LEARN WITH MIKE Thoughts on history, culture, music, the details of our world, and why learning matters. From Michael Compitello 04/23/2025 Below is a post I shared in my Learning Percussion newsletter. If you're interested in more than nerdy percussion tech-talk, I hope you take a look. It’s been a remarkable semester here at ASU and with my little studio of curious learners across the country. I’m excited to reflect on those experiences in the coming weeks. But first, the NanoSIMS. I...
2 days ago • 6 min read
ON LEARNING PERCUSSION Step inside my practice room as I get my rolls back in shape! From Michael Compitello 01/23/2025 I’m currently working to record all of Jacques Delécluse’s music for snare drum. What a terrible idea! It’s led to some fun research into performance practice in his work, which led to… a lot of interlibrary loan books But a small % of my tomes I've even made an annotated bibliography of Delécluse's percussion music. One technique that comes up a LOT is ROLLS. Having decided...
3 months ago • 1 min read
ON LEARNING PERCUSSION Practice tips, musings on musicianship, and ideas about productivity, advocacy, and more. From Michael Compitello 01/14/2025 New semester, who ‘dis? This semester, I’ve decided I’m going to record as much of Jacques Delécluse’s music for snare drum as possible. Along the way, I’m going to be sharing my process for learning, incubating, refining, performing, and recording music. The goal is to do this through my writing (here), my IG channel, and through my youtube...
3 months ago • 2 min read
ON LEARNING PERCUSSION Practice tips, musings on musicianship, and ideas about productivity, advocacy, and more. From Michael Compitello 12/06/2024 Here are some ways I’m using reflection to improve my work in the practice room. BTW, I am writing a longer post about this in my regular newsletter, digging more into WHY these practices work. Hope you can check it out there later this weekend. Mirror, Mirror Reflection involves articulating the specifics of an experience, making thematic...
5 months ago • 2 min read
ON LEARNING PERCUSSION Practice tips, musings on musicianship, and ideas about productivity, advocacy, and more. From Michael Compitello 11/25/2024 My next few posts are about feedback. We receive feedback in our playing from our peers, teachers, and coaches, but most importantly—from ourselves. Since so much of our time is spent practicing alone, developing the ability to critique our own playing is essential for effective musical growth. But, self-feedback is difficult, often tangled up in...
5 months ago • 4 min read
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...
7 months 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...
9 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...
10 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...
about 1 year 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...
about 1 year ago • 1 min read