Student Patrick "Pat" Gainer '05 has had a lifetime
of making music - now he's after his degree.
Rock and roller, piano tuner, choir member and now college student - 50-year-old Patrick "Pat" Gainer '05 has had a lifetime of making music.
At a point in his life when he started to take inventory of all the things he'd ever wanted to do, the Hampton resident said getting his degree and pursuing a career in music were two things he hadn't done.
"It seems in the last few years I've been moving toward a lot of the things I should have been doing all along," he said. "This is really a life-long dream."
With the encouragement of family and friends and funding through the Christian Service Award, he enrolled in fall 2002 at Virginia Wesleyan College as a full-time music student. Gainer is a junior by credit, having taken courses more than 20 years ago at Christopher Newport University. After a few years at CNU, life intruded on
Gainer's pursuit of higher education and the need to work full-time forced him to withdraw from school.
Twenty-eight years later, Gainer said he had started to give up on the concept of going back to school until he attended the VWC Sacred Music Conference while working as music director at Phoebus United Methodist Church. Reminded of his goal to return to college, Gainer said he began to investigate returning part-time, but then jumped in full-time.
His mother, father and two grandparents, all who were experienced musicians, introduced Gainer to music early in life. He began playing the piano at 9 or 10 and played the clarinet in high school. His interest continued after high school, when he and some friends started a rock-and-roll band.
Gainer also has about 30 years of experience in the piano-tuning business, a skill he learned in his 20s by observing a coworker. He still tunes pianos part time.
Life changes and a love for music led Gainer to join the church choir and become the church music director. Gainer also plays piano at the nondenominational services held in the Monumental Chapel on campus.
Strangely, Gainer's biggest challenge has been learning to read music - his success in music up to this point has been due to a good ear.
Lee Jordan-Anders, professor of music and artist-in-residence at Virginia Wesleyan College, is pleased by Gainer's determination and desire to reach perfection. In addition to his pleasant demeanor and positive presence, Jordan-Anders said Gainer "is intensely curious about what he is doing and wants to do it absolutely right."
"I would like to achieve a concert quality performance level on the piano," he said. "I'm just going to have to really knuckle down and work hard."
Gainer says he doesn't know whether he will be a concert pianist, a piano tuner, a church musician or a teacher, but only that "music is going to be the focus of the rest of my life. I think that's all I can predict."