Mindy Abovitz is a drummer and media executive smashing stereotypes in the music world. She’s the founder of all-girl Tom Tom Magazine and she was sweet enough to share her passion and story with New Sincerity. Cheers, and happy reading!
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I gravitated toward the drum set most likely because it was a rebellious thing for a girl to do.
Girls didn’t play drums. As soon as I started drumming I felt free. I felt confident, empowered and truly myself.
When I found out that Rock Camp for Girls was coming to NYC in 2006, I jumped on the opportunity to pass my existing drum skills on to other younger girls and promptly applied to become a volunteer drum instructor for the camp.
I knew a secret about what was waiting on the other side for these girls and I wanted to share the secret with them. These women became my friends, bandmates, fans and colleagues as I moved forward as a drummer, sound engineer and feminist.
It wasn’t until 2009 that I realized my new found life, full of incredible and inspiring women musicians, was not common. I had a revelation and the sinking feeling that my world of careful curation was the vision of musical equality I had always wanted, but the real world was much like I had left it when I was a kid.
I started Tom Tom Magazine to be part of the solution.
The magazine is now a full color 76-page print publication distributed globally and a regularly fed website, social media community and irl community. Our work is on-going.
– Mindy Abovitz
