Atlantic Indoor Association

Peter James Saleh is a wonderful example of the percussionist who emerges from high school, does some drum corps and goes on to a ton of work and success as a professional musician.

Gridit (a nickname he took upon starting the internet’s first significant drumline website with content for .ram listening in the mid 1990s) was in the 1998 Crossmen and 1996-97 Jersey Surf. He studied at Rutgers before pursuing a Masters degree in percussion performance with a minor in composition at North Texas. A founding member of the Exit 9 Percussion Group, Peter has studied with some of the biggest names in contemporary percussion field including Mark Ford and She-e Wu. He’s given clinics around this country, in Taiwan and Korea.

A composition of his for percussion quintet Exit IX Novum received second place in the 2007 PAS Composition Contest and other ensemble scores of his are performed throughout the country.  He is published through Keyboard Percussion Publications, Innovative Percussion, Drop6 Media, and RowLoff Productions.

“Blending [an] affinity for improvised music with an inventive ‘multi-percussionist’s’ approach,” Peter scores a brand new 25-minute work of choreography every July for a performance ensemble in his native New Jersey. Having himself studied under Tommy Igoe (Broadway drummer and back in the day Bridgemen tenor player), Dr. Robert Schietroma (North Texas), Ed Soph (drumset teacher), and Leigh Howard Stevens (marimbist and author), Peter’s students have entered some of the percussion best programs in the country, including the Juilliard School and Manhattan School of Music.  All this and Peter is hardly into his thirties!

A Dozen Things You Will Figure Out (Sooner or Later) from A Percussionist’s Handbook

1. Seek out and eliminate weaknesses during practice; hide and avoid them by playing to your strengths during performances. For example: Practice snare drum technique to build both hands towards an equal level. During performance, though there’s no rule that makes you alternate hands when playing it right handed will sound better.
2. A rehearsal time means to be setup and ready to play the downbeat at that time. Do what you need to to do to make that happen. Yes, a flute can fit in your pocket, and a clarinet player can walk in to rehearsal five minutes before the downbeat and be just as ready as you will be at the downbeat. But this is one of the trade off’s you’ve accepted by choosing percussion. Enjoy the schlep!
3. A “Percussionist” is pretty much expected to play everything. In the real working world, there is no such thing as a “snare drummer” or a “2-mallet player”. It’s fine to play any single instrument for personal enjoyment, but as soon as you venture into any sort of collegiate or professional realm, you will need to augment your skills.
4. Get an adjustable lead pencil and use it, use it, use it. Keep it clipped to the lip of your music stand. Mark in instrumental cues for extended rests, timpani tuning indications, unison instrumentations, rhythmic grouping indications in odd meters, and even mistakes to look out for. Sometimes circling a troubling part is all that you need to do to fix it. A quickly scribbled V.S. mark or a circle around an instrument change could save you a lot of trouble.
5. Ultimately, performing musicians survive on their abilities. Who your previous teacher was or where you studied is great for starting a conversation, getting you in the door, or landing an interview, but ultimately those things don’t matter if you cannot produce.
6. Real musicians can read and improvise. These two skills are the ultimate tests of a player’s practical musicianship. They measure understanding of the inner workings of music. As for improvisation, while it does take a concerted effort on its own to feel fully comfortable with playing over the chord changes of a jazz lead sheet, the context primarily referred to here is more of a stylistic and free improvisation, pitched or not. As a test of these abilities, project yourself into this situation: You’re at a casual gathering and you are requested to “just play something.” What would you do?
7. “Don’t Evaluate While You Participate.” If you have read the Inner Game of Tennis you’ll know exactly what this means. This summarizes the performance where you’re nailing everything but as soon as you say to yourself “hey, I haven’t made a mistake yet!” you make an error. It is the self-fulfilling prophecy. This is partly why the best performances are difficult to remember, and seem to fly by, while the bad ones seem to take forever. Another simpler and more general way of saying this would be to just focus on the moment.

Do you have suggestions or submissions? War stories from the floor, questions or other interests? Email Michael Kirby at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .