As you walk into the east campus gymnasium, you might hear P.E. teacher Robert Harper playing his guitar as if he was playing for an audience, where, in fact, it’s for his own entertainment.

While students continue to run laps around the gym, Harper continues to strum his guitar.

Many students know Harper, even if they’ve never had his class, from the minor fame he has gained playing guitar during P.E. To him, if a day goes by without playing the guitar, it’s as if that day has gone to waste.

“I play something everyday,” Harper said. “I don’t practice; I just play. I love to play.”

Harper grew up with music; his family loved it and it was his entertainment. Whether he was listening to it at church or house parties, it was always there with him.

“I played violin in elementary school,” Harper said. “So one day I picked it up and had it holding like [a guitar] and my music teacher got mad, so I kept doing it.”

It was obvious he had more interest in the guitar than in other instruments. He worked in a music store in high school, and watch people taking guitar lessons in the studio. He then taught himself.  

“You got chord charts all over the place and so you’d learn the chords from there,” Harper said. “So I can kind of piece them together.”

In his life, Harper has played in front of a crowd twice: at his father’s funeral and for a talent night when he worked for the National Cheerleading Association. Despite his lack of audience. Though Harper’s skill is advanced, he wishes his experience were different.

“I wish I could go backwards, way back to the beginning and start over with the basics like you’re supposed to do; but everytime I try to do that I get bored and say ‘well forget that, I’m going to do this [my way],” Harper said.