Shawn pelton playing with a click track11/7/2022 It took me four years, and four auditions to get accepted to Tanglewood. They only took seven percussionists in the entire world. When I went to Tanglewood we got conducted by everyone who conducted the Boston Symphony Orchestra. This is still where the Boston Symphony Orchestra performs every summer. I was fortunate to perform timpani with the great composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein when I spent a summer in the student orchestra under the guidance of the Boston Symphony Orchestra called Tanglewood. He was basically Stravinsky’s drummer you might say. KA: Gaber, Firth and Press were the heavyweights of timpani and classical percussion. It was a privilege to study with these men for many reasons…mostly, I realize now it took my life to another level. It wasn’t easy man! Vic Firth, Arthur Press and George Gaber demanded intense discipline and relentless perfection from me. I already had it in me but I got excited about working my ass off. All of this came down to extreme discipline. I was practicing as much as possible when I wasn’t in a rehearsal, performing or studying. All this made it possible for me to develop my skills. Music history, literature, theory, conducting, piano, sight singing and sight reading were all part of my education along with regular academic courses like Science, Literature and Math. At IU, I had to perform in an opera twice a year. My focus was on practicing as much as possible: lessons, performing in small percussion or jazz band ensembles, large ensembles which were symphony orchestras for me. #SHAWN PELTON PLAYING WITH A CLICK TRACK HOW TO#Moving forward, all the training at UMass (one year with Peter Tanner) and 4 years at IU studying technique taught me discipline and how to play all the percussion instruments in many different musical situations. Even though I didn’t practice enough for him, something about his intensity and knowledge made me want to work hard for him. He had me in tears many times…why I stayed with him I don’t know. He asked me to play and within two minutes he yanked me off the drum stool and said ‘You need to start with the basics’, so we went right to a practice pad. ‘Well, have you prepared a timpani piece for me?’ I said ‘I don’t play timpani’… He looked down on me ‘What are you doing here…what do you play?’ I said ‘I play drum set’. When I went to Arthur Press, I didn’t know anything about timpani and mallets. I came from a small town, played sports and had a rock band with my brother. In my first lesson with Arthur Press, he said ‘What have you prepared for me today’, I’m like ‘Huh?’ ‘Well have you prepared a mallet piece?’ I’m like 16 years old, never played a marimba or a vibe in my life. They were only interested in very dedicated and serious students. ‘I’m fighting for my life, I can’t fail…if I fail, I fail for my family.’ He was all about discipline and perfection just like Vic Firth. ‘Are you kidding…you need to get a real job and make a living.’ So music school was not this leisurely thing…it was hardcore. When he told his parents he was going to music school, they were shocked. surviving and making a living was the main focus in life. If you were done with your lesson in 15 minutes, that was it.he had no time to waste.Īrthur Press grew up in a family in NYC where studying music was not their first priority. When you had a lesson with Vic Firth, if you made a mistake, fine… he would let you try again, but if you make that mistake again, he would simply move on to the next exercise, because you were obviously not prepared. George Gaber was more in the middle…soft with some aggression. These role models all studied at Julliard with Saul Goodman of the New York Philharmonic, probably the most famous timpanist up until Vic Firth.Ĭlaude Duff, also a student of Goodman, wound up having a beautiful soft sound with the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra whereas The Boston Symphony Orchestra was a much more aggressive orchestra, suited for Vic Firth with perfect time, immaculate precision and rhythm. At age 16 – 23, however, I studied percussion and timpani with Arthur Press and Vic Firth from the Boston Symphony Orchestra and eventually 4 years with George Gaber at Indiana University- IU. I was self taught except for learning snare drum technique and how to read music. Kenny Aronoff: When I started playing the drums at age 10, I didn’t have a drum set teacher as a role model.
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