Dave Gerhart

The other day during one of my college percussion lessons, I mentioned to a student that with all of the things we need to learn as percussionists, I think there are three things that we should always be working on. I know it is naive to believe that these are the only things to be working on, but if you can continue to improve these areas, you will become more “marketable” as a musician. Student performers tend to think about the next thing they need to prepare for an audition, a rehearsal or performance. We all get stuck in this train of thought, especially in a school setting. Believe it or not, this is also true for the professional musician. With my teaching, family and playing schedule, I don’t have the same amount of time to spend in the practice room as I would like. When I only have a 30 minutes to practice, sometime it is hard to pull out a piece that I am working on for the next concert. I have found that if I maintain these three things, I can continue to grow as a musician and maintain my chops. As I havewritten about earlier, there are many valid and musical reasons to learn a 15 minute virtuosic marimba solo, but if you get a freelance orchestra gig, they won’t care how well you play Merlin if you can’t read the xylophone part of the show tune your are playing at the Pops concert (especially if there is only one rehearsal).

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