Alumna Patty Anne Miller Drumming for CeeLo Green

Patty Anne Miller '10 has found success in Los Angeles after dedicating herself to her drumming.

September 26, 2014

It wasn’t until Patty Anne Miller ‘10 injured her hand that her drumming career took off, and she eventually landed a tour with singer CeeLo Green.

Miller, who had been dabbling in drumming while pursuing a dance career in Los Angeles, developed a tendon injury in early 2012 that was so serious that even hitting the snare was too painful for her to bear. That’s when she decided to get treatment and quit everything else in her life to focus on the drums full-time.

"When you’re given a gift and it’s taken away from you, that can really freak someone out, because it’s like you’ve been taking it for granted," Miller, who majored in professional music at Berklee, says. "I strongly prayed for my hand to heal and I also made a promise to God to give my gift of drumming 110 percent."

Up to that point, Miller had struggled to make it in LA since moving there after her 2010 graduation from Berklee. She did a marketing internship at Sony, took a job in a clothing store, and then found a bit of a break when she auditioned for Fox’s So You Think You Can Dance in the fall of 2010. She made it past the first round.

In fact, the show's producers found her so interesting that they chose to feature her in a video vignette. In the clip, one of the judges, Nigel Lythgoe, says to her immediately after her dance performance, "Patty Anne, you are a young woman with a lot of secrets, aren't you? You went to Berklee. . . you graduated, full scholarship, as a drummer. You are just so unique. I like it."

Watch a clip of Miller on So You Think You Can Dance here:

Although Miller didn’t make it far in the competition, her story made it on the show and she heard from people around the world who said she inspired them.

"That made me feel like I had a bigger purpose because if I could touch people’s lives in three minutes, I could imagine what I could do on a bigger scale," she says.

She tried for another couple of years to use the appearance on the show to get traction in her dance career but found that it was just too hard to make it as an untrained dancer in LA. That’s when her wrist injury hit.

"And that’s when I was like, 'Okay, I’m going to stop everything else,'" Miller says. She dedicated herself to healing and playing the drums, which had been her talent all along.

"From there, I noticed that there was affirmation everywhere," she says. Though getting started was tough and money was tight, she says she had faith it would work out. "From that point, I kept going up and up and up."

One thing led to another—“another” being a gig in February 2014 at the Daytona 500, where she played with CeeLo Green. From there, she was chosen as his drummer on his North American and European tours, which ended in late August.

"I see myself going up," Miller says. "Two years ago, I don’t think I ever would’ve pictured myself playing for CeeLo."

Now, she says, people are noticing her and asking, "Who is that girl?"