With a baseball cap placed securely on his head, a bright smile glowing across his round face, and an attitude so humble and modest, it’s difficult to imagine Aaron Routtenberg as anything more than a typical college student. After all, that’s what it seems like on the surface.

Beyond the 15-unit schedule and part-time job at Wells Fargo, Routtenberg is surrounded by music.

The 19-year-old sophomore is a part of three local bands in Sacramento that perform all over Northern California. He plays the bongos for Conquista Musical, is the lead singer and percussionist for the salsa band Orquesta Afinque, and plays the timbales, a small pair of shallow drums, for Sac State’s Latin Jazz Ensemble. Besides those three bands he’s involved with more groups in his hometown of Los Angeles.

“It’s a lot but I love doing it,” Routtenberg said with a laugh. “I don’t sleep much.”

Routtenberg still finds time to squeeze in three and a half to four hours of rehearsal time (each Tuesday to Thursday night) with work on Mondays and Wednesdays and a school schedule from 10:45 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

“It’s definitely more than half of my time and that’s not even including my private practice at home,” Routtenberg said. “That takes up a lot of time too.”

Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays are usually his performance days, with gigs occurring almost every weekend. Two weekends a month he’s out of town.

“It’s definitely like a second job, sometimes a first job,” Routtenberg said.

There’s that and then some.

He is also endorsed by two companies, TIMBA percussion and UNIGRIP sticks, which provide him with the equipment he needs to perform.

“Whenever I perform, I have to be playing their drums and using their sticks because I’m on a contract with them,” Routtenberg said. “So I promote them to everyone else.”

Routtenberg travels to different places with his LA bands, noting that he’s been almost everywhere. “I’ve been blessed with where I’ve been able to go.”

He names the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre as his favorite venue because “it’s just beautiful. It’s outdoors, very intimate setting – really nice.”

With music being such a huge part of his life, it’s only natural that he’d major in it as well. Surprisingly, Routtenberg is declaring criminal justice as his major.

“It’s something to fall back on,” Routtenberg said. “I am a musician and I will try to make a living doing that, but if it doesn’t work out I’d like to fall back on something pretty stable.”

Raised in Los Angeles, Routtenberg decided to come to Sac State after high school when he found out about the school’s music department.

“I applied here as a fall-back, then I realized they have a really good music program,” Routtenberg said. “They have the Latin Jazz Ensemble and a lot of the colleges I applied to didn’t have anything to do with Latin jazz. That’s one of the main reasons why I came out here, so I can take part in that.”

A professional musician since the 7th grade, Routtenberg credited his family for being the reason why music has made such a huge impact on his life.

“As musicians, it’s kind of been carried down my mom’s side of the family,” Routtenberg said. “My great uncle was a singer, my grandpa was a singer and drummer, my uncle is a drummer- so now it’s kind of like I’m the next one in line. I just wanted to keep it going.”

Routtenberg’s main forte is percussion, mostly those associated with salsa, Latin and jazz like congas, bongos and timbales. He studied with different Latin percussion artists in LA and has been playing the drums since the 6th grade.

Sammy Rivera, the band leader for Orquesta Afinque, has known Routtenberg for almost two years when he took over Rivera’s spot in Conquista Musical. He considers Routtenberg as one of his own and has no doubt about his band partner’s musical skills.

“He has an excellent knowledge of percussion,” Rivera said. “Now we’re working on singing.”

Routtenberg has only been singing in the group for about a year and is still trying to master the art as it’s not really like singing, but mostly like rhythmic talking. There’s also a creative side to it all.

“When you sing salsa lyrics, half the song is mainly improvisation. Every night you sing the beginning of the song the same and then it comes to a section of the song where it’s open and the singer can add on to what was written before.”

Gilbert Anthony Roman, the leader of Routtenberg’s other band, Conquista Musical, describes Routtenberg as “a go-getter, honest and sincere and a good kid- someone I would have no problem with if he was dating my daughter.”

Roman also said that Routtenberg is humble and probably more talented than he realizes.

“He has a real good feel,” Roman said. “His natural tempo is a contribution [to the band]; he plays with strength and conviction.”

Rivera and Roman both describe Routtenberg as a “talented kid” and acknowledged his willingness to share his wealth of information with everyone.

“He learns with some pretty good names,” Roman said. “Even advanced players can learn a lot from him.”

While his musical endeavors are already in full swing, plans for his future in music will remain the same.

“I’ll always be a musician. Even if I’m not fortunate enough to make it a career and making it big, I’ll always do it as a hobby,” Routtenberg said. “I’ll always have music.”

Until then, he’s going to continue what he’s doing and see where the road takes him.

“I’m in control of my destiny to a certain extent and then leave it up to God to lead me to where He feels I should be,” Routtenberg said.

“I have a motto: ‘always set your goal higher than your grasp.’ Just set your goal higher than what you know you can reach, that way when you achieve it, you’ve done what you thought was impossible. I just set my goals high and don’t stop until I get there, and it hasn’t failed me since.”

Aleesa Camagong can be reached at [email protected]