Drums with Ethan P.

Hello! I am a composer, drummer, organizer, and recent BM graduate of the Boston Conservatory, having studied contemporary composition under Andy Vores, Jan Swafford, and Curtis Hughes. I was trained mostly as a jazz and rock drummer before attending the Conservatory, where I focused on composing all different sorts of instrumental and vocal music for small and large ensembles, including orchestral music, piano ragtime, and electronic works. I have also remained active around Boston as a drummer, and multi-instrumentalist improviser, playing in such wide-ranging situations as Italian pop orchestra Tredici Bacci, noise rock bands, quiet chamber free improvisation, and as a guitarist and singer in folk music groups. I have experience teaching jazz drumming, improvisational drumming, and rock drumming from recordings, books, and more intuitive approaches as well. I love finding out as a team what a student wants to learn the most and shifting the focus accordingly, while maintaining a healthy degree of focus on fundamentals and technique. I have a sustained interest in many other styles of music and making them, including contemporary classical music, free improvised music, jazz, folk music, and pop music of various forms. I love talking and working on the craft of specifically stylized forms of music, so as to uncover what is special about them, what can be emulated, and what can be built upon. My time at the conservatory has only helped to open my taste and broaden my horizons to treat all styles and genres of music as equally serious and important to investigate.