Tag Archives: music

2025 Recap!

Posted on by Ryan

2025 has been an interesting year for me, with a lot of different things going on. Below are some highlights:

  • I started graduate school at Fort Lewis College and I’m just about 25% done (its finals week and I am currently passing all my classes)! I should have a Master of Arts in Education by spring of 2027… if all goes well.
  • I became an educational endorser of Vater Percussion this year. Since I’ve personally used Vater sticks for over 10 years now, I was happy to accept their offer for an endorsement deal and extend that out to my marching band drumline and front ensemble.
  • A Field Guide to 50 Drum Rudiments was released in September in collaboration with Los Angeles-based multi-instrument teacher James Musser. This book adds a very practical rudimental manual to my catalog to go along with my impractically large and diverse collections of rudiments that I published previously.
  • The Los Alamos High School Topper Marching Band won the NMAA State Marching Band Championship this year in class A-4A! My drumline did great job and their Vater sticks and mallets sounded fantastic.
  • My band Bloodstrike released an EP Weapons of Steel recently that marks the 10th anniversary of our debut album! This really was a huge undertaking to get a relatively small number of songs out since I live about 7 hours away from the rest of the band members and we brought in a session bassist and multiple guest vocalists for the recording. There were various injuries, surgeries, and other medical issues that tried to prevent some band members from completing it, but we all pushed through.
  • Percussive Notes saw fit to run an article of mine in the December issue. “A History of the Flam Accent No. 2” traces the rise and fall of the non-standard rudiment from its British origins to its current American status as… almost relevant enough to talk about. Thanks to Dr. James Strain for his editorial assistance.
  • I started learning to play the euphonium, french horn, flute, trombone, and mandolin this year (in descending order of competence) in addition to the tuba, and obviously drums and percussion. I don’t really want to even list guitar and bass because I cannot read a lick for them… though neither can basically any guitar player I have ever played with in any band, so maybe that’s ok?

As for next year, I am starting my student teaching in January to become a licensed educator in the State of New Mexico. That will take up a massive portion of my time. I am also continuing to teach some private lessons and work with the percussionists at Los Alamos High School. I’ll also be taking graduate classes after school and continuing to raise my own children. If I don’t post any YT videos or anything on social media or any content here on my website, that will be why. Too busy. Hoping for a reasonable 2026, but I think unreasonable is the name of the game.

2024 Recap

Posted on by Ryan

This year has been somewhat eventful and not always in a good way. Some notable positive events have come to pass that I’d like to highlight here. Thanks to all my students, fellow teachers, youtube subscribers, readers, and collaborators for all your hard work this year!

  • I published three books in 2024! My first edition reprint of The Moeller Book (with ALL the pages put back where they belong, unlike some other editions), my unique study of Italian Rudimental Drumming (the only secondary source on the topic, and the only source of any kind in the past century), and my annotated reprint of the British classic Side Drum Tutor, not available in print for many decades prior.
  • The LAHS Topper Marching Band participated in this year’s inaugural NMAA state championship and came back with third place in 4A, scoring within 0.04 points of the winner. It was extremely close. My drumline also placed third in 4A with a score that put them about 9th best in the state, even among larger 5A bands. I’m pretty happy with that result. Work left to do, but a great effort for the first ever state competition. I’m also probably getting 9 of the 10 students back again next year. Watch out in 2025!
  • Two of my private students were selected for a New Mexico All-State ensemble in concert percussion. There have not been many Los Alamos percussionists to make All-State in the recent past, so this is a big deal for them and for me. They did a great job and practiced a lot outside of my lessons, obviously. The last one I know of was in 2018, I think. I have been teaching in Los Alamos for 6 years, so the current seniors were in 7th grade when we started working together; the juniors were in 6th grade, of course. Hopefully, more of my long-term students can make the ensemble as they age into the upper end of high school in the future.
  • I released my Rudimentia app with Scott Gardner. I have never been involved with an app before, but I think we managed to create a good practice companion for Encyclopedia Rudimentia as well as a generally unprecedented resource for guided rudimental practice.
  • I have scaled back a bit on youtube this year, managing to average just over two video per month. I hit 12,000 subscribers and it is still an interesting endeavor, but the revenue is not worth the time invested. I do not have the magic touch that the algorithm is looking for, at least most of the time. I will continue to post videos sometimes, but not with great frequency, especially during marching season.
  • I started playing the tuba this year. I have managed to work my way through a couple of beginner books, so I would say that I have achieved a passable 7th grade level of competency. I can play the middle school regional honor band audition music, but not spectacularly well. I cannot get through the high school regional honor band music and I did not even look at the all-state excerpts, so I am decidedly below the high school level. Not too bad for a drummer.
  • In my private lesson studio, I current have 19 regular students and a waiting list with several names on it (sorry wait-listers, spots will open up with seniors graduating. Eventually.). My students are in school band from the elementary through high school levels and many participate in Santa Fe Youth Symphony Jazz Project ensembles as drum set players, vibrophonists, or hand percussionists. Six of them made my drumline in marching band this year, including all five flat drum spots, and a seventh was the section leader of the front ensemble. They’re doing really well on the whole.

I am hoping for a good 2025! I will almost certainly publish another instructional drum book, very likely an original rudiment book that dives deeper into each rudiment than Encyclopedia Rudimentia did, though it will have far fewer, and will focus more on contemporary American playing than Rudimental Grand Tour, but will have a little bit of history stashed in it. Its shaping up to be a good method for the less experienced modern player, rather than a world survey or a giant encyclopedia… not that those are bad things!

See you there.