympani and keyboard.

**Anai Hernandez in her Downey High School band days. (Courtesy photo)**

“It was really helpful because when I went into high school, I was able to join as many groups as I wanted because even though I wasn’t that advanced in it, I had the foundations so that now I can have the exposure to learn it and then from there I kept playing in as many groups as I could,” said Hernandez.

“She has always been a very enthusiastic and diligent student,” said LA Music and Arts instructor Michael Basak. “She’s the kind who always comes in very prepared and does a really good job of trying to understand why we're doing the things that we're doing, and then going home and applying them and then bringing them into all the different aspects of music that she's doing.”

Despite being involved in music throughout her childhood, Hernandez was not a music performance major when she initially started attending Cal Poly Pomona.

“I originally was planning on just doing music as a hobby and I was going to major in something more math related because that’s kind of like what was expected of me, because I am good at math,'' said Hernandez. “But just going through those classes, it wasn’t as fulfilling as the music classes.”.

Hernandez has since changed her major and is currently pursuing a career as a studio musician. She was recently featured as musical accompaniment for Ozomatli, a Los Angeles based fusion group.

Hernandez recounted how Rick Baptist, a studio musician who can be heard playing trumpet on notable movie soundtracks, shared the story of recording the music for “Up” and how people were moved to tears while watching the scene where a couple grows old together being accompanied with music for the first time.

“I want to be a studio musician specifically, since middle school I’ve always wanted to record for movies because that’s something that not a lot of people think about, the impact that music has on movies,” said Hernandez. “Almost all great movies have a great score, and I want to be part of that experience of creating that great music.”

Downey's Anai Hernandez goes from playing drums at Doty to a career in music