Today we’d like to introduce you to Rachel Kamps-Huffman.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
Walking back through my story would be 60 years’ worth of walking, so I’ll keep it brief. I am an ordinary soul who grew in my mother’s womb listening to the piano she played, the very same piano I now keep in my home, named Rose. On this 112-year-old Steinway Grand piano, I now give concerts in my home since she’s in grand condition and loves company.
I am 3rd of nine and one of 5 girls. I identify as human but, my dogs think I’m one of them, and my chickens think I’m Mamma Hen.
I grew up in Michigan in a state of chaos and much love, as my parents were both artists in a way and their brains best functioned on creativity and hard work, but not on order and balance and discipline. They did their lovingly imperfect best to raise us all in the ways they thought best for us. The conservative childhood I was nurtured in was both helpful and harmful, and I have forgiven them for the unintended detriment their good intentions shaped in me, especially now as I’ve learned a thing or two about humility, grace and more. I survived my mostly happy childhood by disappearing when I could into the world of sound and music, artistic things, black berry picking, long walks in the woods, cleaning house, riding horses, babysitting, canning vegetables and taking care of my siblings, helping my Mother keep, working in the summer on onion and celery farms while developing a happy-tan-smile across the exposed skin on my low back, and scarring my hands for life with cuts from the onion clippers. My siblings provided constant company. They remain the best part of my childhood and to this day, my adulthood.
Then, after high school and such activities it was time to go to college. Which I did. I went for about 2 years thinking I’d become a Music Therapist. Getting bogged down my finances and needing academic support, I stopped going to Hope College. I still dream of returning, one day, to finally “be somebody with a certificate that proves my worth and credibility”. Yes, I suffer from imposter syndrome. I rode my red Schwinn bike around town in Hollan, Michigan working at Nursing Homes and sang the breakfast morning song, worked as a furrier assistant in the winter and at Windmill Island in the Summer months. Trust me, I’ve left a lot out of my story here.
On a wintery day on January 3, 1988, I moved to Jacksonville Florida when I was 23. A learned how to drive a stick shift on the drive down to Florida when my roommate/schoolmate said, “I’m tired, you need to drive”. Gulp. Learning on the fly for real. I ended up borrowing her car when I got to Florida and began cleaning houses while she worked at Ace Hardware. Eventually, I got a job as a housekeeper and a nanny while I went to a Bible School (nearly half a continent away south from my home and a complete shift from Music Therapy intentions, I know). I continued to survive by working as a housekeeper and nanny but stopped after 2 years as that looked too much like the childhood I had lived already. I needed to move on into what dreams I had. I’d discovered YANNI and his “dare to dream” album and it lit something in me. It ignited what college, and Bible School had failed to light. What did I want to really do with my life? I guess any mid-20-year-old person tries to answer that question. Some of us still ask ourselves that question. Anyhow, the nanny job provided me with a Toyota and that helped me move forward into what dreams became a reality. I wanted to ride across the United States on my red bike. So, I sold my Toyota Tercel after 2 years of preparation and planning with the help and company of my best friend, and some eager family members., we did set to bicycling across the country. We left Atlantic Beach in June of 1995 and heading west. Our bike trek across the United States and parts of Canada began. The story of which might become a look-book someday entitled ” Different Day, Different Dirt, Deal With It”. Ah, someday.
Then, at the end of 1996 I returned to Jacksonville. The lessons from the Bike Trip’s open wild road deeply imbedded in me a sense of purpose and confidence and vision for my life. Which I employed soon after the bike trip while completing my Massage Therapy training, I again cleaned houses and met wonderful people along the way as clients and friends. I began to segue as a housekeeper/massage therapist once I was licensed. Then, once I could afford a keyboard, I set to work and created and produced my first Music album called Memories, Thoughts In Solitude. I thought up my album’s title while swishing through the air while swinging on swing sets at the Ponte Vedra Inn and Club at the beach. Those swings are gone now. The album’s name is a reminiscent nod at all the time I spent with my tail sitting on a tiny triangle torture device while pumping my legs up and down for hours at a time as I rode my bike forward, always forward to get to the next camping spot. Forward is always forward.
Now, with several Albums and many more songs recorded, a children’s musical written produced and performed and a fully satisfying massage therapy practice, I have even more “dreaming” to do.
I am happily married and live in the woods on the island at the beach with my husband, dogs, cats (feral ones too) chickens, coons, coyotes, foxes, hawks, owls, woodpeckers and other birds in a certified wildlife habitat.
I am in my 30th year (well, almost 30) practicing as a licensed massage therapist and love what I do for work. And I love creating music and sharing it and connecting with people through music. And since community is import to me, I do my best on Sundays to share what music talents I can. I assist in providing music either as a pianist or as a soloist, or both. And, from time to time I share House Concerts as Rachel and Friends in my home, or on special occasions in larger less intimate spaces. For example, Christ Church sponsored Rachel and Friends for a Hurricane Relief Concert for Episcopal Relief and Development, and we were thrilled to learn that our community raised over $25,000.00 for the survivors of Hurricane Helen. We’ve been asked for an encore concert.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Smooth Road? The title of the book I’m going to write someday called “Different Day, Different Dirt, Deal with It” says it all don’t you think? Strength is built on long hard roads when the wind is your friend, because it makes you strong. And, strength may be needed at times on your own behest, or a friend might need your strength when you least expect it, so don’t complain about hard roads. Never complain.
What smooth road I enjoy today may disappear tomorrow. The journey is what it’s all about, not the road. Sometimes one has to get off the bike and push or return several miles behind to find lost gear parts and whatnot. Sometimes one has to hold back and stay in camp for better weather, sometimes one rides on in the wind and rain because there is no way forwards without it. Sometimes you got to ride on while hungry and cold and tired. No, a smooth road life is not. I like to say however, that all my roads are blessed roads, affording me many lessons along the way. Lessons are for learning. I’ve got more learning to do. One such lesson is to never give up, always share and stay creating and making music, making friends and being kind. Life is beautiful road and being and staying positive and grateful and hopeful is the way I like to continue traveling it. I also say “eat before you’re hungry, rest before you tired and drink before you’re thirty”. Good luck on that my friend.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I’m both a massage therapist and a musician. Massage is like work with molding clay while making music is like water and air. I do both. One makes me money, the other takes it.
I specialize in listening to my clients and seeing how I can facilitate what they are wanting from a massage session and as musician I write songs, sing them, produce them, try to sell them. I’m not rich or famous yet, but I don’t seek that. I also keep learning other instruments like the flute, the cello and ukelele.
What I am most proud of? I am proud of being tenacious.
What sets me apart from others? I am me. There is no other me. I like me and I want to continue to be me all the days of my life to the best of my ability. I hope the be the best version of me I can be until I die.
Who else deserves credit in your story?
People that deserve credit…ah, now that’s a list I could ramble on about. I have to say that many of my massage clients have been my mental mentors. Over the years many of my clients and I have become open books to each other’s lives. It’s a beautiful symbiotic thing, a sacred space I’ve be blessed to enter into. Their lives inspire my own. I’ve learned from one of my clients the phrase “business is business” and try to keep applying that when possible.
I have a variety of mentors, mostly informal. I am easily mentored and when being mentored, most folks who are mentoring me don’t even know they are mentoring me at the moment they are mentoring. I listen and watch and learn from some many.
Yes, I’ve had music teachers in my childhood, but those are mostly painful memories. Memories of dreading my music lessons because I wasn’t ready. Perhaps too because my mother’s a concert pianist and was harassed by a busy family life that was chaotic, I felt guilty for practicing when the house needed cleaning. Perhaps I didn’t have patience for my imperfections, and I’d been corrected so often that it was painful that the joy of learned was crushed out of me. I learned from these teachers is that “I’m no good”, and that when I made mistakes on the piano, I learned to say “sorry”. Those are lessons I’m unlearning now. I’ve been studying the cello with Linda Minke and have a kind teacher, who doesn’t wrinkle her face at me when the sour awkward notes express themselves at my hands.
I did have a very encouraging organ professor. He was thrilled with my musicality and was very upset when I pulled out of college due to financial and mental health reasons.
I have friends now who help me and mentor me with writing out my music. Bill Boston for one, he’s a genius composer and is skilled on patient and is a good teacher. He’s so encouraging. I can name more people too…like, Anne McKennon. She’s a terrific flute player and I’ve had a few flute lessons with her. She mentors me also since she is skilled on music software programs like MuseScore and Finale and she, like Bill have helped bring my songs out of me an onto paper.
My husband’s a huge support and he helps me keep my eye on the goal “to stay creative and to share my gifts, just try to keep the cost down”. Ha! That’s a joke in case you missed it. He is the best as he also is a musician and understands the hard road and knows it well himself.
Success in my music business, is, well, not really a financial one. That’s just that. It’s been hard to “make money” as this business, since I tend to want to stay small on purpose. I’m more focused in recent years on creating the music within me and sharing that. Yes, I learn covers and perform them for a happy audience, but it’s not my main focus at all.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.rachelkamps.com
- Instagram: rachelkampsmusic
- Facebook: Rachel Kamps Musician
- Youtube: Rachel Kamps Music
- Soundcloud: Rachel Kamps
