I am always looking for great posts and I was so happy when I read this post and Steve allowed me to repost it on this site. The advice in this post is valuable for any musician no matter the genre or level of the performer. Please share it with your students, colleagues and fellow musicians.
Being a Good Colleague – A guide to getting the hang of “the hang” for newly graduated music students.
As another year comes to a close at CSU, Long Beach (this was my 10th) I find myself thinking about what is next for all of the recently graduated music majors from the Bob Cole Conservatory of Music, as well as those from all of the other music schools across the country. Much has been written on the subject of improving as a musician, but not much gets put out there on the subject of interacting with your colleagues once you start working in the business. To be sure, the vast majority of your time as a young musician needs to be spent in the practice room perfecting the craft of your chosen instrument. However, I believe it’s also important to have some guidelines to help navigate the incredibly complicated social world of the professional musician. (more…)
Has it really been two months since my last Percussion Education Reads? Wow. It has been a really busy couple of months. I have been playing Passageways by Baljinder Sekhon in Minnesota, Indianapolis and Kentucky. I have been on a lot of planes and I have been reading a lot of articles. Enjoy and I will promise to post more in the coming months. (more…)
One of my favorite gigs has always been playing musicals. I’ll never forget my first musical at Solano Community College when I was a junior in high school. I played a musical called Shenandoah and since then, I have been fortunate to play a good number of musicals. The level of complexity has sure increased over the years and the above video is a perfect example of what is expected of the percussionist in a musical.
As I was researching this post, I found numerous videos on YouTube featuring percussionists playing and talking about their set-ups. Dave Roth also has a great website where he features photos of his set-ups and lists of the instruments used. Here’s his set-up for Neverland. Thanks to Troy Wollwage for sending the link to Dave’s website.
