LEARN WITH MIKE Thoughts on history, culture, music, the details of our world, and why learning matters. From Michael Compitello 09/30/2024 Dear Friends, I’ve been hard at work on a number of longer-form projects, ranging from leveraging AI to redesign our percussion curriculum here at Arizona State University to developing checklists to better manage our percussion studio. In the meantime, I wanted to share news of upcoming concerts. I. This week, the Percussion Collective, our ensemble of...
15 days ago • 1 min read
LEARN WITH MIKE/ ON LEARNING PERCUSSION Thoughts on history, culture, music, the details of our world, and why learning matters. From Michael Compitello 07/24/2024 Dear Reader, Happy summer! In 2021, I released Unsnared Drum on New Focus Recordings, an album of new works for snare drum from Nina Young, Tonia Ko, Amy Beth Kirsten, and Han Lash. It was an honor to collaborate over a number of years with these composers on music that re-frames the snare drum as a vehicle for solo expression. I’m...
3 months ago • 1 min read
ON LEARNING PERCUSSION Practice tips, musings on musicianship, and ideas about productivity, advocacy, and more. From Michael Compitello 06/14/2024 Summer! I’ve been spending time regrouping, and am now at the Cortona Sessions for New Music, where I’ve been inspired by the enthusiasm and and rigor of the fellows and faculty. What do musicians do over the summer? Sure, you could go to a festival and play gigs, but what if you have some unstructured time? It can also be an expanse of open...
4 months ago • 3 min read
LEARN WITH MIKE Thoughts on history, culture, music, the details of our world, and why learning matters. From Michael Compitello 04/19/2024 Most of the time I write about “sticky” thoughts: ideas that have remained front of mind across numerous disciplines. But, while I’m reading about maps, Chopin’s placement of dotted 8th/16th note figures, and wondering about how referees train to execute basketball jump balls, I’m trying to put into practice ideas about how to make the teaching of musical...
6 months ago • 3 min read
ON LEARNING PERCUSSION Practice tips, musings on musicianship, and ideas about productivity, advocacy, and more. From Michael Compitello 03/08/2024 With a little bit of space between performances, and a number of doctoral students graduating this semester (get it, team!), I’ve been on a pedagogical kick, rounding up materials I’ve generated over the past few years and working to connect the dots between theory and practice. The scaffolding of my work on learning has become more clearly...
7 months ago • 1 min read
LEARN WITH MIKE Thoughts on history, culture, music, the details of our world, and why learning matters. From Michael Compitello 02/29/2024 I’m pleased to announce the release of the MikeDrop Podcast, a joint venture between myself and percussionist Mike Truesdell: Logo by Shaun Tilburg Mike and I chat almost daily about our approaches to music-making, productivity, pedagogy, and more, and we are going public, sharing some of our insights into issues facing contemporary musicians while...
8 months ago • 1 min read
ON LEARNING PERCUSSION Practice tips, musings on musicianship, and ideas about productivity, advocacy, and more. From Michael Compitello 02/23/2024 Happy Friday! Timber I'm back from a tour with Beyond This Point, an interesting multi-disciplinary ensemble based in Boston. We traversed some crazy weather around AZ for a number of performances of Michael Gordon's Timber, which, for those of you unfamiliar, is scored for 6 planks of wood. For this version, Reclaimed Timber, we sourced locally...
8 months ago • 1 min read
ON LEARNING PERCUSSION Practice tips, musings on musicianship, and ideas about productivity, advocacy, and more. From Michael Compitello 01/29/2024 Mike Truesdell and I have been steadily recording in advance of our eventual MikeDrop podcast drop. We got impatient and went live last Friday to share some ideas, tips, and best practices for college auditions. You can watch it here: Mike and I offered some specific tips and things to consider before auditioning. But, our minds drifted to the big...
9 months ago • 2 min read
LEARN WITH MIKE From Michael Compitello 01/29/2024 We were fortunate a few weeks ago to host my dear friend Leilehua Lanzilotti here at ASU for a program at ASU’s Humanities Institute, in which she discussed concepts of Radical Indigenous Contemporaneity, specifically related to her new opera project Lili‘u, which looks amazing.Also, I love that she has a historical context website. After hearing her piece ahupuaʻa performed by the Argus quartet in Tucson and performing Leilehua’s Gray, both...
9 months ago • 4 min read
ON LEARNING PERCUSSION Practice tips, musings on musicianship, and ideas about productivity, advocacy, and more. From Michael Compitello 01/19/2024 Today is the end of our second week of classes at ASU, and with a return to the semester comes a renewed focus on fundamentals. It’s hard to get more fundamental than our fulcrum. Talking about fulcrums is like talking about Bach: everyone has an opinion, and everyone else is WRONG! Thus, I’ve hesitated to share my own thoughts on the topic. In...
9 months ago • 1 min read