Now Playing: Her Sound, Vol. 2

Ethan Carlson’s Her Sound, Vol. 2 was released on September 17. This follow up to Vol. 1 (here ICYMI) features many amazing singers including Alysha Umphress (On the Town, Bring It On, American Idiot), Jewelle Blackman (Hadestown), Krystina Alabado (Mean Girls) , and the homie Jo Lampert (Joan of Arc), with orchestrations by Solomon Hoffman.

I tracked this in April and it’s such a joy listening now and returning to the space these gorgeous songs take me to. Congrats to Ethan and all involved in this project and stay tuned for Vol. 3!

The Quarantined Woodwind Ensemble

I am honored to be a part of the latest arrangement from the Quarantined Woodwind Ensemble: Video Killed the Radio Star by the Buggles!

The Quarantined Woodwind Ensemble is a virtual ensemble with a rotating personnel comprised of NYC's top-call woodwind musicians from Broadway pit orchestras and the New York jazz scene. The group is directed by Tyler Burchfield and Emily Pecoraro, the latter of which I met through the extended Grinch family.

If you love piccolo, this is the video for you! Enjoy!

Operation Gig

At the Japanese House with Brass Queens

I had the pleasure of playing not one but TWO events presented by Operation Gig over the weekend. If you aren’t familiar with the series, Operation Gig has been presenting crowd-funded outdoor gigs to help support working musicians through the Covid era. The concerts are hosted throughout porches in Ditmas Park, one of my absolute favorite neighborhoods in all of New York City.

Amor Prohibido pre-show. Yuka Tadano on bass and Rich Stein hiding back there on percussion.

Saturday’s concert featured the triumphant return of Amor Prohibido: The Must of Selena. I fall in love with her songbook the more I play it and it is truly a joy to play with each and everyone in that group! Sunday’s concert was with Brass Queens at the famed Japanese House and it was amazing to play with those ladies after being away in California for three weeks!

It felt really good to have back to back weekend gigs after a difficult year of lockdowns and cancellations. The Ditmas Park community came out strong both days and it was a delight to share both of these projects with everybody.

Me and some absolute legends who came out to Brass Queens: Jo Lampert, Kate Freer, Barrie Lobo-McLain, and Ada Westfall.

Every Fuego Ever

In 2014, Phish released its 13th studio album, Fuego, and the title track is a tour de force of drumming. In just over nine minutes, Jon Fishman takes the listener on a journey through a ’50 Ways To Leave Your Lover’ inspired groove and blistering drum n bass before setting up a singalong shout course with the type of mighty fill that drummers dream of playing in front of thousands in a rock arena. I transcribed every version of that fill and turned it into a drum exercise.

This piece has been a long time coming and was truly only possible due to the downtime I was afforded by the pandemic. Though the article was originally written to be published in a certain drum magazine that dropped off the face of the Earth, Phish.net was happy to publish it, so I updated the text to make it Phish-ier which is truly a language of its own! Check out the full blog here. While you’re there, please consider making a donation to The Mockingbird Foundation, a non-profit organization operated by Phish fans, dedicated to improving access to music education for America’s youth.

Download the sheet music here.

Here’s the video of the transcription. Stay tuned to the end for ways to apply this exercise to the drum set:

The Ballad of Cyclic Change

On Saturday, I played a Juneteenth concert at the Ballad of Cyclic Change, a multimedia collaborative art project with interactive sculptures by Kathy Creutzburg, Mirabai Kwan Yin, Jake Elkin and Aya Harota.

Mirabai is an old friend of mine: her husband Ric Becker was my very first NYC/Mannes friend. Shortly after meeting, we formed my first NYC band, Just Puppets! Ric played trombone and percussion alongside me, Jess Tsang (another Mannes alum), and Jake Elkin, in a contemporary program of Braxton, Rzewski, and more. We got out there, especially on one of Jake’s compositions for electronics and spoken word. It was a wonderful and weird way to spend a beautiful Saturday morning in one of Manhattan’s many community gardens.

More on the installation from the artists:
Inspired by the biogeochemical cycles and how they mirror cycles in human lives, we built acoustic kinetic sculptures from upcycled everyday materials and created musical compositions using the sculptures as instruments. By connecting human stories of transition to nature’s cycles we encourage people to feel connected to their planet.

It's All Happening!

Knock on wood, but things seem to be getting back to “normal” here in NYC. In fact, we were treated to a fireworks show last night to mark a huge milestone: 70% of our population has received at least one dose of the vaccination. Let’s keep it up, NY!

For the first time in 15 months, I decided to add some shows to my calendar! Saturday, I get to play an ART INSTALLATION! How cool is that? Ballad of Cyclic Change is a collaborative art project my friend Mirabai worked on. I’m not exactly sure what I’m playing on and how, but it’s going to be a really cool hour of musical exploration. Sunday, I am playing a rooftop concert right here in Brooklyn with Brass Queens, hosted by Kid Krill.

In addition to the shows, an educational piece I’ve been working on for nearly a year will be posted to Phish.net (yes, it’s combining my two favorite things: drumming + Phish) and a recording I did with the Quarantined Woodwind Ensemble is forthcoming as well, so stay tuned for those.

I will be spending the first three weeks of July visiting my wife’s family in California, so if you are in LA or the Bay Area, please hit me up for hangs, jams, shows, or lessons!

Thanks for reading and hit that subscribe button above to stay in the know. Peace!

Video: Golden (Timothy Huang)

Timothy Huang just released a new video featuring me and a marvelous band as well as some of his students from the University of Utah, University of Michigan, Emerson, and New York Film Academy.

From his Facebook post:
This past year i have been super lucky to guest teach and/or write for many students across many different universities. Even more astounding than the sheer diversity of students studying musical theater though was the amount of whole-throated support they were getting from faculty and staff to break free from what was once a very standard, very homogeneous interpretation of what musical theater is.

I first began working with Tim two years ago for Prospect Theater’s production of his musical American Morning and he’s been keeping me busy since! The future of musical theater is in good hands!

Enjoy!

The Miller Machine

About this time last year, I was asked to make a promo video for the Miller Machine. My video was cut together with videos from a bunch of other amazing percussionists, which you can watch here. Today, I am happy to share with you my full video that I created with the help of my wife (and cat). We had a lot of fun making this!

If you aren’t familiar with the Miller Machine, you are probably not a percussionist who performs in musical theater. Easily one of the most important percussion innovations of the last 50 years, the Miller Machine allows you to play triangle without having to fumble around for a beater. This is especially handy during a quick change situation. For example, you can be playing timpani with your fluffiest of mallets and execute a perfectly sounding triangle note a beat later without having to put down your sticks and grab a triangle beater. It’s easy to position in any type of setup and is small enough that it can fit in your stick bag when you’re on the go. If this could be of use to you, head over to Billy’s site and grab one for 10% off your first order!

Drum Jam: Taste (Phish)

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Taste is a top tier Phish song. I love this version from the Island Tour (a legendary run of shows from April 2-5, 1998) because Jon Fishman is a true master of clave and it’s fully on display for this entire run. Any musician who wants to dig further into clave should check out Billy Martin’s book on the subject.

Phish is a master of layering complex rhythms, and you can feel this song in so many ways: 6/8, 3/4, and 4/4, primarily. I highly recommend hearing the full version of this song, as each of the four instrumentalists are expertly laying. it. down! Here’s the link (Taste starts around 22:44). Enjoy!

Opening: Twelfth Night

This weekend, Pace University opens a virtual production of Shaina Taub’s Twelfth Night. Back in January, I was invited to record the drum book by Music Director Alexander Tom, who played keyboard 1 on Grinch in 2019. I’ve done a few things at Pace in the past, including Drowsy Chaperone in 2018. Last year, I was hired to play Head Over Heels there, but unfortunately it was one of the first gigs to go at the start of COVID.

It was really exciting to be in a studio for the first time in nearly a year due to the pandemic. There were only three of us in the main room, plus an engineer and assistant in the control room. COVID protocols were in place, everyone was always masked, and safety was prioritized. We only had a few hours to record the entire score, so we moved quickly and efficiently. I’m excited to hear how everything turned out! If you’d like to watch the show, grab tickets here.

Here is a video of an excerpt from the opening number that I took in my studio in preparation for the session. If music be the food of love play on!